Tuesday, July 12th 2022
I definitely have a lot of mixed emotions, thoughts, and feelings. But, to be fair, we all do. It’s just the situation and the timing that changes for each of us based on what is put in front of us at any given time. Sometimes when they're out of pita bread* at the store and I have to go somewhere else it feels like the world is ending.
When I open my computer there is always a photo of Cory as my background/ lock screen. They cycle though all the photos that my computer recognizes as his face, that’s just what I wanted when I took on my current job. I wanted that to be what I saw to remind me of what I have and who I work for. Most of the time, it gives me great joy, and I smile at the photo and the memory that’s attached. Other times, like today, my stomach just drops and I am suddenly just sad and nostalgic.
Cory was admitted into the hospital again today. Again. Yes. Again. Again and again. It’s like that episode of Buffy where they can’t leave the house and they just live there infinitely until they find the solution.
Cory left the hospital exactly three weeks ago today. He got discharged, he came home. But his arm was sore, because he got a pneumonia shot and that was that. But then it was still sore, and then it was his neck, and then his side. And that was fine, he was probably just sleeping weird and the coughing was from the tube down his throat so long. They even did that awful test last week where they put the camera down your nose and they just said, “yea, your throat is still swollen”. So that was that. Except it wasn’t, because it’s never just nothing.
The pain in his shoulder got worse and worse, and over the weekend he got a fever that topped at 101.7. But that’s not too bad, and the on-call doctor was really reassuring when he told me that Cory could or couldn’t go to the ER, that he couldn’t tell really and just, “I don’t know”. But Cory’s fever got lower over Saturday night and by Sunday night it was around 100, and by Monday it was down to 99. So, maybe just a little bug that he was having a hard time recovering from. Sure, fine.
But then, last night he couldn’t sleep. The cough was so bad, and the pain was too bad. He called and made an appointment to see a doctor that was part of his primary care physician group. Okay, cool. Friday, we’ll talk to them then. They called back about 10 minutes later. Because of his recent stay and to be totally safe, we should go to the ER.
I met with my therapist anyways, because I had the appointment, and I was planning on it just being short. She told me that instead of catastrophizing the situation, I should be hopeful and not assume the worst would happen even though my brain is thinking that it will because history has shown me that it has. So, in the ER, Cory and I talked about dinner for tonight and plans for tomorrow. I mean, we were there from 3:23pm until 11:30pm when I left, we had time to kill!
I thought this would be the time that showed me that good can still happen and the worst won’t always happen, but it didn’t this time. Again. But I can’t let it dictate my life. I’m working on all of this, TBD on how that’s going.[...]
