LOST IN THE MIST

There was a full moon last night. I saw it quite by accident while driving home. The brightness caught my eye. Trees were silhouetted against its bright glow and a whisper of clouds crossed its surface. Floating there in the night sky and lighting my way home, it lifted my spirits and gave me reason to smile. It made me happy.

The past two months...indeed, the last two years have been terribly, horribly, awfully difficult. I am just a ghost of who I once was. What happened to that girl that loved to sing and now doesn't? the girl that danced beneath the stars? and bathed naked in remote hot springs high in the mountains? Where is the girl that hiked into ice caves or through cougar and bear infested forests in search of new and unexplored places? the girl that loved adventure? that liked to dress up and go to dinner and movies with friends? where's the girl that use to wear make up and cared about how she looked? where's the girl that liked to go dancing? or simply danced with a broom around the kitchen to music from the radio? the girl that laughed all the time and loved to entertain? Where did she go? I know she existed once but she has faded into yesterday and is just a distant memory now. Just a shadow in a monotone world; she all but disappeared.

Friends are gone. Adventure is gone. Travel has stopped. You want to eat off a china plate, drink out of a crystal goblet, and have flowers on the table? forget it! Too much work, too much energy.

We have lake property but we haven't been there since Christian left us. I use to love to sit outside early in the morning, watch the mist rise up from the water, and listen to the mournful songs of the loons on the lake. How peaceful it was to just sit there and dream. I loved standing at the kitchen window and looking out over the lake as I washed the dishes.

Patrick would light the lanterns at night and we'd sit around the campfire with a glass of wine. Sometimes we'd talk, sometimes we'd just stare into the fire. Our bed was a little touch of heaven. It has a feather mattress, down pillows, and a white goose down comforter with white pillow shams. It looks and smells so clean. How I loved climbing into that bed and sinking down into crisp sheets, snuggling up with down pillows, pulling a cloud of softness over me, drifting off to sleep listening to soft music that was piped into our bedroom and the soft breathing of my husband. I even found joy in the steady sound of his CPAP machine. Why we don't go there anymore I don't know. It just seems easier to stay home.

The past two years have been ones of experiencing the unthinkable, learning to live through the unbearable, discovering that I am stronger than I seem, and braver than I ever thought I could be. And then just as I was beginning to get a foothold on life again after Christian's untimely passing, fate came along, grabbed me by the shoulders, and threw me down the rabbit's hole. I fell and fell and fell before landing hard in the cold darkness. When Alice fell she might have been dreaming but I found myself not sleep but very much awake and standing beside the hospital bed of my husband.

For more than two weeks I either stood by him and held his hand or sat in a near by chair in the critical care unit waiting for a diagnosis and word that he was going to be alright. Long days and even longer nights. How frightening it was. Fortunately once a diagnosis was made, he progressed quickly - much to the delight of family and friends; only to find himself back in the hospital a week later undergoing emergency brain surgery. Again I waited with trepidation and high anxiety. Luckily the surgery was successful and he came home a short time later - weak and in pain but on the slow road to recovery.

Just when we were beginning to breath again, another heartache was upon us. Patrick had not been home from the hospital a week when my oldest son staggered into the house and told me I had to get him to the hospital "fast". He was unable to tell me why but managed to get himself outside and into the car.

We hadn't traveled far when he loss consciousness. It was all the emergency room staff could do to get him out of the car. Once in the ER there was a flurry of activity. He had stopped breathing so had to be put on a respirator (and later on a ventilator). Everyone was trying to figure out what had happened to him. The infusion nurse was putting an IV in his arm, the lab tech was drawing blood, the x-ray tech was taking films of his chest, the respiratory specialist was manually manipulating the respirator. A CT scan was taken of his head.

The labs and his general condition indicated he had overdosed. His stomach was pumped. A short time later his girlfriend brought a suicide note into the hospital and five empty prescription medicine bottles were found. All were his medications he hadn't been taking.

