“We carried him out here on the blanket, but we’re not sure if we can lift him high enough to get him on the bed. He just took his morphine, so hopefully it will kick in pretty quickly, but he’s hurting.” I wasn’t sure how to handle the task.
Wendy looked around. “I think the men can handle it. I’ll show you how to wrap him so he’s secure, and it’s easier to lift him.” She walked around Will, pulling the blanket up around him. As she walked around, she rolled the blanket on each side. Will was covered, with only his head sticking out. He looked like a papoose, or a burrito. After she had him covered and the sides rolled, she rolled each end of the blanket tight. Now he resembled a Tootsie Roll. Looking at my dad and Brian, she said, “Now if each of ya’ll could get on each end, you should just be able to pick him right up and lift him high enough to get up on the bed. The girls and I will walk alongside of him as you get him on. We can put our hand under him if we have to, but after hearing how much his skin hurts, I only want to do it if we have to. Okay, girls?”
Rebecca and I got up and moved out of the way of the men, but stayed right next to Will and Wendy, offering our arms if they should need help lifting Will higher. My father was 63 years old, but he and Brian managed to lift Will higher than we all had before and slowly walked him to the hospital bed. Once they got him on the bed, Wendy worked on getting Will freed from the tight candy wrapper he was in. “He might get hot, but we’ll wait a little while before removing the blanket from under him. He might move around enough in his sleep, and we can get it out easier then.”
I sat on the floor next to his bed for a while after he’d settled down. Dad came by and hugged me quietly, then left. We didn’t have to say anything. I could tell he was touched, hurting even, and his hug told me I didn’t even have to give him thanks. It could wait, and who knew what else I might need to thank him for later. Rebecca came over and sat next to me. She held a coffee cup in each hand. “It’s almost one o’clock, hon, we haven’t even had coffee today. Or breakfast. Or lunch. We’re not doing a fantastic job taking care of ourselves, are we?”
I took the cup of coffee. “Thank you so much, Rebecca. I had no idea it was that late.”
“Wendy is just checking our supplies, and calling in his status to the central nurses’ station. She reminded me to eat and told me to tell you the same thing. We’ll be not much better off than Will if we can’t care for ourselves too.”
“You’re right, Rebecca. You are right. I’m sorry this morning was so difficult. But hey, we made it. Will is no worse for the wear. Well, shit…” I didn’t know what that meant, but I felt my foot being inserted into my mouth.
“He isn’t, doll, he’s okay, and we are doing the best we can. For him. He has to know that.” Rebecca put her hand on my knee, tilted her head, and smiled at me. She was right. I was watching every word I said because it bothered me if it wasn’t entirely true. The truth was Will was not okay. He was not ever going to be okay again. But I knew what Rebecca meant. He hadn’t died yet, and hopefully when he did, it wouldn’t be naked on the bathroom floor. We had salvaged his dignity for him, and we’d continue to do whatever we could to make the transition as easy as possible for Will. And as long as we could give him that, he would be okay.
“I think since he’s napping, and since Wendy is still here, I’ll go shower and get dressed. I’ll be quick so you can do the same if you want. Unless…you can go first. I’m sorry, I should have offered for you to take a break.” I was hesitating again and feeling selfish for wanting to shower.
“No, doll, you go shower. I’ll sneak one in when you are done. I’ll check on Wendy and then just sit here with Will for a while. Go relax. Why don’t you take a minute and call your family? I know you haven’t had a chance to really talk to them much. Those sweethearts must really miss you!”
Tears welled up in my eyes again. The whole situation was tough enough for me. Add being away from my family, and I could hardly manage to smile. “Thanks,” was all I could muster.
***
Calling my family was almost as tough as the rest of the morning. Their tiny little voices fill my ears and pulled and tugged on my heart.
“Mommy! At the park today, I held a frog! We have frogs now. They were poles, but now they are real frogs. But they are still small. Are you home yet?”
“Hi, Sweetie. I miss you guys so much. I hope to be coming home real soon, but it will still be a few days. Did you name the frogs?”
“No, Mommy. Frogs don’t have names! Here’s Bella. Byyyeeee.”
