It was a month ago tomorrow that we started on this insane side-road that has seen so many emotional highs and lows, I marvel sometimes my wife and I have been able to keep things together psychologically as well as we have.
That's not to say things have been even remotely easy. Even the mere act of waking up in the morning has become a considerable challenge, due in no small part to the fact I simply don't want to wake up from many of the escapist dreams I routinely have.
An example: a week or so ago, I dreamt I opened a silver gift box, inside of which was a golden envelope, inside of which was a picture of a little boy of about three years of age. He looked a lot like my 16-month-old son, but there were several differences, including puffy dark hair. In my mind, I knew the boy was Finn as he would have been as a young boy. I don't know if my mind accurately captured the potential resemblance or not., but it doesn't matter, because that's now the mental image I have of Finn as a boy.
I miss my boy in subtle different ways each and every day. Which is good, because it would be easy to forget about him when dealing with all the other everyday necessities.
Zoey continues in her role as a daily miracle, so much so it's sometimes tempting to think of her as more healthy than she actually is. She is doing fantastic, but she's still only a 1.5 lb human being with her odds stacked to the moon. Even so, she exhibits hints of a personality that seem to indicate she's a strong-willed little spitfire, which is good because she's going to need it.
Reading back through my archives of the past month, I'm struck by just how bleak and grim things really were in those first early days. By comparison, these last few days of January feel almost like a vacation.
Still, I'm eager to turn the page on this month, because it's been, without a doubt, the most difficult and trying January of my life. I hope never to experience a month like this again for the remainder of my time here on earth.
Which I plan on being another 112 years, by the way.
Earlier this week, our 16-month-old son grabbed my watch off the bathroom counter and in short order afterwards managed to break the band. Ordinarily, this would have been only a minor inconvenience, but in our current circumstances it's kind of like having lost the use of my left arm.
After doing a lot of hospital time and juggling meetings with social workers and other personnel this past month, my sense of time has become seriously impaired. I often can't remember what I did the day before, and sometimes, if I manage to take an afternoon nap, I can't immediately recall what I even did the previous morning. Everything merges into one long vigil, with the only real difference day to day being being how I feel emotionally before bed.
In other words, I've come to rely heavily on my watch to keep me somewhat aware of time's passing. Not having it on my wrist these last couple days has driven me to an anxious distraction. I look at my base wrist, and then I frantically scan my surrounding looking for a clock.
For the first time since this experience started, I've found myself questioning what day it is. Weekends are basically exactly the same as any other day of the week, so I don't really have a point of reference for the start or end of the week.
I spent most of today thinking it was Tuesday, and it's a good thing I realized it was Wednesday, because it's trash night tonight, and the Diaper Genie simply HAS to be emptied.
Zoey suddenly decided Sunday morning that she was no longer in need of the oscillating respirator, so she was put back on the regular respirator shortly before we arrived to visit her before noon.
By 9 p.m. that night, doctors had taken her off the respirator entirely and placed her back on a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which is basically a nasal dual prong system that pushes air into her nose, while she provides the actual breathing reflex. She was briefly on a CPAP machine over a week ago, but she had so many apnea spells she became exhausted after a day and had to be placed back on a respirator.
This time, however, she's been doing remarkably well.
It seems so weird a mere 48 hours could witness such a drastic turnaround, but as I said and heard numerous times, these steps forward and back are entirely expected.
One night a few evenings ago, the night shift nurses placed a tiny red ribbon on Zoey's head and took some pictures. The crazy thing about the pictures is they're 3" x 5" photos, and we were given the actual ribbon which, if you place the ribbon over the ribbon in the picture, it's the same size. So, the Zoey in the picture is the same size as the Zoey in a 3" x 5" photo, which drove home for me once again how entirely small she is.
My home office desk is littered with hospital visitation stickers, and the garage is littered with parking ramp passes. . . and it's not even the end of January yet.
It feels like all this started eons ago. And yesterday.
