Chopping ice

After Robin died I spent a few days mostly laying in bed staring at the wall. Visitors came and went downstairs. Nothing really registered. No one asked anything of me. Occasionally I talked about helping with funeral arrangements but I didn't help with much. I didn't want to go pick out an urn. Dad and I talked about it and he went out to take care of this, the "after" business.

We'd had a winter storm a few days before Robin died. The week after was warm and the snow was melting. Even though it was melting fast I went outside and chopped ice anyway. Folks were going to be coming the following weekend so I chopped ice in the driveway, I chopped ice on the sidewalk, I chopped ice in the street in front of the house, I chopped ice in front of the neighbor's house. Though it didn't occur to me at the time, my family was probably keeping an eye on me, wondering when I was going to finish chopping the friggin' melting ice.

The stress in the last week had gotten pretty bad. Between the heavy pain medications and the cancer, in the last couple weeks Robin had become a bit paranoid and rambunctious. A regular dose of morphine for a person might be 4mg every four hours. In that same time period Robin was getting 40mg, plus the constant methodone IV. To offset the disorienting effects of the pain meds the hospice folks had recommended an antipsychotic drug which kept Robin pretty sedated, or so I thought.

The last week she started to sleep all the time. I had decided we should start cutting back on the meds so she could "wake up again" and I said as much. I got pretty pissed off with Kim and Dad who tried to remind me how upset and scared Robin had been without the sedative. The three of us ended up in the basement having a "team discussion" (well OK, team argument) about what to do, even though I insisted I still got to call the shots for Robin.

In retrospect I was just trying to get more time with her. An experiment in reduced medication didn't yield any result. Robin's body was plain tired out. I still remember the last time she said something. In the last week I'd asked if she wanted something, a drink, a mouth swab - I can't remember what I asked her - all I can remember was that even with her eyes closed she cleared her throat and worked out in a husky voice the word "yes".

If she couldn't talk anymore it didn't stop me from caring for her. When her lips and mouth got dry I used glycerin swabs to moisten them - just as I'd seen her do for her Dad when he was dying of cancer many years ago. During the day I would massage her arms and legs. Her energy had become so low that wherever I placed her hands, that's where they would stay the rest of the day. Stillness had enveloped her, her breathing in - breathing out the only sign that she was still with us.

The hospice folks were so efficient. The day after she died they picked up all the equipment. I guess it had all been on loan to us and now it was needed somewhere else. Overnight the makeshift hospital room was transformed back into a living room. Things changed so quickly back to looking normal. After all the days, weeks, months of things to do there was suddenly nothing left that needed to be done, with the sole exception that maybe someone needed to chop all that ice.