Snow Day

I can’t speak for all educators, but this teacher right here loves SNOW Days. It makes me almost feel sorry for teachers in Hawaii. Maybe they have hurricane days? Right now I am bundled up in my Snoopy pajamas and the softest blanket on record, looking at the window. I can really only see the sky from my bed and it’s white and gray and looks cold. I have a lot on my mind today. Some people make a to do list; I make a “let me overthink this list.”

1. I realize that if I never went back to work, I wouldn’t even care. Perhaps that’s another reason I made the change so late in my career. It’s so much easier to let go when you don’t have a good hold.
2. I need a beading needle. That requires putting actual clothes on, scraping the ice off a windshield. The Honda doesn’t have that much gas in, so I would also have to get gas. Why do I always need gas in the worst weather? I could take the truck. Should I really drive across town just for a beading needle? I could also get a few groceries.
3. I wonder if my brother is awake. Should I call him? Wait for him to call me? If I do go out to get a needle, should I physically go check on him? Help him take down the Christmas decorations? Maybe check on his gun situation and slip the ammunition in my pocket?
4. I am listening to the radio. My sister-in-law just came on with her hospice commercial. That’s irony. She finally found a job she loves with grief counseling and now she is possibly facing hospice.
5. How do I talk about what happened with her over the weekend?

Trisha woke up on Saturday. Her tube was removed. The brain bleed damaged her gag reflex and she is in pretty severe danger of asphyxiation. Normally, in these situations, a feeding tube would be inserted, but because of the risk of infection, nothing has been done about a feeding tube. She could handle small sips of water, so that’s what she is doing. She can talk, but it is slow and hard, and very difficult for her to make herself understood. When the tube was removed, hospice came in, this was not what the family was expecting. The hospital is saying if cancer treatment stops then she will die. Oncology wasn’t available for consultation over the weekend. The strokes and brain bleed have left her partially paralyzed and the gag reflex issue makes the rigors of chemotherapy almost inconceivable to imagine. But yet she has not given up. The fight is on.

To be honest, I am more worried about my brother than her. When my parents died, he sort of lost his mind. He went to a dark place and Trisha really stood by him and helped him through all his stages of grief. She is his whole world. I think she knows that he will not be okay without her and it is keeping her in the game. As far as the next steps, we are all just taking it moment by moment.

The sun is starting to sort of filter through the clouds, bringing a bit of light that is almost warm. It feels like hope.