Beautiful and Blue

"What is THAT?" I said pointing to the goose egg sized knot on my husband's right temple. I'd seen him come into the lobby of the small, parochial school our children attend. He looked good, I remember. Dark v neck tee with dark cargo shorts. The running he had started back in December, just after we separated, had begun to redefine him by that mid April morning. He looked good. Except for the large bump on his head and his strange behavior, I did not attribute to more than our estrangement.

The morning was a blur at first and then later a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces all those, who loved Stoic, would try to put together. Moreover, the choices and decisions I made that day also prompted the typical Monday morning quarterbacking.  What if I had pushed harder for him to go to the ER? Did his refusal to accept the separation cause something physiological? Did his body simply betray him because he mentally couldn't accept the change?

I remember eyeing the goose egg and  asking him what had happened and being simultaneously busy with the school's garage sale and my own kids' pleading for items they were finding on the laden tables in our gym. People were milling around us as I kept taking looks at the bump and small cut on his head. Stoic seemed nonplussed and even left to bring all the moms coffee, also uncharacteristic. He never did things like that, but since he was still trying so hard to stay married, I assumed it was wooing just like him getting back into shape... That his carotid artery had torn and was leaking and slowly occluding just didn't come into the equation at the time. That he didn't want to pay the ER deductible or that his health choices were financially based weren't something I had a great deal of say in at that point, did.

When he called later and it was all repetitive gibberish I knew at once that something was very, very wrong.

By then his mother had been by the house. She had called him to get directions somewhere and his reply to her was also incoherent. Alarming? No, probably not if you weren't a county cartographer and knew our cities down to street widths and right of ways. One Saturday morning in March he had called her still drunk from a uncharacteristic binge the night before, so she attributed his behavior to that initially. It had to be that. .That his brain tissue was dying from oxygen starvation didn't come into play, but how could it? He knew every street in Galveston county and if, he couldn't tell her, then he had to be drunk.

We spent a lot of time suppositioning and weighing out what had transpired later on down the rode. I think that is just part of facing a crisis. Analysis, sequencing, second guessing. Just basically looking for a way to feel a sense of control when it is clear that we will not be having any today.

Control has been a big thing this last year. So has vulnerability and accepting criticism.

Don't get your hopes up, people. I suck at all three of these. I just switch out often so I can break up the monotony and suck at them all equally without getting too bored.

But life has improved and I am grateful to be looking back on the last year instead of still trudging through it.

My Facebook post: 

(I need to consider being more vague on FB. Somehow I never hit my mark. A friend called the condition being mentally promiscuous...I never thought of it like that. Maybe. If you carry the analogy forward, I wonder what you would call the resultant diseases from such a condition? Just thinking...)

A year ago today, Stoic had a massive ischemic stroke affecting most of his left brain. The day was exactly like today, beautiful and blue. So much has happened this last year. If someone had had the prescience to tell me what it would be like, I would have confidently told them there was no way I would be able to handle half of what was going to come down the pike. Not. a. chance. Still here we are. Battles with insurance companies, sleeping in chairs, cots, and waiting rooms for three months, inlaws going through my house while I was in the hospital with him, Tony combative with treatment at times and those resulting set backs, kids, school, no work, power and access to my accounts cut off by his family, property taken while I was not home, being bullied in my home by those he welcomed, three break ups with Layne, ugly court battles and divorce, a move and a very challenging job later and here we are. Layne found his way back, we live in Galveston near the water I love so much. The kids are settling in and I have the werewithal to notice that today is beautiful and blue and that I did wind up surviving it. I'm blessed.