I know you all are tired of me talking about this; I realize that. No one is more tired of it than Kirk, so I will do my best to make this my last blog dedicated to Kirk being sick and/or getting healthy.
Everything we have been through is more than any person should go through. It is still our everyday. It is still something we talk about every.single.day. It is still something that haunts us when we have a cough, sore throat or are just not feeling ourselves. It's something we get anxious about all the time.
There are things I will never get out of my head and can never be erased. Seeing my husband hooked up to machines, the mad rush of doctors when he first got to the ICU, everyone asking me if he's alcoholic, the 6 days of 24 hour dialysis, hearing the beeps of all the machines, the cooling blanket on him to keep his temperature down, his puffy hands and face, the ventilator, the doctors coming in all the time, his bloody eyes, the ICU psychosis. These are a quarter of the images I will never get out of my head. Oh, but the first time he squeezed my hand; one of my only favorite memories from his 3 week ICU stay.
I want to say we have this whole new outlook on life. I want to say we don't let little things bother us anymore, but we do. People still drive us crazy when they are driving too slow or don't say thank you when we hold the door for them. I'm guessing that's totally normal but I will always remember everyone is going through something. I've had more than one conversation with people who told me they had no idea Kirk was as sick he was. I'm definitely not saying this to talk about how great I am and how little I let on, but I will say I realized during those weeks everyone is fighting a battle and no one needed the burden of my life when they were dealing with their own problems. I admit, though, I did want to yell at people more than once who were rude to me and tell them what was going on in my life because I'm pretty sure that's a battle I would have won (here's looking at you rude lady in the Henry Ford cafeteria who told me I was putting something non-recyclable in recycling! I mean, recycling is one of my thangs, lady!).
Kirk got his MRI results and it was good. And we are so happy, so relieved, so thankful, so aware that not everyone is as lucky as us. I was on the verge of losing my husband and I while I wish I were exaggerating, I'm not. When his brother and I got to the hospital after he was life flighted to Henry Ford, we were in Kirk's room while all the nurses and doctors worked on him. He was conscious then, but doesn't have much of a memory of that time. I wanted Kirk to know I was there knowing he may not remember it. Each time we made eye contact I said "I love you" because I was afraid I would never be able to tell him again.
I am lucky and grateful and thankful I can tell Kirk I love him everyday. I made it through those hard days because of him and because I knew if he made it, our life would be better because of what we had been through. Sometimes you have to go through some really shitty stuff to get to the good parts. I feel like I'm being extra cheesy right now, but isn't it true? Life will not always be easy or go the way we expect. Life throws some major curveballs and you deal with them because you have to and because you love your family and your husband and you love the life you have created together.
In the three days before the MRI, I found 2 pennies and three feathers (the third feather went floating passed me as I walked into Meijer). Finding them made me feel more at peace then I have about any previous testing Kirk has had done.
We are anxious for the holidays and anxious for January. Anxious because it'll have been a year since Kirk got sick. A year I am ready to put behind us, but a year I'm not sure I want to forget. A year when we learned so much about ourselves, our kids and other people. A year that didn't go as planned and we are learning to be ok with that. Mostly because we have to and partly because what else are you going to do? Kirk is healthy (relatively speaking). The kids and I are doing well. What more can you ask for? Our life is so good. So very, very good.