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The Goldfish in a Jar
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While Jeff's health continued to stabilize, I continued my constant battle against my own health issues. I had a particular thorny battle with my small fiber autonomic polyneuropathy when it flared up out of nowhere. I dropped my blood pressure into the 60s over 30s, and spiked my heart rate sky high. Originally I was conscious in the ER and assumed I just had low potassium again. Then I passed out and woke up on life support three days later.
My current nursing care team was only made up of two people. Laurie, my PCA, and Jackie, my nurse. However, about a week earlier, my nurse Jackie had dropped the bucket of bad news over my head. She was going back to school to become a nurse practitioner. After posting a whole lot of Facebook ads and interviewing three to four nurses, I made contact with Melody. As I tried to describe the nursing care I required in medical terms, Jeff butted in. He gave her the rundown on what I was like and how my care worked. Jeff described me as some sort of high-tech, inflatable Barbie doll toy. He explained that I needed to be hooked up to charge overnight. Melody grinned at me, “I’m up for a challenge! I’d like to do more than just provide nursing care and keep you alive. I’d like to see you thrive. If you decide to hire me, we can do lots of awesome stuff together. We can drive down to see your parents and grandparents. Other times we can go to the park with Jeff to race remote control cars. Or we can go to the mall to shop at The Children's Place or Justice. Sometimes we can even do art projects together. I would really love if you could share some of your writing with me!
"I am head over heels in love with you," Jeff would call to tell me every morning around 6:30 AM, "Oh are you awake?" "I'm awake now," I would tell him, "and I am so in love with you my heart is swollen to the size of a beach ball." It was all part of our morning routine. "Did you take your Lactulose or your morning meds yet?" I would ask him “No, I forgot, I’ll take them right now,” he would tell me. On the other end of the phone, I would hear rustling noises. Jeff was grabbing the lactulose and then opening his mini-fridge where he kept the Coca-Cola. He used Coca-Cola as a chaser for his nasty tasting Lactulose that he hated so much. I could hear gulping noises, then a disgusted noise followed by a desperate chugging of Coca-Cola. After that, I heard the rattling of pills and more swallowing noises.