(4-2-09)
Looks like I wont be alone after all.
How to put the story together so it will makes sense….here goes:
DH cut his hand a couple of weeks ago. When I first saw it, it looked red, inflamed and dirty. I told him to wash it, put some antibiotic ointment on it and bandage it. He refused to do so. I felt very frustrated, but decided that I couldn’t make him take care of it so I let it go.
Fast-forward to yesterday afternoon. DS1 (my son) had a med check with his pdoc. DH took him. Pdoc sees DH’s very swollen, red hand and says, let me look at that. You need to see the doc, it’s infected. You need to see the doc NOW.
DS1 runs into the house when they get home and tells me what his doc said to DH. I demand to see DH’s hand, demand that DH tell me what DS1’s doc said, and proceed to call the clinic to get him in.
After a frustrating conversation with our local clinic, I contact urgent care and get him in to be seen within the hour.
I lose it.
Here is my secret. I feel that this is my fault. I feel guilty that I didn’t realize, or even notice how bad his hand was. I didn’t tell him to go to the doctor. I didn’t insist that he take care of the wound. I was too self centered, too occupied with my own damn self to even consider that other people have problems, too. But I did this to him. It doesn’t make any sense, but I really feel responsible for this.
I feel tremendous guilt. I feel extreme worry, I think he’ll be put in the hospital, and he may be put in tomorrow by the hand specialist, but that’s getting ahead of the story. I feel tremendous anger at DH for allowing it to get this bad. He’s not stupid. He knew it was getting really bad last week he admitted to me tonight. So I yell at him. I yell at him and I yell at him and I yell some more. I feel frantic. I want to yell and scream and hit him. I need to chill. I refuse to go to the clinic with him get my hair cut instead. I’m a jumble of conflicting emotions.
I get my hair cut, call home and lose it again. I call my T for coaching. He understands that I’m upset, he understands that there is something else driving this reaction but I can’t tell him that this is all my fault. I can see him using rational mind, asking questions like, did you smear crap in it to infect it, did you keep him from going to the doctor or cleaning and dressing the wound…and of course I did not.
But he wont understand that I feel that this really is my fault anyway, he wont understand the guilt and I cannot explain it.
This is what my mind is telling me….You are such a self centered bitch that you couldn’t see that your husband’s hand is cooking an infection that could kill him?? And that’s all you can do is piss and moan and whine about your own damn self? You piece of shit. You selfish, whining, cunt. You deserve to die. I try to push these thoughts away but can’t. They are no longer words, they’ve become imprinted on my soul.
I freak out every time I see DH and his grotesquely swollen, reddened hand. When I spoke with T, I told him that I wouldn’t go for a long drive, but I did. After I get home, after talking to T, I freak out. If I stay I’m gonna take pills. I lose control, am on the brink of yelling and yelling and yelling some more so I leave.
I lose the fucking cell phone somewhere in my car. It’s turned on, I can’t figure out how to turn the fucking ringer on, I can’t talk and drive at the same time so I throw it and now I can’t find it.
I want to drive hard and fast. The music is cranked so loud I can’t think. I blow the speakers. I set the cruise because I keep finding myself really going fast. I realize that I have no cell, no money and it’s late. This scares me, but not enough to make me go home.
The radio blares the song “Spirit In The Sky.” I start to sing along. Then I start to actually listen to what I’m singing:
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky
Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky
That’s where I’m gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best…
Is the “Spirit in the Sky” telling me to get my ass home, that DH is dying of this raging infection and worthless piece of shit that I am, I’m driving because I’m too selfish to put aside my own shit to help DH?? I drive until the urge to drive is gone. I drive until I am burnt out. I turn the car around and go home.
It’s after midnight. I wake DH and take his temperature. Only 98.3. This is good news, I hope. I look at the boundary of infection marked in ink by the doctor to assess if the infection has spread. Who the hell am I trying to kid, I’m no doctor. He doesn’t feel worse. Still angry, I tell him that if he ever does this again I will kill him he wont have to worry about any infection rotting his arm away. Of course I don’t mean this literally.
I turn on the TV. John Edward is talking to the dead. I’m not kidding. If this “Spirit in the Sky” is trying to tell me something, it really has a twisted sense of humor. John Edwards has not graced our TV screen for quite a few years.
I feel like I have to clean. I do the dishes, clean the counters, mop the floor. Aside from 2 antibiotic shots in the ass and a tetanus shot in the arm, DH has to take Keflex around the clock. Next dose is at 4 am. I wait until 4:00, wake him and give him his medicine and go to my room.
I haven’t eaten today. I don’t deserve to eat. Fuck eating. Fuck hunger.
It’s 5:00 am and I’m too wound up to sleep. Do I take extra seroquel or not? He has to see a hand specialist in the morning, who will most likely admit him to the hospital from what DH tells me. I need to be awake and strong and advocate for him. I have to make up for giving him this infection. For being a selfish bitch. For being worthless and thankless. I have to atone.
I’m shaking deep within my belly my whole being is shaking and I cannot relax. I’m hanging on to sanity by my fingernails. I’m assaulted by guilt, by crazy thoughts but I have to hold on and be strong and I can’t let anyone know what is going on because I know that it’s crazy but I can’t get myself to believe that it is not true. So I try to shove it down but it keeps coming back so I push it away again and again and again.
I can’t stop shaking. My arms are shaking, my legs are shaking, my gut is shaking, my chest is tight. Why the fuck can’t I just die? Why the fuck couldn’t this horrid infection have happened to me instead? So I sit in my bed and rock and rock and rock some more.
