Day 6.

Wednesday.

Running late after being hopelessly self indulgent.  I took a long shower. I ate breakfast at a dinner-- even had pancakes.  Yes, I somehow managed to get lucky enough to live in an area with a diner that makes pancakes *I* can eat. Woo hoo. Then I ran an errand or two and went to the hospital, fully intending to get paperwork done that morning, to take to the court house this afternoon.

Insert crazed sarcastic laughter here.  Plans don't survive contact with the enemy, and Crazy Murphy was in evidence today.

Turns out, Matt was drugged due to pain.  He was in and out of consciousness, and when he was conscious he was not really in a state to do anything. He was excited, because the doctor was telling him he could sit up today, and he WANTED him to.  This made him very happy. "Sit" is the most magical word in the human language!" He told me. IN that spirit, I brought all three of his doughnut seat cushions-- even the square one.

By the time I get to the hospital, the reason for the pain is gone, and he has been taken off the pain killers, but they are still wearing off. He gets a shower and to actually get out of bed for the first time since Sunday.

So he goes into shower and settle down to read.

Shower happens. He gets out of the shower.  I hear him pad over to the toilet. Then there's a slip sliding sound and a thump.  Matt starts screaming incoherently, then cries out for help.

It takes a second, before my body engages. I'd almost dozed off and I'm feeling fuzzy headed. I go outside and look around, a tech happens by but doesn't seem that concerned. I tell her Matt fell in the shower, and the tech casually peers in. She pales and refuses to let me into the bathroom, or even to see what happened. she makes sure I stay seated inside the room, out of sight of the event and rushes toward the nursing station at a dead run. Another tech materializes to make sure I don't look into the bathroom. She talks to Matt through the door but averts her gaze.

I go from a panic to a dead calm. At some level I realize there is nothing I can do... and I am in the one place where there is a whole staff of people who do just that.   I can't really move from my chair anyway, my limbs are rubbery and full of concrete.   I can still hear Matt screaming. Alarms are going off, now.

 The next thing I know there are at least six nurses in blue rushing into the bathroom.  Then the group stops, stares, then retreats. They huddle. They ask him a series of questions that seem moronic and inane.  Things about if he lost consciousness, if he felt any pain, how he feels, where it hurts, if he can move. Even before they get him off the ground, they are taking his blood pressure.  Slowly it becomes clear that this is not a stupid thing at all... I'm just really out of it and not thinking clearly. His blood pressure had fallen through the floor while he was in the shower. He must have lost blood.. and maybe a bit of his tumor.

I mean to say, 77/58.

He says he can move, but not steadily. He can't get a grip on the slick wet floor, and he's shaky.  "Oh God, I shouldn't look in that direction!" is the one thing I clearly remember him saying.  They eventually get him on his knees, and bring a strange mechanical machine that is unpowered. Its sort of like a chair with a built in fulcrum. He is able to sit by leaning forward into the device and it closes around him, and they can wheel him up and out of the bathroom. They have covered him with a sheet and dump him on the bed.

Matt is clearly in a lot of pain. He starts crying and apologizing to me. I lay my hand lightly on his arm and he screams in pain.  I can't even comfort him physically. So I stand over him and take an extended period doing my best to offer comfort.