She Is Okay

People ask all the time.  It’s nice of them to ask, it shows they care, it shows they don’t forget.  They want to know, they ask “How’s Marty doing?”  My standard response, “Oh, she’s doing okay.”

She’s actually doing at least okay, she’s probably doing better than okay but I don’t want to jinx it.  I’m not superstitious or anything unless it comes to walking under a ladder and it’s just stupid to walk under a ladder.  

It’s also stupid to say things are going great when by saying it you might tempt the fates too much and cause “things” to go to shit.  Why take that chance?

At the risk of tempting fate and validating my more logical side, Marty is doing….. good.  See, even if I’m trying to be positively effusive I constrain myself to good, not great, not excellent….good.

We watched the Super Bowl in our home this year, as opposed to watching it on the 19 inch television at Providence Hospital last year.  While the company of nurses, aids and therapists is not a bad thing, I prefer to watch the big game from the comfort of my recliner with my bride by my side.  That’s where we were this year, we are a year clear of hospital confinement and that rates a good.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been flashes of worry, episodes of some type of illness during the last year or last few weeks.  Our good is probably not someone else’s good and it would be a minor miracle if we ever got to, “Wow, she is doing fantastic.”

In fact, I wonder if fantastic fits us anymore.  I wonder what it would take for me to not worry about Marty.  I have thought about this from time to time and I don’t know how to get there from where I stand today.  Even with the good months solidly behind us and nothing too frightening ahead of us I still walk around holding my breath listening for the other shoe to drop.  

I’m not sure if that makes me a malcontent or a realist, I’m not sure it matters, it just is.

We still check Marty’s vitals multiple times every day and I still get a rush of adrenalin when I walk back and see that her blood pressure is above or below what I consider her normal.  If her blood sugar is high for the morning I wonder about urinary tract stuff, if her oxygen level is low….well that requires a trip somewhere.

Marty hasn’t had one of those really bad infections that cause a systemic body reaction in several months.  You would think we would be doing the happy dance and rejoicing.  But I can’t anymore than I would vicariously cross a black cat’s path without spitting.  I won’t tempt the fates and it seems to fit me better if I just keep watching and listening for the bang of the shoe on the floor.

I like not waking up in the morning with a sense of dread.  I like not walking back to Marty’s room worrying about what her blood pressure reading will be or feeling like the day will evolve into some form of tense chaos filled with medical decisions.  And that’s where we have been for several months now.  We’re okay.

I like it and I don’t want to jinx it by saying Marty is doing better than okay.   Marty is okay and the real truth, in our life, okay is really way better than just your standard, okay.  I mean really, you live through two strokes and are still alive and functioning, you are better than the standard okay.  Okay? 

If we stay okay until the next Super Bowl I will be a happy camper and Marty will have marched through another year without any real medical issues.  

That’s okay.   Oh hell, let’s just go with dandy.