While I'm Waiting

It's not deja vu.  Each time is different.  This time has a more hollow feel like crossing a narrow bridge in the dark.  If you step off, it might be a little tumble and a few bruises, or it might be death.

Early Tuesday morning, about 3:00am, my wife woke me up.  She was not feeling well, but she's been struggling and emotionally volatile since her surgery.  I thought she was just having a bad night.  She hadn't been sleeping well, so I was glad I didn't wake her when I got up later.  I went back and checked a couple of times during the day, and she was snoring fairly loudly, which is a little unusual, but abdominal surgery and all, I didn't think much about it.  She has slept all day before, too, so that was no alarm.

Late in the afternoon, I finally went in to wake her thinking she probably needed to eat and test her blood sugar.  She was lying in the floor, on her back, her clothes and the carpet soaked in urine.  I couldn't wake her.  After a while, I knew I needed to call the ambulance.

At the ER, they found some pneumonia in one lung.  They also found highly elevated blood sugar, but no ketones.  When they started IVs, edema quickly became evident.  There is also edema in her brain.  It will be a couple more days before her body regulates and she can be evaluated.  What the neurologist says now is speculative.  Could be a stroke. Damage could be permanent.  Maybe she'll wake up fine. 

Meanwhile, I'm sitting, and I might as well do something, so I'm writing code and emailing and going on as if it mattered.  People still depend on me, even though I seem to have failed the one who depended on me the most.  

I have seen tornadoes do strange things.  It's as if one came through and blew away half my house, but everything in the ruins works fine.  The lights are on.  I have heat and water.  As long as I don't step through that door and look, I wouldn't know what I've lost.  It's raining and dark.  Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to go out and see what's damaged, what can be restored, what might be gone forever.