“Love you, sweetie.” I was talking to air.
Bella in her little tiny helium filled sounding voice told me Emily sang a ‘granolabye’ to her to help her sleep the night before. “She didn’t know the zoo song, like you do, Mommy, so she sang me a Granolabye song. When you home, Momma?”
“I don’t know, honey. Soon.” I could hear the change in her words already, and I’d only been gone a few days so far. “What’s a granolabye, honey?”
“She said, ‘gra-no-la-bye-granola-bye, go to sleep’.” Bella was singing me the lullaby her big sister had made up since I wasn’t there to sing to them.
The next voice I heard belonged to Chris. “Hey, hon, we’re just getting home from a playdate at the park. I’ve got a meeting over the phone, so I was hoping to get them set up with a movie after lunch and maybe some naps. They aren’t napping well during the day, so we’ve resorted to watching Toy Story over and over. Sorry to put them in front of the TV so much, but they do fall asleep. How’s your day going? What’s the word?”
I didn’t even know how to respond after my morning, but I really missed my family, and felt extremely guilty for leaving Chris with his work from home schedule and two small children. “We’re not having a good day here, babe, but I don’t think I want to talk about it now. Listen, you’re busy, I’m sorry I’m putting this all on you. I’ll just touch base with you later.”
We said our goodbyes, and I found the usual comfort in a hot shower with tears streaming down my cheeks.
After an hour of showering and slowly dressing with little makeup and another pony tail, I walked back to the living room to find Will’s hospital bed empty again. I looked at Rebecca and Brian who were sitting on the couch together. A question formed on my face, but Rebecca shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
With a sigh, we started the last twenty six hours of Will’s life.
Chapter Sixteen
“Where is he?” I asked Rebecca and Brian.
Brian spoke. “He got up, moaned a little, cussed at us, and walked with his walker down the hallway to his bedroom.” Rebecca looked scared and angry even. They were both looking down the hallway I had come out of. Will had passed by my bedroom on his way to his bedroom.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear him,” Rebecca said. “He banged the walls quite a bit on his way down. After he got quiet, I walked down there, and he was in the bathroom. After this morning, I’m surprised he’s even trying again. He yelled at us a few times while he was trying to get up, wouldn’t let us help him, and he walked away. I gave him a few more minutes and went back in to force help on him before…well, I just didn’t want to go through all that again. But he was laying on the bed when I went back in. He’s still there. Sleeping.”
“Oh, goodness,” was all I could say.
We all just sat there, not knowing what to do, what was coming, nor what to say to one another. After a few minutes, I realized Rebecca never got the shower she wanted and with Will, her husband, in their bedroom, she actually might not want to shower in there and risk waking him.
“Rebecca, I’m sorry. I should have been here. I called the kids and Chris, and then took a long shower. There should be plenty of hot water though, so if you don’t want to go in your room, you can use the shower in my room.” My room. Open mouth, inset foot. This was her house after all, how was it my room? “I just mean…”
“Oh, honey, I’m okay. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get shower
ed soon. Thanks, doll.” She sure did have a way of making me feel better about being there with her, in her house…with her husband.
Will napped for hours. Time seemed to stand still at times, and it seemed to fly by at other times. My watch was still set to Colorado time, so there was always the chance I had looked at my watch on one occasion and a clock inside the house on another and felt like two hours had passed rather quickly. Either way, we were on death watch, and we all knew it. Brian was there to stay, but no one made plans with him. Did he have a tooth brush, where would he sleep, how long would we all be there, together, waiting?
Every ten minutes or so one of the three of us was up, walking silently down the hall, checking on Will. We were determined to make sure he didn’t try to get up and walk alone again. It just wasn’t worth the risk of him falling again. There were times when Rebecca and I would sit in the room on the floor just looking up at Will on the bed. He’d rolled quite a bit in the hours he’d been there. We had been sitting with him on and off in his room, watching him sleep, just to keep watch. We’d watch him roll around, from side to side, then completely turn around and lay sideways on the bed. He’d managed to roam around the whole bed, so we stayed close, and if we weren’t in the room, we checked on him often.
