(Originally posted March 29, 2009)

I've been having kind of a rough weekend. It's amazing to me that every time I think I'm doing really well and that I'm vaguely in control of the situation, a new wave of grief slaps me upside the head and I go spiralling off into self-pity. Make no mistake, I'm grieving just as surely as I would have if I had lost J.J. After all, in some ways, I have.

It's interesting how many stages of grief I can embody simultaneously. Today I've caught myself in bargaining a couple of different times, once praying that J.J.'s speech would return even if his reading did not completely return. The other time, I prayed that J.J.'s reading would come back fully even if his speech did not. I'm obviously pretty ambivalent on which scenario would be preferable. The one thing I'm sure of is that a physical disability would have been easier to deal with, no matter how impractical it would have been from a tactical standpoint to retrofit the house or whatnot. Obviously this isn't an option, but it doesn't stop me from wondering about it. I've also gone through anger in a big way this afternoon, both with the doctor who failed to diagnose J.J.'s heart failure less than three weeks before his stroke and who set him a follow up appointment SIX MONTHS in the future from when he first went in for a consult, a healthy man who suddenly was running diastolic blood pressures over 120 (needless to say, I've since cancelled this appointment) and with J.J. for not going to the doctor the week before his stroke when he was feeling unwell, despite my insistence. I know there's no way to know if anything would have changed due to either of these factors, but that doesn't stop me from being angrier than I've ever been in my life. Depression settles around me like a cloak several times a day, usually in the evening and during the rare moments when I'm alone. It doesn't last for more than a minute or two because I don't have time to completely succumb to it. I'm afraid if I do fall into that quicksand that I will never touch bottom to propel myself above the surface.

The one stage I outwardly portray most of the time, acceptance, is for the most part a sham. It's numbness, a feeling of being emotionally blunted, that carries me through most days. One of these days I'm going to have to start feeling again, and then I'm going to fall apart. I can't afford that luxury. There's too much to do.

I have tears streaming down my face as I type this. J.J.'s watching TV just a few feet away and I have no idea how I'm going to make it past him to the bathroom without him noticing that I've been crying. I don't want him to see the toll this is taking on me; he has enough to deal with. But it's really difficult to be this cut off from your chief source of emotional support.

I didn't sign on for this. I'm 30 years old. I never thought I'd be in this position at this age. I feel like I've aged at least twenty years in the last six weeks.

I'm so over this stroke thing.

For anyone who has read this far, bless you. Don't worry about me; I'll be better in the morning. But do pay attention to this--don't mess around with your health. Don't ignore the way you feel and assume that because you're young nothing bad will happen. If you won't take care of yourself simply out of love for yourself, do it for those who love you. Because no one should have to go through this.