Recovering Together

Last night, I read my two entries about Drew to him before we went to bed.  Yes, this one is indeed a keeper and I make sure that a day doesn’t pass without me telling him how much I love and appreciate him.  I notice all the tiny little details, like how when he sends me text messages, he capitalizes “You.”  Like whenever we have goodies in the house, he will never eat the last of anything unless I insist.  Like when I came home from the hospital, my dogs were fat, because he felt bad that he didn’t have time to spend with them so he was spoiling them with treats.

He was very emotional after I read it because this whole event was very traumatic for him.  One of the things we’ve been dealing with since I came home is PTSD.

After I fell on the floor that night in December, I got back into bed and fell asleep.  Around 5:30 AM, Drew woke to find me having a gran mal seizure.  If you don’t know, during a gran mal, the patient clinches her jaw and her whole body goes rigid.  Breathing is harsh and in my case, it was forced through my tightly clenched teeth.  Because I clench my jaw in my sleep, I was wearing a night guard.  By the time Drew was alert enough to figure out what was happening, my lips were turning blue.  He rolled me on my side and tried to pry the night guard out of my mouth, all while calling 911.  He tried to clear my airway so that I could breathe.

It took the EMTs several minutes to find our house.  We’re at the end of a cul de sac.  He ran back and forth to the front porch looking for the ambulance and back to me to make sure I was still breathing.

When the EMTs finally arrived, Drew told them that he thought I was having a stroke.  He’d seen his mother have a stroke, so he recognized the dazed emptiness in my eyes.  The EMTs took no vitals.  They threw me onto a seated gurney, to get me down the stairs.  Before we got to the stairway, I began having another gran mal.

After all of that, he was pretty traumatized.  So when I came home from the hospital, he was terrified to leave me alone.  I struggled to prove to him that I could take care of myself and it was ok for him to go back to work.  I had trouble getting up out of my chair to get myself to the bathroom so I had to put pillows in my seat and I had to use my walker to stand up.  Drew worried that I wouldn’t be able to get out of the house if something bad were to happen.  He worried about me getting to the bathroom.  He worried that I wouldn’t be able to get myself something to eat.  And since we’d been in North Carolina for only JUST a year, we didn’t know anyone who could step in and help him take care of me.

Slowly, I’ve been regaining my strength.  I don’t need a walker anymore, and I only use a cane if I go out of the house.  This past week, I was able to go shopping at Walmart and walk around the store without using the mobility scooter.  I try to help with the housework when Drew will let me.  He worries that I’ll tire myself out and have a seizure.

In May, I tried to make his life a little bit easier by switching my prescriptions to auto-refill so that he wouldn’t have to pick them up on his way home from work.  In the transition time, I was 4 days without medication.  One of the medications I’m on, now, is an anti-seizure medication.  I thought it was just a precaution.

On the 4th day without the meds, I was sitting in my chair, playing a game on my iPad.  Drew was making dinner, and he was in the kitchen getting my plate ready.  I suddenly felt this spasm in my face, as if someone had hooked their finger in the left side of my mouth and yanked my face downward.  I tried to call Drew, but only a faint whine came out.  I felt my body begin to convulse, so I pushed my iPad off onto the floor so he would hear it.  I heard him ask if I was ok.  When I didn’t answer, he ran to me.  I heard him cry out, “No, not again!”

When I awoke, I was in the ambulance.  The EMT was asking me if I knew my name, what day it is, what year it is, and who is president.  I answered all of his questions but the last one.  When he asked it again, I said, “Please don’t make me say it.”

I asked him if I’d had another stroke.  He said he didn’t think I had, but they’d get me all checked out in the hospital.  I asked him how Drew was.  He told me that Drew was pretty shaken up.  I began to cry.  I tried to explain that Drew has been through so much and I just want him to be able to relax.  The EMT hugged me.  He assured me that we’d be there soon and Drew would be there waiting for me.

When I got to the hospital, I needed to use the bathroom.  When I came out of the bathroom, Drew was sitting by my bed.  He was a mess.  He looked up at me with wide, red eyes and said, “Don’t you dare apologize.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  I’m just so glad you’re ok.”  We held each other and after another MRI and other tests, we were assured that most likely it was just the fact that I’d been without my medications for a few days.

I was in the hospital for three nights.  Drew told me how he’d had to drag me out of the chair and forced my mouth open, again.  I was blue, again, and even though my heart was beating and I was breathing, the 911 operator insisted that he give me chest compressions.  Drew’s father had been a fire fighter, so he grew up around paramedics and CPR training.  He tried to argue with her that you don’t do chest compressions on a person whose heart is beating.  She said, “So you’re refusing to do the chest compressions?”

He was seriously traumatized this time.  He was trembling and told me to stop scaring the shit out of him like that.  We laughed and when we got home, he got me a medical alert device with a button and fall detection.  He set up video surveillance around our house, so he could watch me from work to make sure I was ok.   If I make a strange noise in my sleep, he bolts awake and checks on me.

I should also add that my boss had had to replace me.  He told me he hated to do it, but they needed someone, and I understood completely.  I am unable to work, right now, anyway, because I have serious fatigue.  I’m also not allowed to drive within six months of a seizure.  Thanks to my seizure in May, I won’t be allowed to drive again until December.

If you’ve ever had to deal with Social Security, I don’t need to tell you what a cluster fuck it has been to try to get me on Disability.  I am now 9 months out from my event and I still have no approval.  I have zero income, and I can’t qualify for Medicaid until I’m declared disabled by Social Security.  The only reason I have any benefits is that my wonderful former boss, Keith, is allowing Drew to pay for my company benefits out of pocket.  And Drew has been doing that all along.

So what this all amounts to is that for the first time in my life, I’m completely dependant on a man.  I’ve always prided myself on my ability to take care of myself and not need anyone to care for me.  I never thought I could be ok with this, and sometimes I feel like I  might explode with frustration.  But Drew’s genuine love and respect for me makes me feel ok.  I told him how foreign this is to me.  He tells me that this is just what you do when you love someone.  I knew that, because I have done that for those I love, but no one has ever loved me enough to do that for me.

I am one lucky woman and I can never say that enough.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, yes, we have talked about marriage, but our finances are kind of in shambles right now.  We want to get that straightened out the best we can before we take that next step.   I want to be his wife, but honestly, no ceremony or piece of paper could give me any more confidence than what I already have in this man.  My mom calls him her hero.