The Fragile Heart

I think I may have mentioned in a previous blog that my husband has congestive heart failure. If it is a tiresome recurring theme, please forgive me. It is an all consuming fact of my life that a man who I am so completely devoted to has such a serious illness.

Bobby got sick when he was 15 years old and has been sick ever since. He was actually stable for a while until our apartment burned down. When our cat bit his thumb that day, it got infected. It was three times it's normal size and oozing out of the teeth marks. He spent 4 days in the hospital getting IV antibiotics while the doctors tried to avoid amputation of the thumb. An infection of this magnitude will screw with anyone's body, but in Bobby's case, it aggrivated his heart condition. My sick man got even sicker.

So, now he's going to have open heart surgery. It is happening in less than two weeks. They are going to remove his paracardium, the sac around the heart. Basically, the doctors want to peel his heart like an orange in order to give it some room to relax. All of this isn't really important, what I care about is after. I care about if he's going to get better.

Now is the time when you can see inside my head, devoted reader, because on this subject all words go straight from my brain to the computer. I am TERRIFIED! What am I supposed to do? I have always defined my self as a strong, independent, non- conventional woman. I never thought I'd put myself into the role of trying to be a good wife, until I met Bobby.

The thing about Bobby is that he doesn't want me to be a good 'wife', he wants me to be a good person. He doesn't expect me to cook or clean for him, in fact he does it for me. He has always given me the support I needed to be a good cook, a good student, a good employee, a good daughter, a good person. He's always encouraged me to follow my dreams and I've always known he'd go wherever my goals and aspirations too me.

Until now, that was the case. Now it really is my turn to be a good wife. He needs me to be there for him. He can't work, I have to earn the money. He won't be able to get out of bed on his own. I have to be there to cook for him, clean for him, help him move, shower, potty, walk, everything. How can I do this and earn the money? I'm overloaded.

My biggest worry, though, is that something will go wrong on the operating table. I don't know what I'd do if I lost my guy. He's sweet and loving and caring and wonderful. He's perfect inspite of all of his imperfections, and because of them. I always thought of myself as a single entity and if I found a guy to share life with, it was just icing on the cake. But now I find that I need this relationship. I need for the man I love to be safe and healthy and I don't know what I'll do if he's not.

I feel myself wanting to scream in the middle of the day. I stay awake all hours of the night to watch him breath, because it is comforting to know that he's breathing. I want to cry but I can't because my role is to be strong and supportive. How can I be scared and in pain in front of a man that is potentially facing death. What am I supposed to do? I search for things to annoy me about him so that if something goes wrong I can focus on how I didn't really need him, but I can't find enough to annoy me.

I'm swirling around in a tornado that no one and nothing created trying to find the way out of the eye. I'm lost and I'm scared and the 'right thing to do' just doesn't exist here. The lights inside my head flicker on and off and I have no control over the switch. I'm in foreign territory and I want to go home to my safe, solitary world where there is nothing and no one to worry about. Nothing is real when you're alone, you are the only person your actions effect and you can effect yourself in any way you choose. The obligation of my duty as a wife is crushing and I feel myself breaking, but I can't imagine doing anything else anymore. I long for a life devoid of meaning, yet I have no desire to walk away.

The few moments of the day when I get to sit and clear my head and Bobby and I are just sitting, just taking eachother in and looking at eachother, I am elated. The lights are on and flooding everything with brightness. These are the moments I live for. I am addicted to this feeling. The feeling of knowing, beyond a shadow of a dought, that I am loved and have love to give back. The sensation of the world floating away and nothing matters because right now, this instant everything is perfect. These are magic moments that make anything I go through worth it.

I live in fear of these moments being ripped from my grasp. My happiness being stolen from me like it is a nice bike I left unlocked in a bad neighborhood. I feel blindly into the darkness for something to hold onto, a room with a locked door where I can put my happiness for safekeeping. The room doesn't exist. Bobby has my heart. I gave it to him freely. If his physical heart breaks, if he dies, I don't think I will get my heart back. He will take it with him wherever it goes.

How can I live without a heart?