My body tried to kill me a few nights ago.
This is the thing with being the only adult in the household: When you start uncontrollably and inexplicably hemorrhaging in the middle of the night, you start to worry about which fellow adult in your life you should contact before you pass out.
You also wait, hoping things are not as dire as they seem. Even when a worrisome amount of blood is literally pouring (gushing?) out of you.
Before long, you realize that yes, you might actually lose consciousness soon. So you go back to thinking about who to call, momentarily missing your ready-for-every-eventuality rock of a husband.
Why not an ambulance, you ask?
Because if your personal history includes a traumatic chapter involving another adult in your household leaving for the emergency room in the middle of the night, never to come back again, this does not seem like a viable option when you are the adult in jeopardy. Especially if those who were previously traumatized include children.
But who to call?
Lucky for you, your friend Ron picks up and agrees to drive you to the ER. And although you do not ask him to, he drives like a bat out of hell. (Thankfully, it is 3:30 in the morning, and there are no other cars on the road.)
Before this, however, you have to wake your 14-year-old daughter to help you dress and get down the stairs. As calmly as you could.
In spite of the crime scene in your bathroom.
The other thing that happens is you refuse to seriously consider death as a potential outcome, although it lingers in the periphery of your thoughts. Instead, you laugh with the ER nurse about the ludicrous headline had you not gone to the ER (because of course, you have been chided for not going 4 hours sooner). That headline that could hilariously read, "Woman Perishes in a Pool of Her Own Blood Flowing out of her Vagina".
TMI? Sorry about that.
But the hilarity is contained in this fact.
You imagine your children's mortification, which in your imagination, overrides all other possible reactions, and you think, "Gosh, what an awful way to die!"
What you do concern yourself with is how your child is feeling. The one you abruptly woke in the middle of her innocent sleep, calmly saying, "I am sorry, but I am bleeding and about to pass out. I have to go the ER, and you need to help me get dressed." The one who quickly leapt to action and fetched your shoes and a clean dress out of the "clean laundry pile" (don't judge) and helped you put these items on. The one who was visibly alarmed at your inability to stand up without a great deal of effort on her part. The one who worried as you weakly made your way down the stairs and out of the house.
Who is sitting at home alone because her grandparents have not answered any of their phones (and continue to be oblivious to the ringing phones and messages for the next 6 hours). Who understandably could not go back to sleep.
(You did not know it then, but she was able to wake some friends and mobilize her own little team of prayer warriors. Finding this out later makes your heart swell and your eyes water, unspeakably grateful for your child's faith in God and in the power of prayer.)
You send Ron home because you do not know how long you will be there, and you know that he is a busy man. You assure him that you will call, and you promise that your children know his number.
Because the nurse tells you to, you call your friend Jennifer, whom you had previously assigned as your designee for health decisions (should you become incapable of making them for yourself). Thankfully, she picks up in two rings, and you quickly tell her of your situation. You add, half-jokingly, "Please just make sure I don't die tonight."
Without too many words and ignoring my flippant attitude, she understands the assignment and comes to the ER as quickly as she could. But not before she checks in with my child. (God bless her!)
In the meantime, you recite Psalm 23 to yourself, repeatedly, as doctors work on you. You ask your nurse to pray for you. You let her hold your hand and change your warmed blankets. Because you are so very, very cold.
It is only now, several days later, that you realize that you never cried.
Eventually, the doctors work their magic and stop your bleeding, although they could not tell what caused it. They agree it is worrisome. The specialist consult rules out four different cancers, and you are relieved by that. All the same, she wants you to make a follow-up appointment with your doctor.
Soon you are on your way home. Your poor, worried daughter greets you at the door, flooded with relief. And you tell your friend you're alright and send her back home to her own children.
It is Tuesday morning after all.
You notice the time and as you walk into the kitchen, the oven clicks on. Because you had set it on timer the night before so that you could make cinnamon rolls in the morning. Your other daughter's sweet request.
And you are thankful and relieved for her. That she was able to sleep through the night, untroubled.
So as your older daughter watches you like a hawk, you slowly prepare these promised cinnamon rolls. And after you pop them in the oven, you go back to her and you sit on the couch and hold each other, no words passed.
And when the timer signals that the rolls are ready, you get her to frost the cinnamon rolls while you get the other one out of bed.
Your younger daughter, being the happy morning bird that she is, practically jumps out of bed, happy to see another morning. Then she proceeds to bounce about the house as she readies for school, delighted that you had remembered to make her cinnamon rolls.
She does not notice that you are fully clothed, with shoes on. Not the harried, pajama-clad, fuzzy-slipper-footed mom that normally greets her.
She is so refreshingly chatty compared to her two tired, sleepless companions as you all partake of deliciously warm cinnamon rolls.
Your older daughter subtly signals "no coffee" to you, knowing that you need sleep. The other does not notice your hand without its usual mug of coffee. (God bless her!)
Soon, you are in your car, driving your younger daughter to school, as is your routine. When she asks why her sister is not in the car with you, you smoothly tell her that her sister is staying home because she got no sleep the night before. She does not ask why. (Thank God.)
You decide to tell her about the night's ordeal after school. After you have rested. And after you have seen for yourself that, indeed, you have stopped bleeding. Because the truth is, you've been so busy mothering, you haven't checked.
You drive home, and when you get there, you finally check, very gingerly, for signs of bleeding. Finding none, you crash. As does your daughter.
She proceeds to care for you throughout the day, waking to make lunch. And later, checking to be sure you are hydrated.
Soon enough, you declare to her that you are well. That you are in no pain (a lie, because you had been poked and prodded with all manner of instruments while at the ER, that even though you did not go in with pain, their efforts to diagnose you and stop your bleeding had bruised your insides).
That, in fact, you can clean the house, and would she please help? Because we have a family of four coming to visit us the next day. And they will be staying for a week. And we need to make beds, and clear clutter... and vacuum floors. Ah, and clean toilets.
This is the thing that happens when you are the only adult in the household.
This is also the thing that happens in my life, in general, when "blips" happen. It continues in its usual tempo. Like an express train with limited stops.
And you think this is sadly hysterical.
And you thank God that you can laugh, even as you pray that the express train might come back to the station at some point so you can get some rest.
In fact, you remain so very busy for a long while, you forget to feel sorry for yourself. Until that train does come to a stop, and you are so worn out, you sleep for an inordinate amount of time.
Also? You cry. For all that you have been through. The worry. Your kids' trauma. Yours.
For your impossible widowhood.
For this great big responsibility to stay alive.
But mostly, you are grateful that you are.
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