“He’s goin’ to fall out of the bed!” Rebecca said.
“I know, I don’t know how he’s moving so much. We should try to….I dunno, is there something we can put alongside the bed? My two year old has a railing alongside her toddler bed, you know to keep her from falling out. I wonder if we can do something like that.” I looked around the room and saw big pieces of furniture and two night stands only about two inches taller than the bed itself. “Do you have extra blankets? What if we put the night stands against the bed and cover them with blankets so he can’t hit them too hard if he rolls into them? I don’t know if they will keep him from falling out of bed, but…well, it might help. “
We stood together, side by side, looking at Will move around more. I was amazed at his strength. For a man who was so weak, he managed to push his body all over the bed. We both moved at the same time to get the nightstands placed along the side of the bed. Rebecca opened the closet and handed me a comforter. I tucked it around the night stand, leaving room between the night stand and the bed, then padded the empty space with more of the comforter. Will moved sideways again, inching himself so he’d turned 90 degrees, lying sideways on the bed with his legs just below his knees hanging off the bed. I had to grab the nightstand I was setting up and tilt it outward so he didn’t hit it with his feet. That moment was the first time I saw the tumors on his legs. I’d assumed Rebecca had been looking at them for however long he’d been sick, but the first look for me was shock. I understood why he was being so modest. His body had done more than thinned. His body was being eaten alive. I suddenly felt like I was intruding. I put the night stand back, squeezed Rebecca’s arm, and left the room.
At five o’clock, Kristy and three other old friends gently tapped on the front door. Each one was carrying a large aluminum container filled with food. All I could manage to do was tilt my head, put my hands over my mouth, and cry – again.
“Rebecca, I don’t know if you know Kristy, but she’s a friend of mine. She and a few other friends brought us food.”
Rebecca jumped up from the couch and hugged Kristy like she was a long lost friend come home. “Thank ya’ll. Ya’ll so sweet! Wow! Brian, look at this!”
I led them into the kitchen with their fried chicken, mashed potatoes, salads, and pasta dishes. Before I could even say more to Kristy, she was back outside bringing in bags filled with paper plates, bread, cold cuts, cheeses, fruit, and bottles of water and soda. Clearly she didn’t know how long we were going to be there, but she knew somehow we weren’t going anywhere either.
“I ran into your dad at 7-11. He told me something happened this morning. He didn’t tell me what, but after yesterday and all, well I figured you wouldn’t be heading out to stock up on food anytime soon. We won’t stay, but you just tell me what you need, and I’ll be here. You know that. I’ll be right here.” Kristy hugged me and pointed her head to the door while looking at the friends she brought with her as their cue to head on out. Their task was done, and they were leaving. I thought it appropriate as well, but just didn’t know how to thank them.
The smell of food reminded us we hadn’t eaten much that day. The three of us got paper plates, plastic ware, plastic cups and filled them up with soda and fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. We started to relax. Sitting around the little breakfast table in the kitchen, we even shared a few laughs. It felt good. Food, drink, companionship. It all meshed.
“It’s been a little while since we’ve been in there, we should be with him.” Guilt was taking over me. We’d been eating real food, a meal. And talking and laughing. Not talking about the events of the day, not even talking about Will.
Brian spoke up, “No, he’s okay. You need to eat. Look at the two of you. You haven’t eaten all day, have you?”
Thump!
We all stopped eating, looked at each other, and then jumped up. “I just said we should be with him. Dammit! We sat here and ate. Dammit!” I felt bad for saying it as soon as it came out. Brian had encouraged us to eat, because he knew it was best for us. No one knew what happened, no one knew what could have happened, but we all knew we’d let our guard down.
The three of us ran down the hall and into Will’s room. One of the nightstands was tipped over on the floor, the comforters pushed off the bed and the other nightstand, and Will was sitting there with his legs hanging off the bed and his walker near him with one hand on it. His robe was open, his modesty beginning to diminish.
“Where ya, goin’, Will?” Rebecca asked. He just moaned and pushed her away. I got next to him and put my arm around him. He felt like an older man. A much older man.
