With 10 surgeries under my belt I'm a pretty good patient. I know what to expect, I know what to do, I know how it feels. As a patient's spouse I'm finding I'm not as competent.
I show up in the morning, stay into the evening, and head home. I bring bottled water to drink and some days I leave the hospital for lunch and some days I bring my juice and a granola bar. One day I brought the laptop, another day I sorted through the mail, and another day read newspapers and magazines. School-related phone calls and e-mails are inudating me, but at this point I'm trying to ignore them as best I can. I mostly do Sudoku, play Words with Friends with my daughter (when she's not working) and wait for hubby to grumble something at me when he wakes up. Today I got smart and brought my slippers to change into.
But is that what I'm supposed to do? He doesn't have visitors to entertain, he doesn't have a roommate. It is just the two of us. Him sleeping and me trying to keep myself busy.
I feel guilty when I'm not there. But when I am there I feel like I don't know what I'm supposed to do (other than sit with him). Thank goodness for my pictures - I know what to do there.
Today it's the broccoli trees. When our daughter was little and we drove Farmway Road I always made comments about the broccoli trees. Having never eaten or purchased or even paid attention to broccoli before, I thought these trees resembled broccoli. Now that we've grown broccoli, I buy broccoli, and I even occasionally eat broccoli (gasp) I still think the trees look like broccoli.