February 8, Recovery Begins

Well, I just wrote for a few hours on today's events and didn't hit the all important "save" button. When I hit publish, the internet connection was bad and I lost it all. Funny, I was just beginning to feel slightly poetic and like I could actually write creatively when speaking on ordinary things. I think that must be the knack of good writing. I don't have the heart to do it all again unfortunately. I would normally be upset by this type of thing, but I look over at David, sleeping and snoring lightly now with no discomfort...all is put into perspective.
Here is the abbreviated version...
This morning was quite eventful with visits from all of David's doctors. They were pretty pleased with his progress. On the way to ICU I saw the woman in the wheelchair again so I helped her to the elevator. Turns out she is from Henry Co. and knows Bill McCutcheon. She is Jan Anderson, a newswriter, and her mother is ill and has been for weeks. She was going up today to meet with someone to explain a Living Will to her mom and I found out later she traveled all that way to be on time to the appointment and waited two hours and still, no one showed. How awful. I gave her my card and my cell in case she needed a lift later. On to David...
David greeted me in a chair today and had been told he needed to awaken parts of his body to move on to the next stage of healing and out of ICU.
Cousin Dick called and said he would be up about 2:30 and that his visit would be shortly followed by a visit from Walter.
Dick arrived and we had a nice visit with David and another after in waiting for Walter. We spoke about Mexico and possible trips that we could take together with David someday in our shared passion for Central and South America. Walter came and the four of us sat in David's room in ICU and had a nice discussion. Dick left soon after and then the three of us continued our conversation. I had never had the opportunity to really share with Walter. David always says, "What a lovely cat" and now I see why. He had been in town meeting with other pastors in the region on dealing with a constantly changing demographic in their communities and congregations. It was reassuring to hear how deep he went with the notions of helping, healing, and change and how pragmatic he was about it all. The three of us certainly see eye to eye on our changing society. How can we try and facilitate tolerance in the constant diversification of our communities, while making an effort to help our neighbors, without trying to change them fundamentally. There is such a fine line here and what are the outcomes? How are they measured? Is transformation really possible? He mentioned the poet Wendell Berry, a farmer from KY that said whites are at a disadvantage because of the culture we are born into. Interesting to turn the tables around.
I walked Walter out and returned to be with David in hopes that Dr. Wudel would come around with a pathology report. I started back and there she was, Jan. This time no wheelchair. She was walking so slowly with a cane. She said they had no wheelchairs in the normal place at the Lodge. Joyce, my least favorite receptionist at the Lodge, said they could not call for a wheelchair when we inquired. She said Jan would have to go look in the hospital for one. I told her to start on her way and I would find one quickly and come back for her. I put on my best mall walking gate and made way quickly down the corridors for a wheel chair. Down the third hallway a woman came down the hall with two and I asked her for one and she quickly obliged. When I got back to Jan, she had barely gone 20 feet. I did a 180 and said "Go Speed Racer". She poured into the chair and I now raised up the foot pedals for her without hesitation (I had noticed when Charlie pushed her the day before she was clinching her feet toward her chest so they wouldn't drag and she never asked him to stop....I guess she didn't dare complain since she was getting a free ride poor thing...I guess she at least had some good ab muscles to be able to hold her feet up that long). I wheeled her with speed, put her on the elevator, did a 180 while I held the now familiar fast shutting doors of the elevator open with one of my feet and got her into a position to get off on floor 4 without assistance. I hit 4 and jumped off bidding her farewell. I walked quickly up to David in ICU now, amazed that I knew Jan, many nurses, all the women at Starbucks and many of the faces of the nurses coming though the long hallway now that would work the 7pm to 7am shirt. The world of St. Thomas Hospital, much like that of an airport I suppose, routines, familiar faces, and a community all on its own that accepts foreigners for a while. We are exchange students with an emersion in medical jargon, uncomfortable in the lexicon of cancer, esophagi, bile, blood, tubes, and beeps. This is all temporary we hope, but I find myself trying to make some kind of connection with it that will be a long lasting positive experience in my memory. Maybe I want to do this so David and I always appreciate the difference between happiness and suffering or maybe it's because I can't stand to let time pass without making the most of it. We'll never be this close to a completely different world, a bubble different from the world of UTM and music and our home in Union City. Or maybe we will?
I get to David and Wudel has been by. He comes back to give me the good news. Ted is Ned (No evidence of disease). Any remaining cancer detected was removed with the esophagus so we are cancer free. Can it be? At least David's suffering is worthwhile now in my mind. There are no guarantees and I feel so lucky. I remember Dick speaking about Genie only a few hours ago and hearing the uncertainty in his voice. I wince and feel a little guilty for my joy. I won't gloat or even feel relief. It caught be by surprise the first time and I'll never quite feel comfortable again, and never take our good health for granted.
David is sleeping now. Waking at times to catch a little Letterman. I love to hear his slight snore. When he is asleep he doesn't feel the tube in his nose or the tugging at the feeding tube or the other multitude of chords constantly telling the nurses he is ok. In sleep he is just like everyone else. Perhaps even a little better with his enhanced Morphine dreams. He told me earlier he had a dream he was helping the percussion studio unload gear somewhere and that Amy Simmons walked by with a bloody nose. Strange.
They just wheeled someone into the ICU room next to us. David thought she was a teenager and I wasn't sure as she looked both young and old. Our nurse told us she was old and she would not make it. I then saw she was slim and lanky and her body, without the wrinkles, might have passed for a 17 year old. She had shrunken now, but on first glance looked like an adolescent waiting for the change to womanhood. She was about to make another big change in her life now by dying and possessed the same youthful anxious look of anticipation. A bad smell comes from the room, nurses rush to shut the door, and I think about the loss of dignity that can come with disease and old age. What stories could this dying woman tell and who had she loved? Could anyone now tending to her imagine her dancing in her youth when she was hopeful for the future? Is she hopeful now as she transitions again.
I welcome the slow passing of the night....beeeeep beeeep. David is sleeping and I want to have so much time to love him. I do not wish time to pass quickly at all.