Waves
Entry posted by julskovac
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Wow, I didn't realize that it's been so long since my last blog post! Things have really taken a turn these past few weeks. My husband has now gone from stroke survivor to heart surgery survivor.
Everything was taking its normal course (as normal as it could be) with regards to his stroke rehabilitation and healing up until a few weeks ago. Quite suddenly things took a turn for the worse. He wasn't eating at all, got more and more lethargic and increasingly difficult to get motivated. At first I was sure it was depression and possibly a combination with med side-effects. We visited the gp who prescribed an anti-depressant (Celexa). There seemed to be a slight improvement right after that but then a steady and quick downward turn which ended two weeks ago with me bringing him to the ER.
My husband has a bacterial infection which is apparantly quite aggressive. No one can determine where it came from but it's typically a bacteria that shows up in the digestive tract. Unfortunately for him it somehow found its way into the blood stream and attached itself to a heart valve. So, less than one week after admittance into the hospital he had open heart surgery to replace the valve which was totally destroyed due to infection. A week later (today as a matter of fact) he's back in ICU. He was released from ICU three days ago but once again took a downward turn. His blood count was low and he was having trouble breathing. They found internal bleeding from the surgery wound so there is a possibility of him going back into surgery.
Yesterday I started thinking that my life (as is probably true with most caregivers) is like the waves of an ocean. First you have the worst storm ever. At first sign of emergency your life is in total turmoil just like the waves pounding onto the rocks, churning and beating leaving no break at all in the constant pumelling. Then the waves start to subside. They're still coming up to the shore hard and fast but there's more of an acceptance. You're trying to calm down and "go with the flow" but you're still so agitated and confused. Finally the sun comes out. Things slow down and life seems to start getting back on track. The birds fly by and the waves are small, rolling hills and valleys that take more time to come and go. Doctor's visits, visits to the park, sometimes a little bump in the day. But there's always the next storm. Right now I'm at the peak of that new storm and trying to surf into shore hoping the sun will come out again.
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