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3.19.2012

Waiting to Exhale at 1 AM

I wore this while waiting for Steve to get his Kidney stones harvested.
It is SL's 'Prayer Labyrinth' necklace.
When Steve handed me his wedding ring for safe keeping, I slipped it onto the borrowed necklace.
I got so many compliments for it in the waiting room. I think I may have stumbled on a great jewelry design.
I find it interesting that everybody loves unusual and unique yet for the most part we all secretly strive to be just like everyone else. This keeps therapists in business.
But I digress.
Calling Ureteroscopy and Lithotripsy "procedures" do not seem commensurate to the pain experienced during recovery.
And I am not even talking about Steve's pain.
Before they wheeled him to the OR,
I called out, "Tim says he loves you"
The Versed in his system must have kicked in already because instead of clearing up any confusion, he instead let out a belly laugh.
(Tim is Steve's brother, and that line is a private joke designed to make anyone within earshot think that Steve "bats for the same team.")
While in the surgery waiting room, the hospital provides a round vibrating pager, the type with red lights--you know the one, like what restaurants give you while waiting for a table.
Since we live nearby, I walked home and started cutting my hair.
By the time the hospital vibrator alarmed me I had trimmed a few inches.
I don't do very well with blood.
Especially blood accompanied by pain.
When I see it in places like--Steve's urine, his hospital bed, the bathroom floor, or spurting out of the back of his hand when the IV is removed--I get edgy.
But when I see him grimace every single time he goes to the bathroom I get the urge to cut off more of my hair.
Its been five days now since his surgery and I now have several layers off.
At one point yesterday I turned to him and said,
"why have we not prayed together for your pain?"
He looked at me and said:
God isn't giving me something that I can not handle.
While I admire his courage, strength and his selfless attitude I am really thinking that it is time to put an end to this.
If he does not start feeling better soon I will end up bald.
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It is now 1 in the morning, and he just left to go to the ER to get another IV put in to help manage the pain of flushing out his kidneys.
His pain is kicking his butt.
And yet he walked to the hospital.
I would have gone with him, or at least driven him there, but he did not want the girls left by themselves at this hour.
I can't sleep knowing that he is going through this.
So while waiting to hear from him I shall do laundry and yes, cut some more of my hair.
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*He is back home. Still pissing out gravel.