Mr. C can't talk. It's not that he won't but he can't, due to the stroke.
When he got his talking valve for his trach I thought,
"Today is the day. He's going to talk."
Nothing.
They thought maybe his size 8 trach was too big so they decided to switch it to a 7 a few days later. I waited anxiously. When the day came, as the Respiratory therapist were doing the switch, I thought again,
"Yes! Today is the day I will hear his voice."
And yet again, nothing but a whisper of rambling words.
The Respiratory therapists said,
"Well maybe when his trach comes all the way out he can talk. That happens to some people, you know."
On Friday, they took his trach out. And it was shortly after I realized that it wasn't those obstacles from the trach preventing him from talking, it was his brain.
He doesn't seem like he is fully here but he is here. Mr. C knows exactly what he wants to say but it comes out as a jumbled mess. Mr. C gets really upset and frustrated at this. Who wouldn't? He is all cooped up in his brain and has no where to go, nothing to say, and he has to listen to me gab at him 24/7. But he is here. Alive and here and ready to make a full recovery.
Before, we were focused on survival. I was focused on the words of the Doctors that first night, "We don't know if he'll make it. And if he does we don't know if his life will have meaning." I was focused on that and Mr. C was striving to defy the odds. And he did. He made it. He isn't the infamous Superman but he got here. Sometimes he needs reminders of why he fought, sometimes I need a reminder of why I'm proud to keep fighting with him. My Dad has a quote in his room that has been there since I was twelve. I thought about it often, and now I think about it everyday. So on a gloomy afternoon for Mr. C, I thought of the quote and told it to him:
"Anybody can handle the battles of just ONE day. It is when we add the burdens of yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. Let us live one day at a time."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. And I said to him,
"It's so true. Don't think about what you already went through, or what you have to go through. Think about today. Today you can handle. We can conquer today."
You want to know a secret?
Sometimes when I tell him things like that....
I'm really saying it out loud to myself.
Cheers to Today!
.jpg)