He yelled at us, “Leave me alone! I need to get up!”
“Okay, we’ll help you get up,” I said.
He flopped back onto the bed.
We didn’t leave him again, but we did watch him several times roll around the bed, yell out something unintelligible and then sleep peacefully for a while. After another hour, or five hours, who knew, he rolled sideways on the bed again and began another stage of agitation. He moaned, grabbed at the wall and his headboard over and over. He inched his way to the edge of the bed. For the second time, he got his legs over the bed and was determined to get up. Sounds of fury escaped his mouth. I stood next to him. He pushed me away. His strength was astonishing.
“Aaaahhhhhhh,” he said. He was angry. With his life, lack thereof, with us, with God even. He was very clearly angry. And frustrated.
Giving in, he fell back on the bed again. But within minutes, he got agitated again. It was a cycle. Rebecca and I would get close to him, Brian standing off near the doorway if we needed help. Will would push us away, yell at us and then fall backwards onto the bed again. Rebecca and I talked quietly after one cycle.
“He was in the bathroom when he fell this morning. He rushed to the bathroom in the afternoon and yelled at Brian and me on his way back here.” Rebecca was thinking out loud.
“That was several hours ago, Rebecca. Do you think he needs to use the bathroom?” I looked over at Brian for help on the topic and maybe help getting Will into the bathroom. Brian nodded his head at me, but stayed where he was.
“Will, do you need to use the bathroom? We can help you get up. Brian can help you into the bathroom. You can’t get up on your own. You can’t get up, Will. Because we can’t help you back up if you fall down,” I said to Will.
Brian left the room, and I looked out the doorway wondering why he’d left us. He was our best bet of getting Will to the bathroom. It was only twenty feet or less away, surely with all the strength Will had shown, moving around the bed, with help from Brian and his walker, he could make it that far and back.
Brian came back in with a plastic urinal hospice had left.
“I saw it in the room with all the supplies earlier. I knew what it was, but never thought he’d be using it.”
Will was sitting up again, trying to stand. I sat next to him, and he pushed me away. He had so much force behind that push, I was almost willing to let him get up and try it. I wanted to say, ‘If you’re so strong…,’ but I didn’t. Instead I said to my lost love, “Will, I have a urinal in my hand, and I will hold it, if you need to use it. Brian and Rebecca are here, Brian can help you hold it, if you’d rather. Or Rebecca. But you can’t get up. Will, you just can’t get up.”
Will just yelled at us and fell back onto the bed. Again.
Eventually after a few more cycles of anger, sitting up, pulling himself up with his hands on his headboard, he relaxed and fell asleep. And then he peed in the bed. More dignity gone for Will. I felt so awful. We had stopped him from visiting the toilet. We’d taken away his choices. We’d broken our own promises we’d made to ourselves.
But we knew it was what was best for him. It had to be. If he had gotten up…If he had fallen again…
Rebecca looked at me. We were both crying. “Honey, it’s okay. If he’d fallen, he could have broken something. If he broke his leg or somethin’…well, he wanted to be here, in this house. He doesn’t want to go to a hospital. We did the right thing. Will ya help me change the sheets?” She started laughing. “If we can get him to move now.”
I tried to encourage Will to slide or roll to the side of the bed closest to the wall, the side he’d been avoiding so far in his trips all over the rest of the bed. It took me time, but I got him to the other side of the bed. We put new sheets on the wet side of the bed.
“Bed pads!” Rebecca said so quick, I almost didn’t know what she’d said.
“Oh yeah, we should put those on the bed. But…,” I was thinking. “If we put them on top, we save the sheets if he goes again, but the way he’s moving, he’ll just move them around too.” I looked at Will, at the new sheets we had on half of the bed and the old sheets rolled up in the center of the bed. “Can we just put them under the sheets? If they get wet, then we have to change them again, but at least the mattress isn’t wet, so we can get new sheets under him, and he won’t be on a wet mattress.” I wasn’t even sure if I was making sense. I just knew the pads would be moved around with each roll Will made across the bed.
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