March 26, 2016: I’m waking up in a makeshift nest next to my sister’s hospital bed for the third morning in a row after she suffered a kidney infection that morphed in to sepsis. The sheets are “crackly”, which is the term the docs keep using to refer to my sister’s lungs. The pillows are plastic, the beeps and whir of machines make sleep elusive, and the tenor of the experience changes as each new shift comes on board.
I’ve spent too many nights in places like this. Watching over my son, my sisters … my family watching over me. Today is a better day. Her kidney function is improving, and her focus now is working those lungs. Yesterday, she experienced equally hilarious and terrifying narcotic-induced hallucinations. Whatever you do, the next time you’re out, don’t order the “crazy fish”. Even though it is very inexpensive.
The below quote is a favorite of mine, and it is so apt. I don’t ever want to sit still. I don’t ever want to take my health for granted. I want to live. Truly, truly live. “…to travel, then, is to do, not only to see… To take a chance, and win; to feel the glow of muscles too long unused; to sleep on the ground at night and find it soft; to eat, not because it is time to eat, but because one’s body is clamoring for food; to drink where every stream and river is pure and cold; to get close to the earth and see the stars–this is travel.” (From the Foreword to “Through Glacier Park,” by Mary Roberts Rinehart.)
Day 4: We just moved rooms (which signifies progress). The new nurse asked Susan what she’d like to be called. For me, that would be Deborah or Deb, for the most part. At this point, Susan is feeling very, very uncomfortable. But without missing a beat, she replies, “Mustang Sally”. I love my family. Funny as hell, even when shit gets real.