Being Free

So part of the reason that I've been so emotional about Nathan stuff lately is that I put together a small party tonight to meet up and tell Nathan stories and memories. It was people from college, from church, from our life before cancer... I was mainly excited about it, but I was also a little nervous. I wanted it to be a happy occasion, but there is some sorrow in there that just can't be avoided. As I put it to Katie. I wanted the sadness to be something we acknowledged, hugged, and told "it's gonna be ok."

Basically, I didn't know how it was going to go, so I was looking forward to it but I was also scared.

I think I'm scared of my grief a lot. I'm scared of what it's going to do to me, of what it's going to do to others, of not being in control any more, but I also know I have to let it out. So it's this delicate balancing act, of finding the right time, circumstances, people, phase of the moon, and condiments. How can you expect me to grieve properly without honey mustard! Ok so the last two might have been an exaggeration...

...but honestly that's what I'm talking about-- that's part of my coping mechanism... I break tension with humor, cause it's the only way I know to get out of the sad and heavy.

My friend, Janis, who lost her mom the other day has been on my mind a lot (she is the last great xanga-er mentioned yesterday.) She wrote a blog that I've been pondering since I read it yesterday. It was beautiful and really brave and honest. She wrote about her experience of her mom's death. About what actually happened... what she thought, what she did. I've been so afraid to share that stuff with anyone. Mainly because I don't know who can handle that information. I do not want to make someone else's grief journey any harder... but the freedom of voice that Janis expressed... I found myself a little covetous, honestly, of that freedom. So tonight I shared a story of Nathan and I's last conversation...

*side note* I noticed something interesting-- when things start to get intense, men lean forward... or at least 20 something men do. Or that was my observation, tonight -- Anyway, all I know is that when I started getting all emotional telling the story nearly all the guys in the room leaned forward, as if they were all about to spring into action to fight for the side of good and right and a tear-free existence. It was actually really interesting to note their reaction and then my reaction to that-- It was strangely comforting for me... made me feel safe and protected. *end side note*

Anyway, back to what I was speaking of in the first place. I've only told Kara the story of the last few days... and his last moments, and that was on the very first night. I've been afraid to tell anyone else my version of the story. Afraid they wouldn't be able to handle it.... afraid they wouldn't want the burden. But I feel like I have to let this go.  I have to tell what happened... I think if I'm ever going to get any closure I have to let this go, and embrace the fact that this happened and it's hard, like Janis did. So I'm going to give you a lot of space, and if you don't want to know, or can't handle reading it, please just close the browser. It's heavy and hard and sad and I can't make it any easier without just keeping it all inside still.

Ok, disclaimer over. Space begins.

I’d had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach all week… I mentioned it to a couple of friends, and their responses ranged from “try not to worry about it too much” (which was honestly the only thing I could do) to a concern that she tried very hard to hide. Kara knew how in sync with Nathan I’d always been. They put him on the ventilator Wednesday night, and before they did that we were able to talk. I didn’t know that it would be my last talk with him on this side of Earth. He held my hand and asked me what I was thinking… and I said that I thought we needed to do this. He said, “If you think we need to do this, then we will. I don’t care what the doctors or nurses or anyone else says. I trust you and if this is what you think we need to do then we will. And I nodded and I could see that he was scared, but he didn’t talk about that.. He just said. “I love you forever and ever and ever.” And I said, “I love you, too.” And then I left the room and let them put him under and put him on the breathing machine.

That night he kept fighting off  the sedation, and waking up just enough to fight the breathing machine. I tried to soothe him and tell him it was ok, but my voice would just make him fight harder cause he would want to open his eyes and look at me. Finally, I just started to stroke his hand or his head when he would wake up and let the nurse talk to him. On Thursday they decided they needed to put him on dialysis. His oxygenation numbers did not improve and he started running a fever. That night the doctor sat me down and talked about how serious things were looking. He said the word "death," and that I should probably call in anyone from out of town who needed to be here. It was about 11 o’clock… I called Rhonda, my sister, and she and her husband drove to the hospital that night. They got into town at about 3 in the morning and I greeted them but went back to the room to be with Nathan and they dozed in the waiting room. In the morning, my parents showed up... I’d told them not to, but they came anyway, and I’m so glad they came when they did. I went and slept my “shift” and returned to the hospital. I sat with Nathan and several other members of my family came to the hospital for the day to see him and me, so the afternoon passed… 

We ate dinner during the hours we couldn’t be in the ICU, and then my family went to the place they were staying to catch some of the sleep they’d missed the night before… at 8 PM I went back to the room with Nathan… his numbers were still slowly dropping… I spent the early part of the night distracting myself by talking to friends… and trying not to watch his numbers drop and drop and drop, and then at three, just as the last friend signed off for the night, the dr. came back in… and said that they needed to switch him to a different breathing machine, because this wasn’t working well enough… and that I needed to call his parents and anyone else who needed to be here. So at 3:30, I called everyone to come back to the hospital. They switched him to an oscillator… but it didn’t change anything… his numbers continued to drop…down to the numbers that I was fairly certain meant brain damage… and lower… and I had to leave the room because the oscillator shook him so much and I couldn’t keep watching those numbers drop and drop and drop… At five we had a conference with the dr. and told him to tell us when he thought that we needed to stop. And I fell asleep for a while as the sun started to rise. 

At around 8AM the dr. came in and told us that it wasn’t working, that in his opinion Nathan was already gone and so we decided to stop the oscillator… They came and brought us to the room at around 8:20… and then just a few minutes before 8:30 they let us into the room to be with him…  His oxygen numbers were in the 50’s at that point but then they took all the monitors off him, so that he would be comfortable… and  I held his left hand and his mom held his right hand with his dad, my parents, sister and brother in law all around us… and a few puffs of breath escaped his lips… but he didn’t breathe in... and I told him how very much I loved him… and how very much I was going to miss him… and I moved the hospital gown so I could stroke the skin of  his shoulder…and I watched as he turned the wrong color and I cried with my sister’s arm around my waist as his heart slowed and slowed and stopped…  8:30 AM. January 29, 2011.  That day was beautiful… it was 70 degrees outside. By the next Tuesday we were under a blizzard warning that made us reschedule the visitation, and prevented most of my family from being able to attend the funeral. We buried him the next Friday in Ft. Smith Arkansas… It snowed then, too.

I'm just going to imagine that you are all leaning forward, now, trying to make me feel safe and protected. Thanks for leaning forward. Thanks for reading. Thanks for being there for me. Just thanks.