remembering...............

when I opened the door, with the exception of the water running in the kitchen sink, the house was dark and quiet. Not a good sign.

I called, "Tom? Tom?" No answer. I turned off the kitchen faucet and began to go through the house calling his name. When I got to the doorway of my home office, there he was, laying on the floor, still in his pajamas. I ran to him - his eyes were open, he was still breathing. I turned his head to the side to prevent aspiration and ran for the phone.

Our home is one quarter of a mile from the firehouse. They were there very quickly. Tom was taken to Woodwinds - a beautiful holistic hospital near our house. I did not go in the ambulance - I had done this before. I knew I would need my car. I started to think of rehab and the path back to wholeness. I was so upset at finding him, a couple of weeks later I would discover I had chipped a tooth, probably by snapping my teeth together.

When I arrived at the emergency room and they took me into the treatment room the first thing I saw were the glen plaid pajamas, cut off his body and thrown on the floor along with all sorts of medical detritus.

Tom had been intubated and they were preparing him to have a cat scan. The emergency room nurse let me stand at the foot of the gurney and hold onto Tom's toe. I asked, "this doesn't look good does it?" She told me no. However, hope abounded - we had done two strokes before this incident. I knew we could do another recovery.

We were transferred to ICU and at 10:30 pm I looked up to see our family doctor walk into the room. That was not a good sign.

remembering.................