Après l'orage

The cat just came out of the sickroom. It was never his favourite room, and if he found it intriguing once emptied of its contents, the incomprehensible goings-on there over the last five days have left him confused and frightened. But since we put a room heater in there and cranked it up, it's also become the warmest room in the house, and that was enough to coax him into napping on the moving blanket folded up under the bed.

It's a homier room now that I've hung a Chinese scroll on the blank west wall and arranged some items on windowsill. He had me place there an exotic bouquet from bunj and e. (still looking remarkably fresh after more than a week), a bronze Amitabha, and a picture he took of me nearly twenty years ago when we first began dating. I still feel bad about the amount of clutter in the room, but he sure prefers it to the sterility of the hospital. "It was so nice," he told me after his first night here, "to open my eyes and see colour."

I really should try to write down everything that's happened over the last five days since his discharge since the sheer amount of crazy is difficult for me to comprehend. Every time I try to review the previous day's events, it seems inconceivable to me that only 24 hours have passed. Did I really spend an hour in a hospital consultation room yesterday with two interns and a nurse practitioner trying to get a portable suction unit working correctly? Was it only two days ago that I had delivery men from two different companies in my house at the same time that I was fielding calls from doctors and liaisons and trying to give the neighbour boy directions on what chores to complete?

There's a comfortable air of normality over the house now, even if my mother is sleeping in a chair in the living room and my husband isn't supposed to get out of bed without assistance. I helped her make risotto and it was the first proper meal I've seen monshu eat in over two weeks. The nurse and the PT made visits and I felt almost superfluous during them. As I told the Old Man, managing everything for him has been my job for long enough now that it's difficult to step back again.