FOR SOME, GOODBYE IS FOREVER

They say “goodbye” doesn’t have to mean forever but both of us are aware that our goodbye could be our forever.  We sit together quietly, each with our own thoughts but I suspect our thoughts are identical.  They will come for us soon so this brief time is our goodbye.  I reach for Stacy’s hand,  she rubs her thumb over my knuckles,  we hear the elevator doors open and the cart being pushed down the hall,  I feel a slight squeeze from her hand and she whispers, “Mark?”,  “Goodbye darling!”  “Yes”, I repeat the same words, “Goodbye darling!”  

It is an amazing thing to find a perfect soulmate, such a great friend and then realize how deeply you love them.  So far beyond friendship it thrills me, and it scares the living hell out of me.  

It feels like the best thing that has ever happened to me is being jerked away before we could really understand the depth of our love.  Stacy and I have talked for hours about our futures, or lack of future and she is much more pragmatic than I am.  I have real fear, she just smiles and says,  “My darling man,  we will survive to love again, if not in this life, in the next!”   Is she so brave?  Or is it just a bluff?  A facade?

We are gone then, going our separate ways.  We laughed so hard the day we heard our surgeries were scheduled for the same day.  Stacy’s in the morning, mine later in the day, but then a delay for Stacy so here we were chatting through the last minutes, the last minutes before our lives may change forever, even feeling the relaxing effects of the early meds it was still such an emotional time.

The next hours are a jumble of mixed sounds, impressions and a few overheard but mostly not understood words.  More like existing in a grey haze with hands adjusting tubes and garments and bedding.  Movement while laying flat on ones back is unique and remembering the overhead lights as I went from bright to dim, bright to dim along a hall or corridor….and then nothingness!

~~~

Stacy

As I wake now after ten hours in surgery I feel numb in every respect.  I have been becoming more alert but the pull to sleep keeps pulling me back into the glorious oblivion.  Brief moments when I am very aware of hands moving over me adjusting and renewing bandages and bedding.  Sleep again,  blessed sleep, adrift in fog.  In an awake cycle I am aware that my eyes are not working properly,  I can’t focus!   Ah!  Massive headache!  More meds and Sleep again!

They tell me that this is what the first four days have been like but all vital signs are strong and on target.   I’m glad someone knows what is happening as I remain locked in this headache!  When I am conscious,  the pain is so intense, I’m sure it is the devil that punishes me, but for what I have no idea.

On day seven, I have been existing in this routine long enough to realize that things are becoming familiar.  One doctor comes often but the nurses are different each time I wake.  Most of what I feel is groggy,  like I’m only half awake on a Sunday morning after a really fun Saturday night out on the town.  Half of me is sorry I drank too much and the other half smiles at the memory but then there is the headache.  They tell me it is common after brain surgery and if the pain becomes unbearable I have a button to push to give me more meds.

Mark

Consciousness returns to Mark more quickly than to Stacy.  He is aware of tubes and restraints , hovering nurses, and general activity.  Drifting off and returning to different voices, and hands tending bandages and the machine noises that beep and click and tick.  All part of the monitoring systems that tell his condition.  He read extensively before the surgery and followed the blog of a patient who had the same surgery.  No two are exactly alike but having a simple idea of what comes next has helped him, but really he sleeps so much, he is awake very little.  

On day three, as he wakes he has the urgent need to know how things are with Stacy.  He wakes calling out her name.  His attendant has no clue what he is calling for but once again adjusts his tubes and bandages.  Late afternoon on day three his physician visits and Mark manages to ask him…”What about Stacy?”   The doctor asks if that is his wife or sister, are they coming to visit?  Mark is struggling to be calm and to stay awake,  “Surgery, here, brain...how is she?”  His doctor promises to inquire and will know more on his next visit but now he needs to rest and avoid agitation….heart surgery is no small thing...rest!    His eyes close and he again sinks into the mental mist.

Stacy

When I woke on day seven I felt I had turned the corner,  I was going to make it,  I have no real solid reason for thinking that,  just my gut tells me to relax.  I have read that healing happens more easily and more quickly if you just rest your body and mind.  That should be easy as my mind is just a bit of a void, empty space with no color or sound,  no music to hum and no worries to fret over.  My eyes move to the window, everything I see is new,  the place, the people, all that is happening.  All that I know for certain is my headaches so badly!

Mark

Today I am sitting up, walking to the door and back,  tomorrow I sit in the chair to eat my breakfast.  My doctor has had a good report about Stacy, she is strong and on track for a full recovery.  The relief I feel is totally hard to describe.  My goal is to get strong enough to get to her room to see for myself how things are going! 

My own body is healing,  the tests and monitoring are a constant activity including waking you up to give you medications on schedules.  Everything is monitored but in fact, I have very little thought or worry about myself.  I have made it this far,  I feel I will be able to return to a full and productive life.  I spend so much time thinking about the life ahead for Stacy and I.   We may need to go slow but we will go forward.  Love will carry us.

~~~

Time has a way of passing while we are not totally paying attention.  Before we knew it a month had passed and there was talk of discharging Stacy.  I have been on my own for sometime,  my body protests but I am slowly getting back to a life close to the one I knew before the heart surgery but there remain many things to be watchful about.

When I say Stacy will be discharged, sadly she will be going to a facility where she can have additional care.  Physically she was young and healthy but her surgery has left her with no memory.  No memory, not of me or us, not of her childhood!  She looks at me as though I am a stranger, no recognition, no tenderness!  It is as though I’ve lost her but she is still within reach.  I spend as much time as I can with her, talking about her favorite movies and places, playing music,  I guess I’m frantic for a trigger to bring her back to me.   Stacy’s Doctor has arranged counseling for her and he thinks possibly it would be helpful if we attended together.  I’m willing to do anything,  anything!  It hurts so badly when she has no clue who I am, what we have shared.

~~~

Today is the six month anniversary of our last goodbye.   Physically we both have resumed a low key version of our previous lives.  Counselling has allowed Stacy to hear and understand facts of her life and our previous relationship.  She looks at me now with a tender curiosity and I begin to understand that physically she has no choice in this.  There will probably be no trigger,  she won’t wake up one morning and remember us and our love.  It has been an incredibly sad time.

We often sit together and Stacy asks me again to tell her about our final goodbye,  I take her hand and try to repeat our final time together.  My wonderful Stacy tells me

“My darling man, we found each other once,  we just need time!”