Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - Pneumonia Sets In

Ashley, Robbie and I all went down to see Marc today.  I’d been up most of the night worrying and I was pretty weepy from the time I woke up. 

Since I was a passenger I checked the emails and messages on my phone.  One of my Facebook messages was from my friend Cindy.  She said she didn’t want to offend me but she and three of our other friends had been talking and they wanted to start a donation for us to help with the bills during this time.  Cindy could never offend me but I couldn’t ask for that kind of help.  I knew I needed the assistance but instead I sat trying to think of a nice way to say no without making her feel that she’d offended me. 

After a lot of thought, I realized that if I didn’t accept some help, I’d end up losing the house within a few months.  I still didn’t know what to do so instead I mentioned it to Ashley and Robbie. 

“Cindy just sent me a message.  She, Violet, Lynn and Doreen want to set up a donation fund for Marc and I.” 

“Mom, do it,” said Ashley.  “You can’t do this alone and I’m worried about you.” 

I knew she was.  She’d mentioned the day before that she was planning to take on another job to help me through this.  That broke my heart more than anything and had steeled my resolve to figure this out fast, on my own.  Spring market in real estate was a few months off and I needed to get money coming in now.  I messaged Cindy back and told her that all I could say was thank you and that I would suck up my pride. 

Marc had a new nurse named Roman that morning.   Roman was a man of few words and I found that disconcerting.  When I asked how Marc was, he kind of shrugged and looked worried.  He told me that Marc appeared to have pneumonia and that they had sent a swab off to the lab.  They would know the results in a few days, but in the mean time they had started him on a broad spectrum antibiotic. 

Pneumonia is common in critical care.  It seems that everyone on a ventilator ends up with it at some point.  That didn’t make it any easier for me.  My father had died from pneumonia that he contracted while on a ventilator after open heart surgery in 2000 and so of course this brought back that familiar old fear.  It didn’t help that he’d had a stroke during surgery.  Stroke. Pneumonia. Death.  Two out of three and I’d be damned if Marc was going to make it unanimous.

I didn’t know what else to do so I did Reiki on his chest any time they let me visit him that day.   I told him to keep fighting the infection and that he was healing really well. 

Rounds that morning didn’t reveal much.  They discussed the pneumonia and that he still needed to be on the Propofol for another day at least.  The shivering was discussed again with no real decision made. 

We spent the day waiting for permission to visit Marc’s bedside. The visits only lasted 10 to 15 minutes each time, but it was something. 

At home that night, my friend Violet came by.  She wanted to tell me that she had set up a donation page on our behalf.  They had discussed it that day and since she had the computer skills, she jumped in and did it.  She needed to make sure that I had a PayPal account of my own so she could transfer to that and into my bank account. 

It’s very humbling to have to accept financial help, but the relief and gratitude helped outweigh the shame I was feeling.  It also helped me focus on more important things, like Marc and his new battle with pneumonia.