I have talked about the love Mike and I had for each. I have talked about the trust and respect that Mike and I had for each other. I'll mention now the disagreements we had with each other.
I don't think it is healthy for two people to not have at least one disagreement. We were so healthy, we had many more than one. When he lived in the nursing home still, there wasn't much to disagree on. He loved seeing me walk in and he loved hearing me tell him of my life. He loved having me there to supplement his care. He loved having someone take his side when he had issues with the care he received. The only thing we argued over early on was with how I was treated and what I saw as his lack of "sticking up for me". I've mentioned his mother before and the issues she and I had. But there were some employees at the nursing home who were not only verbally abusive towards me, but one of them physically assaulted me in a hallway. Physically assaulted..... it's an accurate term, but just like when I used it when his mother was shoving me, I didn't feel threatened by this employee either. Mike would ask me to step out and walk down the hallway to the nurses station to tell them of whatever he needed. He would put his call light on too, but sending me meant he didn't have to wait for the aide to answer first. Any time I would tell someone of Mike's needs, face to face, they hated it. They hated it because they couldn't ignore it. There were some things that Mike would just have me do for him, like let the air out of his stomach. The vent would push air into his lungs, but depending on what he was doing (eating, usually) sometimes that air would get pushed into his stomach too. He already had a surgically placed hole in his abdomen that connected his stomach to the front of his abdomen and a conduit was created. They call it a stoma. To "burp" him, all you had to do was connect a syringe without the plunger in it to the tube placed in his stomach and leave it open until the trapped gas could get out. When Mike wanted this done it would sound like this... "please release the trapped gas as it is very painful". One day I had gone to the nurses station to get a syringe and the nurse behind the desk just went off on me. It became a huge deal over what care I could provide for him. Mike was willing to sign whatever they put in front of him to allow the facility to let me do these simple tasks, but they refused. This nurse felt so incredibly powerful by this decision that she became even more hostile towards me knowing she had the support of the facility. What created the argument between Mike and I was that even though he could see how she treated me, he wouldn't ask for a different nurse. I was pissed that I had to sit in his room by his side and watch her come into his room and laugh and carry on with him and watch him do the same with her. I felt it disrespectful. I told him that the reason I was being treated poorly was as a direct consequence from doing what he had asked me to do. She finally crossed a line big enough for Mike to finally speak out. While walking back to Mike's room, our paths crossed and as she is walking towards me in this very wide hallway, she shoulder checks me! I am totally serious. Again, I was so stifled there because of Mike's wishes that I not make things harder for him that I just let her. By the time I finished my walk to his room I was in a royal fit. I went off on him telling him that if he had shown solidarity with me earlier, she would have never felt she could get away with that behavior. I'm not the type to fight another woman in a hallway mind you, but I most definitely would not have just kept silent and kept walking, I did that for Mike. I was mad enough that I told him that if he was ok with how they were treating me there, then I didn't want to be there. That was what it took apparently..... he wrote a scathing letter to the director demanding better treatment for me. There was video evidence of her assault and she was reprimanded. But she was still assigned to him on occasion. I filed on my own behalf against her nursing license. I didn't follow up on any findings. But seriously, can you even imagine that this kind of thing would happen? It's crazy.
The other time was when one of his friends showed up to visit him at the nursing home and started hitting on me. It was all good fun until his hands started getting a little too wild. I kept looking over at Mike asking him if he was going to say anything and he would just shrug (he could still do that then). The guy finally crossed a line enough for me that I handled it myself. After they left I went after Mike with my anger that he didn't stand up for me. I would have never guessed what his response would be......he said "I kind of liked watching you get angry. I knew you could handle him yourself". His reply caught me so off guard that I just had to laugh.
That's kind of how all our arguments ended.
Once he had been living here awhile and the majority of his care was required of me, we started having arguments just out of frustration. I told you about some of those.... where we would sit in separate rooms and type out our argument.
Mike and I both had to learn how to let go of things. When it was my "bad", I would usually just say "want to kiss?" and that was the end of it. When it was his "bad", he was much more eloquent in his apology. His sleep schedule was so weird at times that some days I didn't get to sleep at all. When you aren't sleeping for over 24 hours it becomes real easy to notice some things. One of those "some things" was how often his communication with me was reduced to just telling me what his immediate needs were. I get it... I do..... it really sucks to HAVE to ask someone for every little thing you need. But when you're tired..... it really sucks being asked too. One day I answered his request by telling him that it had been 3 days since he has said anything to me besides telling me what he needed done. It took him another 2 days to respond to my "accusation" as he liked to call them. Here is his response ... not word for word... just jist but I'll put it in quotes anyway..... "At times my sleeping overlaps my awake times and I lose track of the days. I am very sorry that for 3 days I did not include you. Please forgive me. You are always in my thoughts and in my dreams, I guess I didn't realize that I didn't verbalize to you."
Ok..... now THAT'S an apology that seriously trumps my "want to kiss?" I don't miss the arguments but I miss the making up.
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