Please forgive my double posting. But I wrote this just after it happened, and the scene was so real, so raw and honest, that I wanted to share it with you.
I may write more of these. I feel the need to lay it bare before you - this journey and all aspects of it; to be brutally honest in the fight we have never experienced, because most of you are likely also as in the dark as we were/are.
It helps me cope, and I hope in some way it helps all of you. One day these posts may be your story, or someone you love. You guys know how vivacious and good-humored Patrick can be. He was that way on his good days, and until recently he was like that on his bad days.
Although Patrick is an enigma - a bit rough around the edges but with a heart of gold - it's a fact that anyone around you could have similar struggles (or entirely different but just as painful and traumatizing) to what he has endured.
You never know, so please be kind.
***
The time on my phone says 12:34am. Just after midnight. I'm leaning against the bathroom door jam while Patrick gets ready for bed. Although I'm done, something tells me to stay. He didn't ask and I didn't explain.
We both know how sick he is. How fragile life is in general. We both know what is happening inside his chest that shouldn't be happening, and what's not happening that should.
But I watch him, taking in the tiny, multiplying details that discourage him.
His shoulders are thin, devoid of softness. Still the only shoulders I want to rest my head on after a long day.
The skin on his neck is loose, covered by the beard I have been asking him to grow for 17 years.
I watch as he performs mundane tasks - takes his dentures out, peels the old glue off.
He says, "Thanks for watching over me," but he doesn't stop what he's doing. He needs to finish; needs to get in bed.
But as he leans over to drop the old glue into the waste basket he haphazardly aims for the opening, missing the mark, and quickly stands back up.
"Leaning over makes it worse," he says with a grimace. His hands clutch at his stomach. "Pins and needles," he says, giving me a worried glance. "It's like my stomach is wrapped in pins and needles."
He resumes getting ready for bed as I watch, noting the thinness of his arms and legs, the skin on his lower belly that just months ago held a soft layer of fat. He looks small. Frail.
"What are you?" I ask, because I never quite understand the magnitude of his symptoms. How could I? They are intensely felt internally, yet only vaguely detected externally. "On a scale…"
My prompt makes him wince.
"Eight," he says, but his thin face reveals it may be higher. He clutches at his stomach again, as though he wishes he could squeeze it like a wet washcloth, watching the pain and torment drip off his hands. I wish it too, and look on, helpless.
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