More time.

Stryker. That's the brand of all the hospital beds at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minneapolis. I know because that's what I was staring at when the pain and palliative doctor told us we had hours left with Dermot. We had discussed his healthcare directive, how aggressive we wanted his care to be, and what was off the table. The whole time, my gaze was fixed on the bottom of the bed frame. STRYKER. The doctor told us of the insane off-the-chart Procalitonin reading of 143.10, how he and his colleagues had never seen a number so high, and his CRP was 17.02, also off the charts.

We discussed our options: do we say goodbye now, or give him Norepinephrine to buy us some time to bring his brothers in to say goodbye? What? What the fuck is happening right now? Is this really happening right now? Wait, this is happening right now. 

I thought about the house we're building. We'll have to change the design now, cut out the other half of the house that's dedicated to Dermot and his caregivers. The house will be that much smaller. Then I cut to where the funeral will be held. What pastor will say kind words to Dermot? I'm back to the discussion. My husband and I hold each other close, confirm our love for one another, and our love for Dermot. We reassured ourselves of everything we had given to Dermot in the last 19 years and everything we had given up.

The doctor talked some more; you could tell he's done this before. We had a plan. No extraordinary measures will be taken. The next 12 hours will be crucial. We will see what the evening brings. We'll need to keep the MAP consistently above 60 for him to survive the sepsis. We would get his brothers to his bedside in the morning for their final goodbyes.

PICU would be our resting place. We both assumed we'd stay the night. I gave Joe the bed, and I slept restlessly in the recliner. My feet hung off the edge, the chair uprighting itself whenever I moved in the wrong direction.

I woke up halfway at 12:30. I surmised that something critical was happening from all of the voices, the panicky tone, and the movement of the curtain beside me. I distinctly remember deciding not to get up. I heard Joe's voice amid the commotion and decided to sit this one out. Unaware of how long this went on, I fell back to sleep at some point. This was too much for my heart to take in.

I woke up around 8:20 in the morning to the sound of my husband discussing Dermot's stats and nighttime experience with a tall, thin, blond-haired doctor. She told of the oxygen level dipping down to 43 percent and had the whole PICU team in our room. I had bowed out of that experience. I would discuss later that day with Joe that, after hearing Joe's voice in the mayhem, I decided to disengage.

I was self-protecting. Which was made easier because Joe was there. He told me he was disturbed that I hadn't woken up, but I reassured him that I would have had he not been there.

So day number eight is here. Dermot is still in the PICU, although we were moved to the step-down unit on the other side of the floor. "That's progress," the pulminologist stated. 

Progress. 

I wonder about progress. What does that mean? 

"Forward or onward movement, as toward a destination." Says Google.

Progress means weeks in the hospital.

Progress means constant monitoring.

Progress means twice-daily blood tests.

Progress means chest x-rays and lab results.

Progress means twenty-four hours off, twenty-four hours on for Joe and me. 

Progress means missed obligations and routines.

Progress means building more traumatic memories and thoughts of despair.

More energy put towards the juxtaposition that happens from hospital to home.

The mind fuck I've just been through, and figuring out how to process it.

The shame I feel for admitting that,
for a short time during that first night, I felt relief thinking all of this would soon be over.

I'm here at my kitchen table feeling all of this. I cried in my bed last night. My ever devoted doberman keeping my feet warm under the covers. Shame, loss, regret, and sorrow are all solitary emotions. Emotions I needed to feel and still feel. 

I get constant emails regarding new lab results, and each time I secretly prepare myself for bad news, I plug the answers into ChatGPT for a proper explanation of the truth. 

The truth today is that Dermot is still here. Still in the hospital, still alive. We don't know if he'll come back to baseline or come home with an entirely new baseline; those are questions answered by time. More time. More time. We have more time with our son, more time with our heartache, more time with our backbreaking schedule, and required tasks. The Nurses will still come, the PCAs will be in our house. The medications will still need to be picked up, the briefs still changed, the bowel movements still tracked, and the oxygen level still monitored. 

My job is to process, show up and find meaning in all of this.