Lately I feel as if I have just been present in the world and things just happen to me and I'm left just having to deal with it as it comes. I feel like my days have just been full of reaction vs. proaction and this has really begun to compound and get to me. I fear that the defense mechanism that gets developed in these situations is the numbing of feelings in order to mask pain/emotions. It's really important that without being a cry baby, I be aware of what's going on and how it impacts me.
My husband has relapsed again so we find ourselves back in the hospital (since Jan 9th) which means that I'm at the hospital, go to work, go to school, back at the hospital, repeat, repeat, and repeat. The in-laws are at the house evening-->morning and taking care of the animals and whatnot which is nice (seriously, a God send because I don't know what I'd do if someone wasn't there to help in that sense) and they keep Tom company during the day while I'm at work, but it's just bizarre to not be home. I feel a sense of disconnect to my own life at the moment. I have nothing to do with my house, and obviously I have no part in how the hospital operates; so I take that as it comes with my husband's health status and how he's responding. Work and school are also of course just busy and everything is assigned to you and full of expectations, yada yada.
Depending on how Tom responds and recovers from all of this, I may only need a small family leave, may end up maxing out on leave, do I end up having to quit? Who knows?! As a virgo and an oldest child, I can go with the flow, but I do require some amount of foresight and a plan in order to be ready to be flexible when needed... and at the moment, that does not exist. I can't even throw my husband the birthday party I wanted to because he's so immune-compromised! I'm sure, when I think about it, that really it boils down to me feeling very isolated. While I know my family is a phone call away, it isn't quite the same as getting to enjoy the physical presence of familiarity and comfort. Yes, I have the support of Tom's family and it is definitely the best thing for him to have them here, but I think anyone would agree having your own family there is always better and obviously the rapport is quite a bit different.
It's really hard to explain how even the smallest of things like household errands or chores just provide some sense of normalcy and while it's wonderful to have the support and eagerness of people to help... sometimes you just need to be able to do something that is even remotely reminiscent of what life was like when it was half way normal. That being said, hopefully tomorrow can be as good as possible. Hoping to start the husband's birthday off by fetching some delicious breakfast for him because prior to the relapse news I had planned to take him out to breakfast (because we're doing a workshop at work tomorrow night). I've arranged for anyone and everyone to send cards his way for his birthday so I'm hoping that's a great and uplifting surprise for him.
Surely we must be entering into the smooth sailing waters here soon. You know, the part where he ends up cured and healthy and we can all just go about to where our lives left off almost three years ago and Tom can be a "normal 28 year-old" as he has mentioned. I can't even imagine what it must be like in his shoes. I am over here worried sick and frantic about how hard all of this is on him and stressed about his recovery and desperately wishing and praying him to be better and cured... but I don't have to be the one in the hot seat who is likely to be worrying or thinking about what life will look like for others, thinking about how we wish we could have travelled more or done more of whatever, etc. I could not imagine that. Things are certainly put into perspective in terms of values in these kind of situations.
