Learning to Dance in the Rain II

Chapter One – The Catastrophic Event In January 2000 my husband, Bob, and I retired and moved to Tennessee to begin building our retirement dream home in the country. Our new house was a Deltec Home with seventeen sides. It was circular in design and had no supporting interior walls which enabled us to design our own unique floor plan and showcase the beautiful panoramic view of the Smoky Mountains. We were excited to retire and start enjoying the “golden years” we had heard about. We felt blessed. We had lived a good life and expected retirement to be the same. In late September 2006 we learned Bob had cancer and the downhill battle began. The ten years which followed were challenging for him as he endured surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, new medications, and treatments. In June of 2016 we made our annual motor trip to Michigan to visit relatives. While we were at our daughter's home, she offered to drive us to the Upper Peninsula to see my sister and my mother, who was in a nursing home there. I spent most of my time with my mother while Bob enjoyed discussing the Bible and politics with our brother-in-law and baby-sitting our two-year-old grandson. We all enjoyed the visit but it was soon time to head south. A few minutes after we were on our way, I became concerned because Bob was coughing a lot and it didn't sound good. I finally announced my concern and he retorted that he was fine. Over the next five hours in the car, however, it became more and more evident that he was not fine! However, when I suggested again that he needed to see a doctor before we left for Tennessee, he adamantly refused, declaring that he was not sick, and just wanted to get home! We started south early the next morning, but as the miles sped by, the cough became worse and worse and I considered stopping at a hospital somewhere along the way. Bob kept insisting that he wasn't sick and wanted to go straight home. When we got there, he went straight to his room, saying we would see me in the morning and we would go out to breakfast. By morning he had changed his mind. He just wanted to stay in bed all day. At about 3:00 pm he called for me to come to his room. His voice sounded awful so I set aside the book I was reading and immediately rushed to his room. When I got there, he was huddled under the blanket and told me he was in trouble. He was so weak he was unable to sit up. Assessing the situation, I suggested calling 911, but he didn't want me to. He told me to help him get up and get dressed and I would take him to the hospital myself. I gathered a shirt and pants and, putting my arms around his shoulders, I pulled him to almost a sitting position, helped him to get dressed.Then I found my walker and he slid onto it, and I rolled him out to the car. When we arrived at the emergency entrance of the hospital, I jumped out of the car and ran inside to get help. An attendant followed me out to the car with a wheelchair, and when I told her he couldn't get out alone, she moved in closer and helped him into the chair. Then she pushed him into triage where they recognize he was in trouble and took him straight to the emergency room and helped him onto a bed. A doctor came to see him almost immediately. He ordered X-rays and blood work. We had arrived at the hospital at 5:00 p.m. and at 7:00 pm we were told he had pneumonia and would be admitted to the hospital as soon as a room became available. Bob fell asleep as we waited in the emergency room, and I alternately paced the floor and fidgeted on a folding chair. At 10:00 pm the attendants came and I followed as they rolled him out of emergence and up the elevator. I thought he would be taken to Intensive Care, but instead his room was on a regular floor. That surprised me and I began to think he wasn't as ill as I had thought. A nurse immediately came to hook him up to the machines and Bob asked her for some food, insisting that he was very hungry and needed some food. She responded that he had to wait until after the intubation procedure had been done. Grumbling, Bob settled down and fell asleep again for a short time. By midnight he no longer had a fever and his other vitals had returned to normal. I tried to make myself comfortable, thinking I would stay with him all night, but the room was cold and I was freezing. I was dressed for a hot summer day and had forgotten to grab a sweater in the rush to leave. The chair in his room was most uncomfortable and every time I dozed off for a moment, Bob would ask me for something. I was exhausted since I had not slept much the previous four nights worrying about him, and I had just driven 500 miles to get us home. I was beginning to feel ill myself. I needed to get some sleep soon or I was going to collapse and be unable to care for him when we got home. I finally discussed the situation with Bob, who told me to go home. I felt bad about leaving him there, but he was being cared for by nurses, I thought, and I needed to rest. There seemed to be no place for me to rest. So I kissed Bob good night and left the hospital. It was 1:00 a.m. and I had a forty-five-minute drive home alone. I was very anxious. When I arrived at home, I lay down on my bed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I awoke suddenly at 6:30 am and called the hospital. When there was no answer, I knew I had to get back to the hospital. When I arrived, I found an extremely agitated and distressed husband who yelled at me to get him some food. His last words to me were, "I’m not going to make it out of this hospital alive!”