OH MY ACHING ARSE ET AL

I am not kidding either. It's not just my arse that hurts but everything; my right hip is the worst - can't even touch it. What I would give for a rub-down. Most people would not understand but chronic pain is the worst thing to live with and if you do something to make it worse, you might as well forget it.

Five years ago, or maybe six, or seven, I went to my Catholic grammar school reunion; it was like the 33rd year. While there, I remet the kid who lived around the corner from me who used to torture me most of my life. If you don't think that you can fall in love on the spot, think again. He didn't care that I was sick; he didn't care that I was in such excrutiating pain. All he cared about was me and spending his life with me. He, himself had a physical disability that his parents never paid any attention to but I loved this guy like there was no tomorrow. We had so much fun together and he'd rather have me lay on the couch with my head in his lap while he watched a football game on weekends than to have me in bed. We had plans, future plans and when he realized he loved me like I loved him, he decided to have surgery to remove the blood clots from his legs. The physical disability I was talking about was his spine.

At the top of each leg and the pulmonary artery, he had screens so the blood clots would not pass through. We saw his doctor who put him on aspirin therapy, did a stress test on his legs and in a week, was getting chest pains because he could not breathe. So one day at work, he brought his truk back and took himself to the hospital. First mistake. I tried getting ahold of his physcian but would not take my calls. He even had a cot brought into his room for me, wanted me to drive his car for it was safer than mine but we were actually having a hurricane here in New England so I had to make the drive back and forth. I noticed changes, ie TIA's, the meds they were giving him, the IV of Heparin which should never have been given to him and I tried to find the doctor who was treating him for I had his history. But never was he around. One of the pills they were giving him, I had stopped and he refused to take them after listening to me. The Heparin was breaking down the clots into tiny pieces and going through the screen to his lungs, his heart and his brain. I wanted it stopped but couldn't find the doctor anywhere at anytime to let him know that was a huge mistake.

When I finally was able to bring him home, they told him they found a small clot in his heart but it was nothing to worry about. Ya, right. He couldn't even walk straight and my heart was tearing apart. I brought him home on a Saturday and he still felt like he could not breathe. He did okay on Sunday and Monday; asked for 2 weeks off so we could move his place out and move in with me. We talked about marriage, even the kind of ring I wanted. He measured the wall in my bedroom so he could remove it and put a curtain up so if I had to be bedbound, the drapes would be open and we could see one another.

Early Tuesday morning around 4:25, his usual time to get up for work, he got up to go to the bathroom. Since I had one attached to my bedroom, he only needed to take two steps fro his side of the bed and as he shut the door and turned on the light simultaneously, there was a loud crash. I don't think I ever moved that fast but I was in the bathroom in miliseconds and found him face down on the floor. I rolled him over, listened to his chest, yelled NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and ran through my house, grabbing a bathrobe, the phone, turning on lights as I was going through and opened the front door before running back to the bathroom, dialing 911 and telling the person on the other end that my boyfriend was dead, put down the phone and started CPR except I kept getting blood in my mouth.

The ambulance was there in like two minutes and as they entered my house yelling, I yelled back "Over here in my bathroom" and I looked up to find four burly men at the bathroom door. I scrambled out of the way so they could get in and they put those new stick em jumpers for the heart on him immediately and tried to find an airway. It was so small for all of them that they picked up his naked body and carried it out to my kitchen. Before I knew it one of them had run out to the truck to get the orange basket and I knew what that meant.

I couldn't pass the firemen, so I tried getting to my room through the living room, knocking over our precious glass decanters and cutting myself. One of the EMT'S yelled at the cop that he should be watching me and then asked me if I was allrght. Sure I was just bleeding over the place from my knees. Finally with everything and all equipment, they brought him out in the orange bucket, told the cop to bring me up the hospital. Changed real fast and by the time I reached the hospital, the paramedics had already left and I ran in to find a shitload of people in the Emergency Room. Once the doctor saw it was me, he told the people to let me by and as I stood there watching them working on him - more like doing it for my sake, I gave the doctor his history. And he said "why the hell did they ever let him leave the hospital?" (another hospital in MA) I then made a phone call to his brother and one of the other doctors came in and shook his head. I told his brother he was dead. I walked back to the room, saw they were still working on him basically for my benefit and someone wanted to cut my jeans so they could stitch up the cutes from the glass I fell on earlier. I looked at one of the EMT's and said "aren't you tired?" She told me they were takiing turns. He was dead and nothing could bring him back. His pulmonary artery burst from the buildup of clots there and his lungs were full of blood so I asked them to please stop, clean him up for me (and the cubicle) so I could have some private time with him to say goodbye.

Then I went off with about six other people, pulled down my pants so they could stitch my knees, had a tetanus shot that hurt like hell for weeks, made a phone call to my present roommate. Told him I was at the hospital and that Bob was dead. "I'll be right there." It didn't take long but after being stitched up and stuff I walked back to the room where he was laying and it was spotless. The only thing you could see was my fiancee' lying on a gurney, all wrapped up like a mummy and looking like he was ten years old.

The doctor saw me kiss him and told me to be careful because the blood was all the way up his esophagus and mouth and I nodded I knew that. Then they let me be. Of course everyone had gone to their posts throughout the hospital and the ones in the ER couldn't look at me; they were making busy work.

So I sat there for a little while, talked to him and to God and then this guard came in; I guess he was also a minister so they assigned him to me. To this day, I don't know why God took him away from me; hadn't he aready done enough? Finally the guard/minister went outside with me while I had a cigarette and that's when my roommate pulled up. He followed me back in and was taken aback by what he saw. He came over to me, knelt down and told me how sorry he was; that he knew we were so much in love and that was obvious to anyone who saw us and the tears just fell down his face. My fiancee looked very much at peace and it was like all the years and torture of his life just melted away. Along with our dreams and plans and a lifetime we could have lived if that other hospital hadn't interferred and treated him in the way they did.

About 6, his brother showed up, looked at his brother, ignored me and walked out. They didn't even tell me about the wake or funeral but the funeral parlor did and they knew I should have been in that receiving line.

Before 7, the doctor came in and said they had to mov him before the hospital got busy and I knew what that meant, too. To the morgue.

At the wake, I went up to him, kissed him on the lips, kissed him on the forehead and if you've never done this to a dead embalmed person, don't unless you know what to expect. Then I laid my cheek on his forehead, causing the entire place to tears and told him I loved him. I wasn't even invited to after the funeral part and what he did have they took from me and I know he would never have allowed that if he was still alive. I think that if they knew, they would not have cared anyway.

He was only 46 years old. Just weeks after the court took away my son, who did not want to leave, because my ex-husband said that anyone in a wheelchair couldn't possibly bring up a child. Hell, he was 15 and I had done just fine since his birth. This all happened within two weeks; I was vulnerable, grief-striken and could handle no more. While I was walking around the neighborhood in my socks, crying and talking to myself, my roomate cleaned up the blood in the bathroom and kitchen and all the glass I broke when I fell.

Love or no love, people aren't meant to be alone; it's that simple. Although I'd like to find love, I was lucky enough to find it twice so I don't think my number will come up again, so sharing my life, adventures and nonadventures alike, with someone is what I am looking for these days. Like being here at the lake - what good does it do to be alone?

Peter posted a comment below and he hit the nail on the head. I thank him for that understanding and compassion. And I sincerely hope he's happy because it's just not normal to be alone all the time but especially when you're chronically ill and disabled for you wonder why God still has you on this earth.

Love what you have for you never know when you might lose it.

(read "About Me.")