We left for Toronto just after 8:30 a.m. to make sure we were in time for rounds. Sunnybrook is a teaching hospital and the doctors do rounds and discuss the cases between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Marc’s nurse, Sandy, had informed me yesterday that we could listen to them discuss Marc and hopefully find out more about his progress. We were accompanied by our friend Miriam who volunteered to come hang out with us and hopefully distract us at bit.
We were called into the unit just before the doctors and residents reached Marc’s bedside. A new concern had popped up over night. As they tried weaning Marc off the Propofol, he would shiver and become agitated. They weren’t sure if it was related to the surgery or if he was having seizures. They were hoping to get him off the Propofol by the next day so they could do an EEG and see what was happening. The doctor in charge spoke to me after rounds and the basic message was: no bad news is good news.
He was also very feverish which could also be a cause of the shivering. It was hard to watch him struggle.
I tried to broach the subject of what the next steps would be once Marc was off the sedation and awake. Where would he go when he was ready?
Sandy took far too long to answer. She was very careful about choosing her words. She finally told me that at some point if things went well, he would be moved to a step-down CRCU. While not quite as critical as this critical care level, it would still involve a lot of one-on-one care. I knew that her caution was because of the risks still involved for Marc. He was nowhere near out of the woods.
The highlight of my day was when Marc squeezed my hand when I asked. He was in there! It was the best feeling ever and I carried it with me as I went home that night.
Unfortunately that squeeze wasn’t quite enough to let me sleep through the night. Instead it reminded me that I had to start thinking about the future. Life had changed completely in just a few short days. Marc and I were struggling financially as it was. What had been at the back of my mind since early Saturday morning was now front and centre in my thoughts. I was now the main breadwinner for three people. Marc and I live with my mom and she too has had a stroke. I was now not only taking care of my mom but Marc as well. Somehow, some way I had to make sure we not only didn’t lose the house but that we also had enough money to live on.
I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen. I’m in real estate but have a lot of slow times during the year with no income coming in. I’d been trying to figure out what I could do from home to help with expenses when all this happened. Marc is a mortgage agent and is also on commission. He’d reached the point where he was looking for work on the side as well. He had just completed a driving test last Friday for a local bus company and was looking forward to the driving lessons and tests in the next few weeks.
No matter how I did the math, I just couldn’t figure out how to fit in another job into my day. How was I going to look after Marc during the day at the hospital, come home and look after my mom in the evening and then go to work? I began wondering what kind of job I could get that started at 9:00 at night and ended at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning so I could get a couple of hours sleep and do it all again.
When I should have been celebrating the squeeze of a hand, I ended up worrying about the financial squeeze that now had me by the throat.
“How do people do this?” I wondered. And what was I going to do?
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