My Caretaker, My Love

So many things run through your mind while you’re lying in a hospital bed after you have a stroke. What now? What comes next? How am I going to afford to live? Who is going to help me? How am I going to get through this?

This blog post is my love letter to my husband, Jim.

When I had my stroke on May 6, 2015 I was recently engaged. Jim proposed to me in front of my two kids on Christmas Eve of 2014. We were starting to plan a quiet backyard wedding and had some basic ideas roughed out. When I had my stroke it was Jim who immediately realized something serious was wrong and got me to the hospital before I could protest. It was Jim who realized I couldn’t even walk and ran for a wheelchair to get me into the ER. He spent the whole night by my side, holding my hand and watching over me. He slept in the ICU on the couch near my bed and contacted my family and workplace for me. I was so scared and bewildered, trying to grasp what had happened to me but he was my rock. He helped me sort out the information on rehab hospitals and together we came to the right decision. At a time when he could have just cut and run, he did the unthinkable. He called me from home and simply asked, so do you want to get married? I was confused. I’d already said yes to his proposal!

“No, no…..I mean now.”

“What do you mean, now?”

“Well there’s a chapel in the rehab hospital.”

I thought about it for about two seconds and then said “OK!”

“Great, I’ll set it all up.”

And he did. He got permission to use the chapel, told everyone in my family and my closest friends, arranged for the clerk of our home town to drive to the rehab to help us fill out the forms and took care of all the details. He asked me on a Thursday and the wedding was planned for the following Tuesday. To our surprise, the hospital staff jumped in and really threw us a beautiful wedding and reception in the day room. My sister, Abbie, ordered us a beautiful wedding cake, the hospital kitchen took over the menu and they even arranged to have a beach theme for us! A framed picture of us with room for everyone to sign the matting and pitchers of iced tea for our guests completed the scene. The dress code was casual. The bride wore some leggings and a t-shirt with “Bride” spelled out in rhinestones. My dear friend Ruth went to my house and picked out a lovely blue shirt (something blue) to wear over the top and showed up for the wedding with a beautiful bouquet of peonies wrapped in ivory ribbon and secured with a brooch (something old). My parents were in town to see me and came back for the wedding so I had their support as well. Everything was perfect. My oldest brother, Brad, is an ordained minister so he did the honors for us and officiated the wedding. It was all more lovely than I could have ever imagined and I didn’t have to deal with any of the usual stress associated with a wedding. Jim did it all for me!

The day of the wedding my ADL’s (Activities of Daily Living, daily chores like showering, getting dressed, navigating the bathroom and kitchen) included my Occupational Therapist, Amy, blow drying my hair. The staff were buzzing and I must have heard, “Oh are you the one getting married?” A million times. Everyone was smiling, even my doctors all came by to sign my picture and give me their best wishes. I felt like a rock star. All because of Jim.

I think the most important gift he gave me was the gift of security. At a time when I was wondering how long before he left, he made sure I knew he wasn’t leaving me. He was going to stay by my side and we were going through this together. Later I found out that many don’t stay. Many spouses can’t deal with it and cut and run. Divorce rates in stroke patients is extremely high.

It wasn’t easy at first. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops for caregivers. Far from it. He took my tears, my anger, my frustration and all my issues, both physical and mental, and never complained about any of it. He was there for me every day in the rehab hospital. Jim attended most of my therapy sessions and spent all morning with me before he went off to his afternoon shifts at the warehouse. He learned how to help me on stairs, where to stand while I was walking and not only when to help me but when to let me do it myself. To this day, he knows me better than I know myself. I tend to try and do too much and there are times when he will just smile and say nothing as I’m planning another outing, knowing I’ll change my mind because I’m too tired.

Jim takes my bad days and makes them better. When I first came home, showers were quite an ordeal and I needed a lot of assistance. We would wind up giggling uncontrollably together over some stupid joke and shower time became something I looked forward to every day. Having to be wholly dependent on someone else can be very difficult but he makes it seem easy and anyone who knows me and how I like to be in control knows how ridiculously out of character that is for me. We laugh more than we cry. We kiss more than we fight. And now almost two years later, he still looks for ways to brighten my day.

Is he perfect? Of course, not. He’d be the first one to tell you he’s not.

But he’s perfect for me. (When Jim read my first blog post he joked, “You didn’t say enough about me.” Is that better, Jim?