month

Can you believe it's been a month since I've been here? Well, tomorrow will be. And I'll be 24 weeks tomorrow too. Just crazy. Counting up such a wonderful thing (the pregnancy) and not such a wonderful thing (his hospital stay). I never expected he would be in the hospital for over a month. When I was having the initial phone conversations about how life would be over the next few weeks, they told me 2-3 weeks. Ha. So obviously I took that to heart. I packed all normal people size clothes thinking that since I hadn't grown that much already, I probably wouldn't over the next 2-3 weeks, and then we would be back in Colorado and everything would be fine. What the hell is wrong with me?! Why would I think something that stupid?! I can't believe that's what I thought. I know better! I knew this would be a long process. I just didn't know how bad it would suck going through it. And I'm not even going through it, he is.

We had a visit from our old social worker today, she came by just to say hi and bye - she's being transferred to Fort Belvoir. We really liked her. Then we went downstairs to Physical Therapy - he hates that 'PT' now refers to Physical Therapy and not Physical Training - then they took him to the MATC (Military Advanced Training Center - and I just had to google that) building, where he'll be spending the next months or even more doing PT and OT. Super nice. Brand new building, brand new facility. Indoor track, rock climbing wall, all kinds of cardio machines, and a lot of young men with limbs lost. Jason looked like he was ahead of the curve compared to some of the guys. I know he compares his injury and thinks he doesn't deserve to be there. He's nervous. And he has every right to be - yet another unknown. I got a little upset, actually. Just an internal mental war about the morals of this country. While I was admiring all the fancy new equipment, I couldn't help but be pissed that this is even necessary. There were so many young men, missing one leg, two legs, an arm and a leg, two arms and a leg, two legs and an arm, etc. And for what? For the rest of America to continue to complain about whatever they choose to complain about? Here, their sacrifice never goes unnoticed, but in the real world, out there with all those civilians, it most definitely does. It just makes my heart hurt for them. It makes me wish I could be bigger than I am, so that I could really make a difference somehow.

I'm not going to lie, as much as we both hate being in the hospital, when he's finally discharged, it's going to be real weird. You mean we don't have to be back in 4 hours for vitals? I think he might find it harder than he thinks too - he's pretty anxious about all the different recovery processes, and is very afraid to mess anything up, so I hope he adjusts to being on his own okay. He's scared the skin graft will get messed up, or his wounds will get infected. I'm sure it's a wife thing, but he never believes me when I try to put his concerns to rest. But as soon as someone else tells him the same thing, it's all ok! (He says it's because I don't deal with 'this kind of stuff' not that I don't know what I'm doing...-and believe me, we've discussed how this makes me feel! ha)

This one guy was nice enough to stop and show him how his 'first leg' worked. He took off all the layers of socks and shrinkers and told him what to expect. He showed him how it fits and how it goes on and stays on. I didn't see many wives there. So, if wives don't go with their husbands every day - what do they do?! I'm going to go nuts. And probably become a whale. Jason got a book about the DASH diet today. hahahahahahha. We should probably start eating salad. Like every day. Stat.

The walk home reminded me a tad of Colorado. It's chilly all the sudden here - which is not normal for Va, usually it's gradual. This weather change was much like Colorado - hot one day, freezing the next. But, it wasn't humid either. It was nice. I've seen there's already snow on Pikes Peak though - and in Colorado, this is a big indicator that winter is coming! Jason and I would have lived there for 2 years soon - the 19th I think - which is crazy. Time flies when you're not cooped up in a hospital room! I hope we can go back one day. Now that he's likely non deployable we've been considering Hawaii again. One of the big things holding us back from there was that unit deploys very often. Who knows what our future will bring. I just hope it's on the uphill from here on out!

My mom and dad visited yesterday, then we went shopping and I bought more maternity clothes. Do you realize how expensive these clothes are?! It's insane. I kind of wish we were still in the just 'wear a moo-moo' era. I bet it was a lot cheaper.

When I write these blogs, I'm usually in my hotel room (which I just had to re check in to since it's been a month. Can't believe I've been in a freaking hotel room for a month. Ugh.) and drinking milk straight from the container with cookies of course. It's glorious. Just thought you should know.

Oh, since the last post, they put him back on the PCA, this time with Dilaudid. In the beginning that's what he had, and he was convinced it wasn't working. I don't know if he was just in even more excruciating pain then, and it really wasn't working, or if he was so out of it he couldn't tell, but it's like the miracle drug now. He was on morphine for a long time, so I'm sure he built up a tolerance to that. They had him on 0.8mg/20 mins of Dilaudid and it knocked.him.out. Needless to say he slept well last night. But he did say he would wake up in pain because it knocked him out so hard he wouldn't wake up until he was in pain again. But he couldn't stay awake for very long periods of time today, so they turned the dose down to 0.5mg/20 mins...still makes him tired, but as long as it's controlling the pain, I'm happy. He's trying to stay on top of the OxyIR's so he won't have to push his button as much, but it doesn't seem to be working like it has in the past.

He was upset that they had to start that again, said it feels like a step back and that he'll never get out of there. But after I had a firm conversation with the nurse and then residents, the attending finally came in and started it back up. Oh, I was pretty mad. I'm sure I sounded rude, although mom said she could tell I was restraining myself. I get that everyone has to learn. I was there once. I still am. Everyone is always learning, really. But these residents, they make me want to stab myself in the eye. I found it interesting actually. About 3 of them came in and shuffled through their stack of crumpled up papers to find his history - "Hm, so the Oxy isn't working?" No. "Hm, so it's nerve pain then?" I don't know, it just hurts and the morphine and oxy aren't working anymore. "Hm, so we should probably up the dose on your Pamelor and give you another dose of Klonopin." My face is getting hot. I finally said - he doesn't get pamelor until 22 - what will that do for his pain now? (it was 4pm) "Hm, I see." And then, the klonopin only made him tired it didn't touch his pain. I don't want you to knock him out so he can't acknowledge the pain, I want you to fix the problem. (besides the fact that it's a psych drug, and we all know how I feel about those - all I keep picturing is our psych professor making a very bad imitation of what some of those drugs can do to people) "Hm..." And then the doc comes in and says "Ok, so we're going to put you on a Dilaudid PCA..." haha what?! So it seemed like zero communication was had between the residents and attending...but whatever. And then they just kind of backed out of the room and huddled in the hallway to mumble about it some more...and probably talk about what a b*tch the wife was :)

There are a lot more people out there reading this blog than I ever could have imagined. Initially I thought it would just be a good way to keep family updated who are far away, and I also wanted to have something to look back on when we're old. Jason still hasn't read it. He's read the first few posts, but it doesn't interest him that much since he's experiencing it all first hand. I'd imagine a few years from now, maybe, he'll find it interesting to look back on. Either way, we both really appreciate everyones support, whether we know you or not. To know that we're thought about on a daily basis, by any given person, is a blessing. My hope is that this blog will help others out there who may be going through the same things we are to feel like they aren't alone like I felt for a very long time (and sometimes still do). I also hope to bring awareness about the struggles and intense life changes something like this can bring a young couple. Unfortunately this happens fairly frequently and many others may just hear about it and probably think "Oh poor them." But no one will really ever know what it's like unless they've been through it themselves. This is no walk in the park. I only hope we can come through this on the other side still smiling, and still happy to be married to one another.

So now that we're living our life counting days, weeks, and months - I wonder where we'll be in this process a month from now?