Gosh, what a day. Just like old times.
Not exactly, of course, but close. I had to get to work early this morning. About the time I got there, I got a text message from Wife that she was in the local hospital for an emergency "bowel re-section." As best I could piece together the story, she had been in town yesterday to see her therapist and to visit her friend Alvin. (Haven't I pegged him as Boyfriend 8?) She suddenly got a terrible pain in her gut, the kind that left her sweating and shaking and unable to drive. So Alvin took her to the nearest Urgent Care, figuring they would give her some Gas-X and send her on her way. Instead they admitted her to the hospital and scheduled her for surgery this morning, when they took out a stretch of intestine.
I was busy at work all day, and in any event once she's at the hospital there's not a lot I could do … oh, and also we're separating and I keep telling her she has to get more independent. So I waited till after work, and then I swung by the hospital to visit for an hour. She was in her room, hooked up to lots of tubes and irritated at a hundred little things. She wanted a shower. She wanted a Diet Coke. She wanted some fresh underwear, and to get up and walk around, and not to be hooked up to all these damned tubes. And actually, all this is a really, really good sign. If she were placid and accepting, it would mean she was too sick to notice all these little irritants, or that she had just been pulled back from the brink of death and was grateful even to be here. The fact that she is noticing these little irritants, and that she has the energy to grouse about them, means she has bounced back quickly and is well on the mend. I told her I thought she was doing really well. She smiled and asked, "Why? Because I'm being such a bitch?" Yeah, basically that's about it ….
So we still don't know what the end will look like. She doesn't know how long she'll be there, and she hasn't found anybody to feed the kitty cats in her absence. Theoretically I suppose I could do it, but it's an hour's drive each way and she really shouldn't depend on me. If in the end I do finally do it, it will have been for the cats and not for her. But we'll see. She must have some friends in her town … right?
