Three weeks ago tomorrow, life threw me a curve ball. I watched my husband collapse not once, but twice, in front of me in our kitchen that morning. He had just sat down at the table when it happened, right after he came home from work to pick up something he had forgotten. I try hard not to think about what would have happened if he had been behind the wheel.
EMTs were called, pet sitters alerted, children contacted, and off I went, to follow the ambulance to the ER. Never mind that our furnace had decided to stop working that morning. I arranged for a repairman from the hospital.
The long and the short of it is that my husband suffered a bleeding ulcer and lost a fair amount of blood. He remained in the hospital for two days and home for two weeks. He has a long road to recovery ahead of him.
He is still not strong enough to drive on his own. I drive him back and forth to work each day where, despite my strong protestations, he insists on going if only to relieve the boredom of sitting home in his recliner day after day.
I am more than up to the task of caring for him. I’m just astonished at how quickly things changed that late February morning. Once I set my priorities, though, it was a matter of keeping one foot in front of the other.
A dear friend sent me this quote:
“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
Nothing more needs to be said.
What a difficult time for both of you. I’m glad you’re both doing well now.