The evening time is the worst time of day. In his daily routine, 6pm-8pm is bathroom and wound dressing time time. This is undescribably painful for him. Without getting too graphic here (I’m sure you’ll thank me Al), we basically just can’t wait until he is in control, and regular, again. It’s exhausting, painful, time consuming, embarrassing, emotional, awkward. You name it. I feel so helpless. Watching the love of my life groan and moan from pain is something so completely foreign to me. Nick has the pain threshold of a sword swallower. Infact, I bet he’d rather swallow ten swords a night, than try to take one measly shit.
Sorry.
I really hadn’t planned to be gross tonight, but really, this is a huge part of our life right now. And it sucks! I feel so guilty everytime I get to go. I “get” to go. Imagine feeling that way. “Baby, you’re so lucky you get to go poo right now. I can’t wait til I can poo.” I can’t count how many times I’ve heard something like this.
Well, now that I have succeeded in sounding like the embarrassing mother who shows her daughter’s baby pictures to her hot prom date… I’ll move on.
So, MIA dog came for a visit today. I missed her so so so so much! I love her almost as much as I love Nick. And, she’s MUCH easier to take care of! Thank you Mary S. for loving and pampering my baby girl these last five weeks. She’s off to Sandee’s house tonight. I’ll let her and Mary duke it out over who gets to take care of MIA. Yes, she’s THAT cute!
I had a meeting with Nick’s case manager today, and his proposed discharge date from the rehab center is July 13th. That’s three weeks from now. I was pretty surprised, but happy. I really thought that he would get the boot much sooner because of the incredible progress he is making. But we are both of the opinion that staying here as long as possible should be our goal. Another three weeks of intense rehab sounds like a great plan. He will be quite independent by then. I hope. Then we get to do this all over again. Literally. He will have another spine surgery, go into ICU for a few days, then the hospital floor for some time, then back here to the rehab facility. THEN, we get to really move on with life. Basically, we’re looking at a few more months of this. I look at this as a small investment of time in order to have the rest of our lives together.
Nick has his phone now. He is not very active on it, because it’s hard for him to talk on the phone much, and he’s busy, but texts and phone calls are certainly welcome. He’d love to hear from his friends now.
So earlier today, Nick and I were wondering where his feet are right now. Once Nick parted ways with them two weeks ago, they ventured out to have their own little journey. But where to? Where would they want to go? Probably not the beach, because it sucks to be covered in sand. Probably not a pool or jacuzzi, because then they would get prune-like. Maybe a mall, where they could try on different shoes? Or a nail salon to get a pedicure? They probably got ground up and incinerated. That’s likely a better outcome then if they had stayed attached to Nick’s body. That would be a lifetime of zero sensation and endless bruising, battering and breaks. It’s been two weeks now since the amputations, and Nick still stands whole heartedly behind his decision to get rid of them. Now, we just have to stop the ghosts of his feet from visiting and playing tricks on him all day long.
Nick Fener 