Did this page end up framed? Click here to break out.


Can we ever really admit the desires of our heart?
Our freedom depends on the walls around us
Every step we take is part of our journey. ad·van...
Accidents can introduce destiny into our lives
Friendship should be a two way street, but what if...
Trying out Blogbuddy here add-on Function: noun D...
We all see the world only through our own looking ...
What's good for kids is good for grown ups too
Every storm passes eventually
You gotta hand it to 'em, this was clever

Click to go to the most current Cliff Between the Lines
Life, viewed sideways. Emotions, amplified. Answers, questioned. Me, between the lines.




- A Wounded Heart, Who Can Bear?
- Drowning Under a Tidal Wave
- Clawing My Way to the Sunlight
- Yes, Santa Claus, There Is a Virginia
- Fugu
- Touching the Spirit
- A Hole in the Universe
- Riding on the Dreams of Others
- Turning Into a Shark
 - A Heart, Ripped Asunder
- Surrendering to the Roller Coaster
- Hunting in the Jade Forest
- Dodging the Shark
- Dancing With Invisible Partners
- The Captain and the Harliquin
- Courting the Devils
- The Captain Makes His Mark
- Mad Dog to the Rescue
- Innocent in the Big City
- Dropping the Ball Briefcase
- Scrambling Brains
- Cheating the Reaper, Again
- What If the Man Behind the Curtain Is No Wizard After All?
- All of Us Have a Soundtrack
- Working With Broken Machines
- Happy Anniversary, Baby
- Standing on Stars
- Running the Film Backwards
- Identity Crisis ("Who am I?")
- Can We Ever Really Admit the Desires of Our Heart?
- Forgiveness is a Rare Thing
- Having Your Heart Caressed By the Creator
- Working With Broken Machines
- A New Leg to Stand On
- The Real Spirit of Christmas
- Chatting With Infinity
- Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
- We All Have a Great Capacity for Loss
- Brushed Lightly By Might Have Beens
- We See the World Through Our Own Looking Glass
- Every Storm Passes Eventually
- Accidents Can Introduce Destiny Into Our Lives
- Freedom Depends on the Walls Around Us
- Pulling Aside the Velvet Curtain
- Riding the Razor's Edge
- Dying With Strangers
- In Your Face
- Between the Lines
- The Bobcat
- Angel With a Coffeecup
- Innocent in the Big City
- Chains of Gossamer
- Playing With Knives
- Stumbling Through Memories (Ooops)
- Picture This
- Running the Film Backwards
- Playing the Score, Tasting the Music
- Coins and Corals and Carved Coconuts
- My God, I Confess
- Exotic in Thin Air (Part 1, Speechless)
- Exotic in Thin Air (Part 2, Taxi)
- Exotic in Thin Air (Part 3, The Pan American)
- Exotic in Thin Air (Part 4, Guano)
- Exotic in Thin Air (Part 5, The Andes Express)



 
Blogroll Me!













Feed for RSS readers:
ATOM Site Feed


Enter your email address below to be notified daily in your email whenever this blog is updated, courtesy of Bloglet:


powered by Bloglet



"This is True" is now located at the bottom of this page.






My Blogger Profile

More About Cliff Hursey

Email me



"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."

Walt Whitman (1819-92)




"When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break."

Akhenaton (d. c.1354 BC)











And now, the current weather, from some random person we pulled off the street:

The WeatherPixie








Thursday, May 08, 2003
 

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

re·cu·per·ate
Function: verb
Etymology: Latin recuperatus, past participle of recuperare -- more at RECOVER
Date: 1542
1 : to regain a former state or condition; especially : to recover health or strength
2 : What my wife is now doing

It has been a very, very, very long week.

It started last Wednesday morning at 4am when my wife and I got up so that I could take her to the hospital for her surgery. She was understandably anxious, and I was doing my best to keep her as calm as possible. Under the circumstances, she did super.

We were joined at the hospital by our daughter, and waited with her in the rooms next to the pre-op area until they were ready to take her. They came about 7am, and we were told it would take about two hours for the surgery. So my daughter and I went to the cafeteria and got breakfast, but then my daughter tells me she has an errand to run so gets hers to go, promising to be back before my wife gets out of surgery.

I sit and eat my sausage biscuit all by myself. That's when it hits me that I can't share this moment with my wife, my normal confidant, my best friend. She is down the hall, possibly fighting for her life.

That disturbs me deeply.


I go to her room, where they told us to wait. No one else is there. I sit and read a bit for about an hour or so, thinking that no news is good news. About 8:30 or so, our daughter returns and our son arrives with his wife. Shortly after that a dear friend of my wife arrives as well.

We sit and do the small talk thing for another hour and a half, and I'm getting antsy. Then yet another hour. I'm not showing it but I am very concerned. That's the closest person on Earth to me in there, and I do not want anything to be wrong or her to be in any danger, I do not want to live the life that would be on the other side of that.

Finally, the doctor calls the room, she is OK. It was what he called a "difficult" surgery which took longer, and later we found out that she had been in pre-op for some time before they started. That's what took so long.

They brought her back about noon or so. After a few minutes everyone leaves but me.

And I'm noticing that she is not breathing right. As a matter of fact, she's stopped.



I call her name, touch her arm, she awakens with a gasp. I smile at her, she begins to say something, then immediately, mid sentence, falls completely still again, not breathing.

I count slowly to 45, no motion, no breath.

I touch her arm, she awakens with a deep gasp, saying "I stopped breathing." After a couple of deep breaths, she falls asleep again, stops breathing again. 45 seconds later I touch her again.

We do this dance for another five hours until the anesthesia gets out of her system. All the time I am smiling at her whenever I awaken her, reassuring her that I would not allow anything to happen to her, and a minute later she would stop breathing and I would be waking her up all over again.


The next four days I spend at the hospital, only going home for a few hours while someone else stays the night. She needs the help, needs the assistance getting out of bed, shifting around, etc. They are pumping her full of some major pain medications, which is good, but it makes her queasy.

On Saturday I expect she might be discharged, but when I come in that morning she is sitting there in the chair with her bandages halfway torn off. The doctor on call had opened the bandages just that far to inspect her incision then left it, and it had been 30 minutes.

When she stood up, her chair was covered with blood. A lot of blood.

Long story short, they had to restitch her incision because the doctor had ripped it open again, and that cost her another day in the hospital, not to mention some unpleasantness during the process.

Sunday, we got her home. Little by little, each day she gets better and more able to move around. We tried a trip to K-Mart yesterday (her suggestion) to get something she needed, and I wheeled her around in the wheelchair they provide. After just a few minutes, she was at the point of collapse. She's got a long way to go.

But that's OK. I got her and that's what matters.


Health is not valued till sickness comes.
Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734), Gnomologia, 1732





Permalink: 5/08/2003 02:27:00 PM |
EMail this post to a friend:


Creative Commons License\__Cliff Between the Lines__/ is licensed
under a Creative Commons License.

Visit The Weblog Review

All Definitions featured in this blog are modified from the Webster Dictionary website.

Many quotations in this blog come from the Quotations Page.

This page is powered by Blogger. Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com Blogarama - The Blog Directory


Google
WWW \__Cliff Between the Lines__/