Monthly Archives: October 2017

Autopsy…

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Mycobacterium avium intracellular. MAI. It was throughout Danny’s body. In his testicles, in his toenails. In every cell.

That is what killed him at the end. A bacteria that would not affect you or me. Something only a person with compromised immunity could get. That is why his toes turned black.

And he was so debilitated at the end that even the bacteria had nothing left to live on. That is why some of his toes had started turning pink again. Similar to cancer, if we could allow the patient to get so malnourished that the disease had nothing to live on, the disease would die, but in the process, we would have killed the patient too.

The lymph nodes by his spine were so distended with the bacteria it had cut the circulation to his feet causing his toes to be horribly painful and turn black. The doctor had told me that if the hair on his toes went away, he would then lose his toenails and at that point his toes could fall off, This is why pink coming back into his toes was such a good sign.

We learned this after the fact from the autopsy.

And then…

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I wasn’t entirely surprised.  The expectation that your addictions would conquer you was always under the surface of the hope you would overcome.

The call that you had collapsed in the shower was the “fall of the other shoe” that I had feared for so long.

Your daughter and I rushing to be by your side in ICU just the first step in our farewell.

Being told not to talk to you or touch you so your brain could rest was nearly impossible while we wanted to scream, “Wake up!”

And when your eyes finally opened, seeing the sheer terror in them was hideous.

Your eyes screamed, “Help me!  Stop this!  Enough!”

We were helpless, standing by.

And then you closed them.  The tubes removed, the monitors silenced, and you rested at last.

Breathing on your own and sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

No response.  No finger squeeze.  No wiggled toes.  No fluttering eyelids.  Just soft shallow breathing, steady and slow.

Only when we discussed moving you over so your oldest son could lie beside you did you respond with three deep loud breaths.

“I’ll take that as a yes!” he said, and we slid you over with the draw sheet for his snuggle and mine.

Your younger children blew you kisses over facetime on our phones and saw your lips blow kisses back to them.

And then through the power of cyber space, your husband, children and I were all with you and you were gone.

Gone.

Absent, yet in some ways you seem nearer than before–butterflies, pennies in unexpected places, heart shaped rocks, inside-out shirts — javelinas at our private memorial for the older children’s dad.

Many signs we may have missed in our trudging through our grief.

Oh! to open our eyes, ears, hearts so we may be aware and notice the love around us.

I thought

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I thought that we would have time to sit and talk. You could tell me things you had experienced that I was finally ready to hear. I could help you know how very much I had wanted you, loved you and believed in you.

I thought you would finally beat those addictions that held you captive. You would care for me in my old age doing things your brothers could not do.

We could share our mutual love and pride in your precious children. That we could scrapbook old photos and divide them up for the kids to keep.

That you would finally really know how deeply I loved you no matter what.

. . . and then you died.