For two hellish days his blood pressure was almost 300/164 and his heart rate was erratic and too fast. He began to run a high temperature and was unresponsive to either verbal instruction or pain stimuli. Even when his sedation was stopped, he wouldn't wake up. The doctor said it was a wait and see game but it didn't look good.

Once again all I could do was stand by a hospital bed and watch the monitors - just as I had done with Patrick not that long ago. I don't know why the rooms in critical care are kept dark but at both hospitals (Providence St. Peters and Mason General Hospital) the rooms were dark. They matched the dark desperate place in my heart and mind.

On the third day I showed up at the hospital and Bobby was not only awake, the ventilator had been removed and he was talking. He was talking but he was talking out of his head. Nothing made sense. His hand/eye coordination was way off. He was also hostile and upset. He was trying to climb over the top of the bed or over the rails. He was swearing. I think part of his agitation was caused by our inability to understand him. The doctor said it was possible that he would remain permanently in this condition depending on how long he was without oxygen and how the drugs had affected his brain.

When he was napping, I found myself standing at the window. All the anxiety and heartbreak was too much to bear. All the stress I had been through for the past six or seven weeks had taken its toll. I felt totally defeated. I stood there at that window and the only thing I looked at was the tree directly outside the window. That was all I could process. I didn't want to see the people coming and going. I didn't want to watch the cars in the parking lot. The tree was all I wanted to look at and even that took more energy than I wanted to give it.

On the following day I went to the hospital expecting more of the same uncontrollable behavior or perhaps something even worse. All night I hadn't been able to sleep wondering how I could possibly take care of my son and my husband. I was afraid to see Bobby for fear of what I might find. What I found, however, was Bobby sitting in a chair and drinking a pepsi. He was fully capable of forming his thoughts and articulating clearly. He was cheerful and upbeat. He looked and sounded better than he had in years.

The next day, which was a Sunday, a mental health professional came to the hospital to evaluate him. She, Bobby, my daughter Tiffany, and I decided that some time in an inpatient mental health facility was needed and would be appropriate. He had a really good attitude about being there and took advantage of everything they had to offer. He did so well that he was release much earlier than we had thought he would be. I had my doubts. After all Christian went to the same facility and he was released without the help he needed and we know the result of that. I didn't want history repeating itself.

It would appear I had no reason for concern. The man that took all those pills and tried to end his life was a lost and troubled soul. He was not able to cope with death of his brother by suicide two years earlier and four months later the death of his father to a heart attack. He was tormented with the thought of losing his baby to CPS because of his girl friend's drug addiction. He could no longer face her daily rages to get her drugs and her cruel and unpredictable behavior. In addition to all of that he had just learned that his one year old son had tested positive for Hepatitis C. The baby had been born drug addicted and we had hoped and prayed that the disease hadn't passed from his mother to him. All of this was too much for Bobby's tender soul.

After the lost of his first child and the subsequent end of the relationship with that baby's mother, being unable to deal with the pain, he began to use meth. He became someone I didn't know; and someone I didn't want to know. He was impatient and hostile. When high, his body movements were exaggerated; he would grind his teeth; and he would get this wild animal look in his eyes.

That person was not my kind, loving, sensitive, and caring child. He was a stranger to me; but the man that came home from the mental health facility was the son I feared I had lost forever. He had been returned to us whole and restored. He was his old self again. The girl friend has left - hopefully for good. All the external stress is gone. He looks younger and more energized than he has in years. He finally has hope for the future. He has a greater appreciation of life and feels he has a reason to live - his little boy. And we could not be happier for both of them.

I wish I could say that I'm okay as well but all this has left me reeling. I feel as though I'm only partially occupying this body I'm in. I'm not sure where I am but my mind seems to be floating around elsewhere. I feel out of touch. I suppose I'm just not grounded - yet. I really don't know how much stress the human body can take without cracking. But then again there is the saying that one doesn't know how strong they can be until they don't have any other choice. I'm not sure how to make myself well again. Hey! maybe I'm like a fresh boiled egg. I may be cracked but unless someone gets in there and pulls the pieces away, I'm going to hold on firm.