A Broken Crow

guess who's coming home tomorrow?

fuckin' rights.

and also, i just read through the entire transplant information booklet and it overwhelmed me so much that now i have heartburn. is that possible? i feel like this is never going to be over. i feel like there are a million things to remember and i'll never be able to. there isn't enough time. there isn't enough money. there isn't enough of me. i'm supposed to be there 24/7 for the first few weeks after discharge, but if i don't work full time, there's no money for rent. i'm supposed to be supportive and loving and understanding but i keep having unrealistic expectations that everything will speed right along, like someone hit the recovery fast-forward button. i've been so tired and so stressed-out for so long that i feel like i'm making myself sick, or crazy.

but he's coming home.
that's one step closer. i won't have to miss him so much anymore.

go stemcells go!!

i spent last night at the hospital on a fold-out cot with a beam that presses into my lower back like a knife blade. it's become our friday night tradition.

the nurses started iain on a morphine drip for the pain in his mouth and throat. i watched his face relax and savored a real smile. i spent most of the night just listening to the humming and clicking of his iv pumps. he has so many now, monitering and dripping and metering that it's like watching the inside of a body, digitized and hung on the outside for convenience. there's even been a new instrument added to the symphony in the form of a wide-suction straw for when iain's throat is too raw to swallow even his own saliva. for hours and hours. humm humm click humm humm click SLURP humm humm click humm humm click SLURP. it was an electronic cacaphony. a vertible rainforest of medical machinery. at three in the morning i got up and wandered the darkened, antiseptic hallways in my sock feet. flamenco music echoed in thin rasps from a radio in an empty room and the elevators lurched and groaned like great slumbering beasts. a nurse asked if i was lost, possibly thinking i was a patient. i smiled at her - it was more like a grimace - and walked the other way.

when i got back to his room, i climbed into bed and imagined an animal for each noise i heard until i fell asleep.

oh it's all happening now. it's all motherfucking happening. the fever and the sore mouth and the body shutting down and resisting and falling to fucking pieces.

it is strange to find comfort in watching your boyfriend go through this, simply because this is what is supposed to happen. we don't want anything out of the ordinary, even if the ordinary is really really bad.

iain's white blood cell counts are really low now and his other counts seem to be following suit. he's still able to eat solid foods for the time being, but will change soon enough. then perhaps a steady drip of morphine to take the edge off, who knows?

iain's doctors seem very pleased with how things are going so far. that's something. that's something.

another something: my sister is home for a few weeks. she brought me back prezzies from vienna and rome. hearts.

so it's day plus four. (is that where we are now? does that really sum it up?)

the doctors are hovering over iain's bed, waiting for him to have an adverse side effect. just waiting. they tell him it will happen. it's only a matter of time. iain has a rare cancer so he has become a useful teaching tool in the hospital for residents. they bring them in and talk about him like he's not sitting in front of them. he is case study 3226-Y7 and he has no thoughts or feelings or fears about the things you say.

so far, there has been no nausea since the transplant. no rashes. no fever. no swollen mouth. he is eating well and feeling fine, albeit confined to a small space.

we have been told that things are moving according to schedule and that people are 'pleased' with how he looks.

my temporary roommate has gone back to sydney and my apartment is empty.
i broke down this afternoon because the nurses couldn't get iain's iv pole to work properly and his dose of cyclosporin kept stopping it's steady drip of anti-rejection. i can't handle anything going wrong at this point. there are too many variables already. my need to control things has mutated into some interesting paranoia. i just hope i don't start slapping the nurses when they take too long to answer his call button. i need to calm down about things. i've been able to sleep for the past few nights, so that's helping i guess. my insomnia only lasted four days...is that legally insane?

for anyone looking for a coherant update on iain, i'm sorry. i'm not myself and i can't be bothered to structure my sentences well. i'm just trying to stay balanced. the 'what ifs' and 'how longs' come in terrential downpours, filling up my head and coming out in streams of ranting and crying or laughing or frantic cleaning. i run downstairs for skittles and provisions like they actually do something. i wait for the day when the doctors will tell us something that sways in some direction, good or bad. for now it's all limbo, all the time.

i play my guitar, but only songs that inspire me. i skip all the sad songs on my ipod. i derive messages about the future out of nothing and i look for omens in everything i say and do and see and touch.

it all wears you down, in the end.
it all makes you old.

it's almost here. it's like christmas and a terrifying exam that you haven't prepared for all rolled into one.

right now i'm battling some wicked insomnia. it's been three days since i retired to bed without staring at the ceiling for hours and hours, counting the seconds between cars outside on the street and thinking about how much longer until my alarm goes off.

yesterday i crawled in bed beside you at the hospital and slept blissfully for an hour. i guess i'm no good at sleeping alone.

on the upside, i did just find out that i have a three day weekend. woo! natal day!