It has been a long time since I put words to the page here at Muttering Fool. February of 2020. Not long before the world exploded into the nightmare of COVID-19. Half a year before my body tried to kill me.

I am writing here from my hospital room at a large teaching hospital in Virginia. I have been here or in another hospital for long-term care since October 13, 2020.

It’s now the last day of July 2021.

We aren’t sure when I’ll be home. Right now we are waiting for my surgery. It’s a big one. 12 hours under the knife while my doctor puts my intestines back together.

You see, back in October, they kind of exploded. And I went septic, twice. I spent November being cut open and cleaned out, with some intestines removed then, and more in December, to try and save me. I had so much infection and abcess that all my doctors were sure I wouldn’t make it.

They sent me to a long-term care hospital to either, die or heal, and I healed. Needless to say they were surprised that my wound healed as best it could.

Now,I still have a portion of my intestines in a bag on the outside of my body and another large fistula on my right side.

But, I made it through what they were sure would kill me.

I’m a tough old broad. I fought hard to survive. Even after the one surgeon told Tony to prepare for the worst. (How do you do that? You can’t prepare for the death of your spouse.)

Speaking of Tony, as if I didn’t know that he loved me more than I deserve before this. He has spent every night sleeping on a chair beside me. In the times in the ICU when they didn’t allow him to stay, he slept in the van so he could be with me as soon as possible.

That is love beyond love. Pure unselfish devotion.

When he isn’t asleep or at work, he is helping me. He bathes me, he dries me, and puts the powders and ointments on me to keep my skin together.

He gently helps me put on a fresh gown and makes sure that my sheets are wrinkle free to prevent even more issues.

Tony wipes my tears when I get overwhelmed by what I am facing. 12 hours of surgery, a huge chance of complications, a 1 in 5 chance of not surviving the after math of the surgery.

He holds my hand when they do wound care on my abdomen. He has learned how to do the wound care on my body. When the pillows under my legs need to be moved, he fixes them.

I am surrounded my stuffed animals he has bought me to keep my spirits up.

All of these things and more show how much he loves me.

Right now, he’s sitting beside me waiting for my TPN to be hooked up to me before he eats, so we can have dinner together. (I haven’t eaten any food since November 3, 2020, it sucks.)

And, with my nurse coming in to hook up the TPN and lipids, it’s time to enjoy “dinner” with my amazing husband.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 6:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.