Weeks go by and Amanda's still not home

Here’s a little trap

That sometimes catches everyone

When today’s as far as we can see

Faith in bright tomorrows

giving way to resignation

That’s how it is – how it’s going to be

It’s such a cloudy day

Seems we’ll never see the sun

Or feel the day has possibilities

Frozen in the moment –

the lack of imagination

Between how it is and how it ought to be

- Rush, "How It Is"

A repost of a Facebook post from last Friday:

I got to see Amanda have her surgical wound tended to today.

Part high-tech (vacuum machine, space-age polymers), part barbaric (picking bits of flesh off with tweezers and rinsing a chasm of an incision with salty water).

I can't imagine how excruciating her pain must be, and how vulnerable it must make her feel to have her insides exposed, with materials being applied and removed to and from a deep slice right through her core.

Lending a hand until it turns purple.

And I don't know how she endures it without blacking out or throwing up every time it happens.

And I don't know how she didn't squeeze the fingers right off my hand as I sat by the bed, but a few fingertips would've been small potatoes compared to what she's endured so far.

--

At the time I wrote that, we thought she might be coming home on Tuesday of this week.

That didn't happen.

There's significant improvement: She's eating again. She's drinking again. Her wound is healing, sort of. She's still leaking fluids. She has no overt signs of systemic infection. She's off the IV and is on less pain control medicine now.

But her stoma -- the hole in her belly where she's supposed to be pooping into a bag -- is not producing. In other words, her new poop setup isn't pooping. And that's a problem.

She went for another CT scan today. Depending on what that reveals, they could wait and watch, or .... I don't really know the other "or" options ... or do another surgery which would roll the recovery all the way back to zero again and perhaps result in another ostomy.

She was supposed to have been in hospital for a week. I think we're on week four now.

Amanda misses Gordon like crazy. He misses her, too. Of course, I miss her as well.

I don't have much new to say other than I'm really kind of sick of hospitals again. I mean, the staff here in London have been terrific, and the hospital itself is just fine. I'm just tired of her being there, and I'm tired of going. That's all. It's not like any of us were ever "up" about this, but it's really worn out its charm, if there ever was any.

Hey, I have some gory photos to share, but I won't. Too gory, too private. I'll just say that looking at Amanda's wide-open surgical scar was roughly equivalent to seeing all the different ways you can cook a steak, from fresh to rare to medium to well-done. The rare section is going to heal up nicely. The well-done section will have to be "debrided" which is a strange word for cutting off dead stuff until you get to something that bleeds. (Don't click the link if you're bothered by maggots.)

On the up side, Gordon is still a freakin' laugh riot when he's not acting up. He's done a lot of fun stuff with family: Auntie Duff has taken him to his first movie and to Storybook Gardens to see horses and sled dogs and roast marshmallows; Auntie Amy has had him over for tacos and hip-hop dancing; Auntie Shannon took him to the farmers' market at the Western Fair District; and he always has shrieking, dancing, leaping up and down fun with Nana and Grandpa. I snapped this photo of G waiting for Grandpa on a snowy morning this past weekend.

Waiting for grandpa.

And I'm having fun with him, too. So much fun, even as we've both been fighting a cold.

He's been an absolute treat as he gets more enjoyment out of music. How lucky am I to have a toddler who ASKS to listen to Rush and Ween? And he wants to go into the studio to play the instruments and jam.



I love being his dad.

I look forward to having his mom home to share in the fun! Yeah, we have no idea when it will be, but I try to imagine that however long it is, every day is one day closer to having it happen.