andrew_jorgensen

Thanks to all for their kind comments. I'm too exhausted for coherency; I got fewer than six hours of sleep last night, and I've had a very full day. I won't claim it was a bad day -- I tend to do very well with specific problems. I rode the stationary bike for an hour first thing in the morning, then went over to the optometrist, who prescribed some eyedrops and said to lay off the contacts until the redness is fully cleared up. I like my optometrist -- there was no charge for the drop-in, and I managed to get two sets of five dailies gratis. Of course the eyedrops would be much more dear. I was then going to proceed straight to the J, but climbing the steps in the mall tired me out enough I decided I would get some protein first. An unreasonably heavy, fatty and carby lunch later and I needed a catnap. I talked to my mother for a little while, and then went to drop off my prescription, buy a liter bottle of water and some naproxen sodium. Then I worked out at the J for a couple of hours -- this energized me long enough to get a half-caf Mint Condition from Caribou. The caffiene hit me the wrong way and by the time I met up with my father and we went down to the hospital, I was ready to drop.

We sat with my grandmother for an hour. Her pulse rate, pulsox, blood pressure are all still good. She seems less responsive tonight than last; last night she was opening her eyes seemingly in response to touch. Tonight her eyes were clamped shut the entire time we were there. It's tough for me to tell how much consciousness is behind her movements: only her left hand, which will grab a hold of yours if you put them together, seems to work volitionally. She keeps raising and lowering her left knee; my dad and I started timing it and it moved with a regular cycle of forty to fifty seconds. Her right side must be entirely paralyzed now -- she had been twitching her right leg last night, but not tonight, and her right arm's been motionless since the stroke. Yesterday, it seemed like she'd respond or try to respond to being touched or spoken to. Tonight, though, other than the hand there were not as many such signs on which to hang hopes of consciousness.

I keep slipping into euphemism. I was going to say "I hope she can achieve peace soon." But I'm a materialist; I mean that I hope she can achieve nothingness soon. My father and I are on the same page as to our belief that she'd prefer death to this. (Though, I don't know. No neurologist's been able to show me on the CAT scan that the stroke destroyed the center in the brain which prevents me from a callous disregard for her autonomy.) We think there's a living will somewhere. I've had some terrible thoughts such as the realization that Ohio's Attorney General is a Republican running for Governor, locked in a primary battle with our Secretary of State; they're competing to show which of them can be the most muscularly right-wing Fundamentalist Christian, so I'm hoping my uncle won't come in and countermand our no-heroic-measures stance or else I'm going to be the new Michael Schiavo.

I really need some sleep now.

A quick glance through my LJ calendar reveals that I have a tendency to go months on end without saying much of anything, and post frenetically for about two weeks. This seems to be the end of one of those manic periods, so we'll have to see tomorrow whether or not I can break the cycle. I think I put too much pressure on myself to write, and I think this paralyzes me. Especially as I usually prefer to shy away from diary-style recountings of my day -- as I don't do much of interest on a daily basis.

Today I blew off any idea of going to the optometrist -- between various appointments, I couldn't really free an hour or more to sit around her office -- and in fact decided that my eye infection was neither fusarium keratitis nor rahael syndrome. The eyeball is still a light shade of mauve or puce or one of those colors straight men can't recognize, but the swelling and gooping have completely subsided. After planning to wear glasses all day, I dared instead to attempt some of the daily disposibles my doctor gave me for SCUBA diving. They stayed in for the duration without irritation.

Also today I went to the second of my two free personal trainer sessions at the JCC. I'm not sure how many of the exercises I'll retain; my brain had turned to meringue by the end. There's one thing I do know, though: I'm going to need a bigger water bottle.

As I can now untwist the bottle of Coke without wincing and shift around in bed without gasping, I'm convinced I'm going to live.