My Brother’s Keeper- Part II

It’s amazing what modern medicine can do. And I’m not seeing the the half of it! In less than 24 hours, by simply administering antibiotics, morphine and oxygen, you can apparently pull a man from his deathbed, into a totally different reality!

When I finally arrived in Worcester (about 24 hours after I had received “The Call”) I walked into the ICU and found my big brother, sitting up in bed, eating and talking! The first thought I had was of that horrible day back on July 6th 2014, when I walked into Arielle’s hospital room, for the very first time, and found her happily eating a baked potato with beans and cheese! (https://rantingsofamadwomanblog.com/2014/07/10/a-mothers-worst-nightmare-a-jacket-potato-beans-and-cheese-please/)

Being that my brother has those “Grassel Genes,” the first thing he said to me was “What are you doing here?” In my head, my response was, ” Why yes Tommy, it’s nice to see you too!” I don’t actually remember what came out of my mouth, but it wasn’t as sarcastic, thank God!

I have now been here about 32 hours and because I’m functioning on about 6 hours of very fractured sleep (only 3 hours of which were in an actual bed!) my time here has been a disoriented blur.

It doesn’t help that Tommy’s room doesn’t have a window, so you can’t tell if it’s night or day. I’m not really eating properly, so you can’t tell the time of day based on the meal you’re eating. And the nurses work 12 hour shifts, so the time seems to pass very slowly, but at the same time, it passes quickly!

There are moments that I forget how sick my brother is, as we laugh while recalling some odd snippet from our past… Then there are other moments, when I’m painfully reminded of exactly how sick he is and Cant help wondering how this is going to work out?

Again I remember the nice nurse’s advice from yesterday, “One day at a time… One day at a time.”