Heavy

After I ran the Bridge to Brews 8k last weekend, I found out some sad news.  My uncle (mom's side) was in the hospital in a medically induced coma.

It wasn't a shock that he was in the hospital at all because he's been struggling with health problems the past few years anyway, but the prognosis didn't look great at that moment and it was the start of a very long week.

A little background may be in order.

My mom comes from a very large family, I believe it's something like 12 children total, umpteen grandchildren from them, and I think around 17 great grand children for my grandparents.  My mom grew up in upstate NY, near Buffalo.  Every sibling is COMPLETELY different and so going back to visit is always a trip.  Most of them live in that area still, but my mom lives here in the Pacific NW, and so does one of her older brothers, Jim, who lives about an hour and a half South of us in the Sweet Home/Albany area.  She also has one sister who lives in Oklahoma.

Jim is the uncle/brother that lives up here near us.  He is one of the sweetest, gentlest people you have ever met with a heart of pure gold.   He will help out anyone in need and I've never heard him say a mean or harsh word in my life.  He has a great sense of humor and is always laughing about something.  A few years back he was having trouble with his lungs.  He got it checked out but found out that he had a condition in which the sacs in your lungs gradually harden so they no longer hold or release air the way they should (the name escapes me right now).  The doctors told him that depending on how the diseased progressed, he probably didn't have very long.  That was almost 6 years ago. 

 Last year things started turning for the worse and they had to put him on constant oxygen, so he has to carry around a little oxygen tank 24-7 with those tubes that you put under your nose.  He was getting weaker so they told him to take it easy.  Last month he got dizzy and fell while he was cleaning his oxygen face mask and broke his leg.  Everything looked alright, but they knew it would be slow healing for him.  Last week they found a blood clot from his leg had traveled up to his lungs and was causing tremendous pain and difficulty.  He had a coughing fit and just couldn't stop coughing so his wife took him back to the hospital where they sedated him into a coma (on purpose) so he could rest.  They had to put him on a ventilator as well so that he would continue to breathe.

That's where we are now.  They were going to take the ventilator out, but decided they should decrease his oxygen levels to make him work harder and work back up to breathing on his own.  That could take a while, so he is still in the hospital.  He is stable now, but that changes very quickly, so we have been on high alert since the weekend.  We don't know if he will ever be able to breathe on his own again, which leads to some very difficult decisions for the family.

Of course my extended family wanted to come out and visit him, so we've had people coming and going all week.  I took some time off of work to venture down and see him with my grandma, aunt and parents.  We stayed most of Tuesday, just hanging out in the ICU waiting room trying to occupy ourselves and catching up with some of our other relatives. 

We haven't been doing much of anything from our normal schedule.  I'm back at work, but you know how that is.  I haven't been focusing on my diet or exercise or reading my books or getting my house projects done... we just hang out and wait to hear things, and pick up our visiting family members and take them to the hospital, and then we wait around some more, then we take people back home or to the airport and wait again. 

It has been such a long, stressful week.  I know there is nothing I can do to help or to change things- that whatever is going to happen will happen- but just waiting around is hard and tiring.  I want to crawl into bed and stay there for days.

I just feel heavy this week.