The Last Two Weeks

I’m sitting in the airport.  I’ve checked my bags through to Rio and have settled into the fact that I am really leaving.

Not after more than a few tearful goodbyes in the last several days.

To say that the last two weeks has been filled with mixed emotions is an understatement.  In the midst of trying to stay focused on getting everything done that needs doing before my departure there has been the frightening situation of my close friend (and former roommate and current neighbor) Jennifer’s massive health scare.  A week or so ago, I stuck my head in the door next door to say hello and saw Jennifer home, shuffling around in her pajamas saying that she has a terrible flu – that this is the sickest she’s ever been. 

 

Me: I’m so sorry! Can I get you anything?  Soup or juice or something?

 

Jennifer:  (Pausing to consider) No, nothing, but thanks, honey.

 

Within 36 hours of that conversation, Jennifer was being checked into the ICU at Kaiser.  Within another 36 hours, she was sedated, intubated, had other tubes for fluid and nutrition intake and tubes for waste inserted into her body, and she was put on a respirator so that she could breathe and try to heal from an aggressive pneumonia that had filled her left lung and part of her right lung.  As each hour ticked on, the fear was one of life and death.  Her husband (also a very old and dear friend) was wild eyed, pale, panicked.  Questions of how to raise two very young boys alone pressed.  Grasping at how this situation would unfold and what could the doctors do all demanded attention and thought.

 

Over the last week, Jennifer’s health has taken some bad turns and a few good ones.  It’s been a roller coaster ride filled with coordinating support, checking in several times a day to see if any help was needed, worrying, questioning, watching, waiting, hoping, crying.  And in the mean time, both of their boys ages three and five came down with high temperatures and horrible stomach flus of their own.  Rushed trips to the doctor had to be coordinated.  Counters, bathrooms, sheets, and clothing scrubbed and disinfected.

I visited Jennifer in the ICU on Friday.  As soon as I saw her, I couldn’t stop the tears.  Her little five foot frame covered in tubes, machines surrounding her bed, her eyes sunken, and her face pale and sallow, the respirator pumping rhythmically, filling her lungs with air and pushing the air out.  How could this vital energetic woman fall so quickly into this place? 

 

After some deep breaths, I remembered my own words to Todd, her husband, the day before.  We need to be hopeful.  Hope is powerful and is healing for those supporting and the one or ones being supported. 

 

I remembered my mother, laying in her hospital bed in her bedroom… dying of cancer.  Even in the midst of certain death, hope has beauty, holds dignity, and provides comfort.  So hope is what I beamed at Jennifer. 

 

Since Friday, there has been good news: a CT scan has confirmed that meningitis is ruled out and that there are no lesions or growths in her brain or on her lungs.  Yes, the good news is that we’re dealing with pneumonia only as well as an additional secondary infection, which is being treated.  Jennifer will be brought out of sedation next week and the hope is that a long slow healing process will begin.  At the end of the day, it’s likely that Jennifer will have been in ICU for about two weeks and in the hospital for a total of one month.  And then the rebuilding of her strength and vitality will likely happen in the following several months.

 

In the midst of it all,  the planning for this trip.  Being excited to leave simply hasn’t been in my psyche.  Any jitters that would typically be part of leaving for journey like this have been amplified.  Instead of excitement – the rush of juice through my body and butterflies in my stomach – I’ve felt anxiety – the rush of shocks through my body and the sensation that someone just kicked me in the gut.

I’m also leaving to the fact that two of the people closest to me are without jobs and in difficult transitions on their lives.

 

Life keeps doing whatever it does despite our plans and schemes.  I continue to feel like all we can do is simultaneously hold on and let go: hold on to that lap bar on that roller coaster… and let go of all our attachments and expectations.   

 

Now I wait for my flight to Charlotte and then from Charlotte to Rio.  It’s a good time to write and try my best to articulate how bizarre, unexpected, chaotic, and unreal it’s all been.  I’m glad that I can write about it.  Somehow, articulating it all in writing brings me some sense of understanding… or at least an outlet to express my confusion.