All day I have been asking myself, why has today felt so hard and emotional, when a year ago it was actually a relatively “good” day at the hospital? The first one Kendall had had since being in the ICU, in fact. Shouldn’t it feel good to be remembering how hopeful that day was? Kendall was off the ventilator, had actually WALKED a few steps (with a great deal of assistance, of course), could answer simple questions, and it was the first time since Kendall had been in the ICU that the doctors started discussing what would need to happen before he could be discharged back down to BMT. BECAUSE IT WAS LOOKING LIKE THAT THERE WAS ACTUALLY A CHANCE THAT MIGHT BE A POSSIBILITY! Things were finally turning a corner in the right direction, and I was so so encouraged. For the first time in a very long while I let my mind skip ahead to what his coming home might entail (even if our best case scenario at that point was still several more months in the hospital), how I could prepare, imagined how excited the kids would be to finally have Daddy home.
Except, sitting here from my perspective of a year out, I also know (all too intimately) what was coming. It was just three days later that Kendall would have such a huge setback (that was at least partially put in motion by a mistake his doctor did during a procedure), and the day that involved the most traumatic, graphic, most horrific episode of the entire experience. Not to mention the most terror and lasting PTSD effects for me. Kendall would never really recover from that day, not physically or cognitively (even if he did come off the ventilator one more time before he died). I also know the pain and suffering that would be in those next two weeks, and it makes me feel physically ill to think about it all. Really, those seven months of his illness were such a roller coaster of highs and lows, but nothing as intense as those five weeks in the ICU.
And to be honest, it just hurts to be reminded of the hope I felt on March 11, 2021, knowing now how it was going to end. And as has been the pattern, it’s the BUILD UP to things that always seems the hardest for me. Right now I can feel the building up to the trauma from March 14th, closely followed by the build up to the day Kendall died (the day that I haven’t really written about or even talked through with anyone yet – I simply don’t want to face it but feel like I won’t be able to avoid it when we reach the 24th).
So I’m feeling a little bruised and fragile today, my emotions there just barely under the surface. I know better than I used to how to navigate these episodes and hard patches, but that doesn’t really make them feel any easier in the moment. I’m sure it hasn’t helped how little sleep I have gotten the past few days, either. I’m tired, guys. In more than one way.
(On a positive note, however, a week ago I found my pictures from high school, college, and the first years of our marriage! So wish I had had them when we were making the slideshow for the viewings, but grateful to be able to go through them now. I had honestly thought they had been lost, so this was a huge morale boost. Wasn’t Elder Sawyer so cute?)
