Dreams April 29, 2007

Susan insisted that I write at least a brief post to let you know that she is alive and well. Her neck is still very sore. Apparently there is a nerve (or tendon, I can’t remember which) that was cut in order to remove the lymph node and tumors from her neck. This nerve seems to be connected to her left arm somehow and, thus, she cannot lift her left arm and there are very few positions that are comfortable for her. She decided to drive to church today (I had to stay home to get caught up on a few work matters that need to be done by tomorrow morning), and she quickly realized that she isn’t currently a safe driver. Luckily, Ryan’s wife is out of town and he was more than willing to get away from home and drive Susan and the boys home after church. When she got home at about 11:30, she was in a lot of pain, but rather than lay down and take it easy, she felt like she needed to go to the hospital to be with her sister since nobody else could be with her at that time. Thus, She and Ryan went to the hospital, while I stayed home and watched the boys (the hospital where Mandy had her baby doesn’t let kids into hospital rooms with newborns). After an hour or so, they came back and Susan took a Tylenol with codeine to try to relieve some pain so she could go to sleep. I let her sleep for a while and then I got a call on my cell phone from her. I picked it up and she whispered, “I need you.” I went upstairs where she was laying in bed, still with her eyes closed. She asked me if there was a bug on her face. I said “no.” She asked again if there was a bug on her face. I told her “no,” again. She then told me that she couldn’t open her eyes, even though she was trying to. I rubbed her head for a while to calm her down, but a few minutes later she asked again if I was sure there were no bugs on her face. Having had no luck telling her the truth, and at this point realizing that she was still at least half asleep, I said, “now that I look closer, there is a spider on your nose,” and I proceeded to smash a pretend spider on her nose. About thirty seconds later, the imaginary spider had spread over more of her face so I told her that the spider must have left some baby spiders on her face, which caused her to more vigorously rub her head (OK, maybe I just thought about telling her there were baby spiders on her face). It was interesting to be inside one of her dreams. I quickly calmed her down and she went back to sleep again. I asked her about the bugs on her face tonight, and she remembered nothing about it. Just another example of how sensitive she is to drugs. She is generally doing better though and looking forward to getting started on treatment as soon as possible. She is very scared for the bone marrow test on Tuesday though, which apparently hurts pretty bad (according to a recent episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” that she saw).