Throughout Don’s entire health crisis ordeal, I have not panicked or fallen apart, and though I have had my moments of extreme emotion, I’ve managed to maintain my psychological state pretty well.
My body, though, seems to have a mind of its own.
For the first week of the crisis, I was prepared for the worst to happen. Don was out of it, so I was listening to the prognoses and making the decisions in the best businesslike manner I could. I also became a walking cliche. As it turns out, all the many novels I have read in my life in which an author describes the physical reactions of people in crisis are true!
I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate. Whenever I tried to get something down, my throat literally closed up. After two or three days, I finally managed to eat a cup of Yoplait. It went down very well, and tasted wonderful, but later that day, while Don was having the nephrostomy tubes put in, I began to feel sick, and finally it all came back up in a rather spectacular manner. Just as it was all over, and I was cleaned up and feeling steady again, they wheeled Don up from surgery and told me that the procedure was a success. Things have been improving since then. I am still struggling with hyper vigilance and could sleep better, but both of us eat like horses, so that’s done.
Everyone reacts differently in a crisis, and apparently for me, nothing says “I love you, please don’t die,” like projectile vomiting.
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