2 Months

Today is the 2 month anniversary of G's death.

Yesterday I finally was able to back through some of the emails that were sent between me and his brothers on the days leading up to G dying - and even the morning of that day.

What struck me again is that we had no idea he was going to die.

The day before I had counseling and my counselor told me I needed to reach out to our church and accept the meal train that had been offered because I had too much on my plate. She also encouraged me to finally write the email I'd been composing in my head to G's pre-transplant coordinator demanding answers and that his January 6th appointment be moved up.

Throughout that evening I remember working on drafts of the email. G asked me what I was doing and I told him. He expressed concern. He didn't want me to send it. He was worried about us making ourselves a pain in the butt to the doctors and coordinators. He wanted to get through Christmas before hearing bad news. He didn't want to have to wrestle with the question of if he wanted to be re-listed for a second transplant - possibly a heart/lung transplant this time. He wanted to have a good Christmas and figure it all out later.

That gave me pause. I respect my husband. It's his health journey. It's his life. My counselor had been teaching me all fall about the importance of letting him call the shots and letting him have a sense of control of his own life - and if it was the case, his own death too. That he needed to be the one making the decisions.

So late that night I sent emails to his brothers saying I was torn. Should I send the email? Should I listen to G? He was in so much pain - was he thinking straight?

They encouraged me to send it. I decided to sleep on it. Then it was the weekend and the coordinator wasn't working anyway.

G got worse quickly on Saturday. By early afternoon the emails changed to UN trying to set up hospice - seeing what would be needed and getting everything in order if G gave us the go ahead to call. He was in so much pain around 3:30 and having such trouble breathing that he did. He decided he didn't want to go to the hospital. I had called the on-call coordinator- who ended up being the one I had drafted the email to and she said to go to the ER - but he was too weak to even walk out of the house and did NOT want to be alone in an ambulance. The thought of it gave him so much anxiety. I told him to take a rest and then we'd figure it out. She hadn't said call 9111 - which she did in the past - so my reasoning was that it must not be urgent.

But he couldn't rest. He was in too much pain. I made him a bed of blankets to make the floor softer for him - it still hurt too much and when he laid down he couldn't breathe, even on his usual pillow "stack".

After a humungous effort he got up stairs - having the crawl up the last few with UN behind him in case he fell. Having the oxygen on helped. He didn't want me to leave him so I sat in the chair in our room and one of the uncles brought me lunch.

G and I had a chance to talk. I thought he would sleep but he couldn't and he didn't want to.

I don't think I can continue this right now. The rest is so hard. The rest is saying goodbye. It all happened so quickly. I'm realizing that I want to write it out but its too much this morning. I'll try later tonight.