Happy Birthday To Me....

I’m writing this from the 3rd floor waiting room at Carbondale Memorial Hospital. God, I’ve been here so many times, I almost know every nook, cranny and vending machine of this place. I totally recognize the nurses and phlebotomists and meal cart ladies who wind their way through these corridors. I can easily find my way around the maze between the emergency room and the patient floors. It feels like home.

I am 46 years old today. This morning at around 7:30 AM, after four days of trying to manage Julie’s care at home, we had to bundle her up and send her 40 miles away to Carbondale Memorial. There IS no hospital in my hometown of Cairo; hasn’t been one since the late 80’s. Clearly, this situation had to have aggravated my sister’s many health care problems, to say the least. But that’s another story that I don’t have the strength to tackle right now.

I’ve sat in so damn many of these hospital waiting rooms crying my eyes out, or pacing, or curled in the fetal position. I’d cried because I was afraid I would lose Julie. And when I wasn’t crying, I was holding my breath waiting for the surgeon to come out and give it to us straight. Usually, it was something fairly routine…at least for Julie. Adhesions from old abdominal surgeries, a torn rotator cuff, knee surgery….I’ve forgotten how many surgeries and on what parts of her body they took place.

Most of the time, the surgeons would come out and tell us that Julie made it through the surgery fairly well, considering everything else that was wrong with her. And it usually only took her a month or so to bounce back. But this last time, they opened her up and decided there was nothing else they could do.

While in those waiting rooms, I was also groveling, pleading, bargaining, begging God to keep Julie alive. She is my touchstone, and owns half my heart. She is the heart and soul of the Jones family. She was my “adjunct mother” growing up, and any kindness, generosity, affection and friendliness I possess I learned straight from her. Julie is the wind beneath my wings.

But she’s also struggling, desperately, tragically. And we can’t keep taking care of her at home, because her blood sugar fluctuates so wildly, she spends half the time nearly comatose. She’d beg and plead for ice and water, so we’d give it to her and watch her slurp it like a camel. And then she’d spent half the night wretching it right back up. When we told the home health nurse about it, he said we should only give her ice chips…and not many of those.

One of the first things emergency room staff said when Julie got to Carbondale Memorial was that she was terribly dehydrated. DUH!! And after a couple of home feedings, we also started suspecting that the milky glop we’re pumping through her chest port was elevating her blood sugar. But when my brother-in-law Ron suggested laying off for one night, the home health care nurse told him, “Well, it’s the only way she’ll get nutrition.” Naturally, the thought of starving his soulmate did not appeal to Ron.

But it turns out that nutrition almost killed her. NOW what are we supposed to do?

Hospital staffers insist Julie should be in a hospice program. There is no home hospice care available in Cairo--forget about a specialized hospice care facility. Besides, both Julie and my brother-in-law Ron don’t want to go there, not just yet. In fact, they’ve sent her records to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, and they’re praying for a miracle.

I’ve already received my miracle. Back in all those waiting rooms I’ve sat in through all those years, I was also sternly warning God NOT to take her from me until I was emotionally able to deal with it. If she had passed 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have had the strength to achieve my goals as a journalist. I just know my heart would have given out. If Julie had died 10 years ago, I would have been so devastated, I probably would have lapsed into a crippling depression that would have taken me out of the game literally and figuratively. If she had died 2 years ago, when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer, it would have broken my heart so terribly, I could not have tackled the challenges I’ve confronted in the past 4 months alone.

But today, I’m 46 years old. Hell, I’m staring 50 dead in the eye. I am a seriously grown-assed woman. I can handle whatever comes, just as long as Julie gets some pain-free peace.

However, if she passes on my birthday, I will kill her.