Unbreakable walls break
Sometimes the things you think could never happen
Happen just like that
Unbendable steel bends
When the fury of the wind is unstoppable
I've learned to never underestimate
The impossible"
--Joe Nichols, "The Impossible"
"Randy Spruill, native and resident of Kitty Hawk, NC, suffered a brain hemorrhage while riding his bike on Sunday, June 6th. He was airlifted to Sentara Norfolk General with a suspected aneurysm. When no aneurysm was found, doctors determined that Randy had suffered a stroke. He stayed in the neurological ICU for about 9 days before being released to finish his recovery at home.
"Sadly, his stay at home was short-lived. On Friday, June 18th, just four days after being released, Randy again was airlifted to Sentara and this time an aneurysm was found. In the early morning hours on Saturday, June 19th, neurosurgeons began the risky procedure to clip the aneurysm.
"About four hours into the surgery, the aneurysm was successfully clipped, but just as surgeons began to close him up, his carotid artery developed a tear. This new development made already risky surgery even riskier. The surgeons now had to repair a vessel that carries 20% of the blood to the brain.
"Through the skillful hands of his surgeons, Randy survived this surgery and has spent the past 4 weeks recovering. As of July 6th, he was moved out of the neurological ICU and into a step-down unit. He no longer is reliant on a breathing tube and our hope is that the feeding tube will soon be gone.
"Randy is working hard to recover from this major brain trauma. He has movement on the right side of the body and is beginning to regain movement on the left. He has experienced many bumps in the road, including unexplained fevers, allergic reactions to medication, and blood clots in the legs and the lungs, but we all know that Randy is a fighter! He is working hard to recover the use of his limbs, his speech, and be well enough to move to a rehabilitation unit.
"Randy's shop, Spruill Automotive, is the family's sole source of income. Since Randy has been unable to work since early June, the family is reliant on the business bringing in enough income to pay the employees and also pay the family's bills."
That accounts for all the facts. What it doesn't account for is the abrupt awakening out of a beautiful Sunday-morning-in-bed day the sixth of June with the first stroke; the worry; the struggle to keep going to work, to keep Daniel's birthday happy; the homecoming; the slow mobility and gentle hugs; that golden night going out for pizza, thinking things were looking up; my mother's screaming; unidentifiable thumps; the four-letter words yelled into the night at the ambulance that just wouldn't get here fast enough; my brothers huddled on the damp grass, praying; the paramedics who seemed way too calm; the night spent awake on the couch, clutching my phone and knocking over three glasses because I couldn't hold my hands still. It doesn't account for the way my brother David hunched his shoulders in the NICU and looked as though he might cry when he asked our father to squeeze his hand if he thought Dave should still go to his robotics competition in Hawaii. It doesn't account for the panic that attacks every time there's a setback. And there have been so, so many setbacks.
It has sometimes been difficult to keep a cynical voice out of my thoughts when it tries to put reality in far harsher tones than necessary. It's hard, after all, to stay committed to celebrating progress when I can't entirely get it out of my head that we're all crowded around the bed of the strongest man I've ever known, the man who has always been able to lift me with one arm and explain the world and fix absolutely everything, cheering because he moved his toe.
Hospitals are places for prayer and hope and science and hand sanitizer. They are not places for cynicism.
I wonder what he's thinking in there. Is he mildly exasperated at the way we speak to him loudly and slowly, as if he's slow or hard-of-hearing? We're just trying to make sure our voices cut through the medicines and haziness, but does he know that? Is his vision all blurry? How blurry? When he stops responding well, is it because he's messed up, or because he's just tired? Does he have a headache? Last time he had a killer headache and a worse backache. Does he hear everything the doctors are saying to him? Does he know that he's been living at Norfolk Sentara for nearly two months, or how many times my mother has slipped and referred to the hospital as a hotel, how many nights she's spent on the benches in the ICU waiting room? Does he know how many people have come to visit him, and braved the bandages and tubes and drains and bags and sensors and blinking lights to hold his hand? Does he notice that his children only come once a week, and, if he does, does he wish they'd visit more? Because I wish that.
(Daddy and me, around 2001 or 2002. That's my grandfather in the background pretending he's not laughing at us.)
My mother has stopped staying overnight at the hospital, but she still goes up every day, and my grandparents are there most days, too. It's impossible, though, for the boys and I to get up there often when I work full-time an hour away from home and David works, too. Most days now, I get home from work at either 5 or 8, and try to tidy up and sometimes fix supper and eat before Mama gets home around 9 or 10. It's so good to have her home, even if it's only for a few hours before we all have to go to bed, and I worry that we crowd her too much when she walks in the door. It makes for a summer of tremendous abnormality. Let me say right now: we are a family that thrives on normal. Family is our thing, but under that is routine. And all of a sudden, both are all out-of-whack. There are four place settings at the table--scratch that; there are three. Sometimes. Often there are zero, because the boys and I are eating on the floor in the living room or I'm eating at my computer and the boys are eating in all the wrong chairs or on all the wrong countertops. We're walking into Pizza Hut on Fridays and saying "Four" to the girl who seats us and "Four Dr. Peppers" to the guy who takes our order, and nobody's calling us the Dr. Pepper Family. Daddy usually takes me to see the Twilight movies when they come out, but I saw Eclipse alone, trying to file away and remember the funniest parts to share--later, when I felt surer that he could hear me. We saw Toy Story Three without Daddy, too, which is sad because he would love it.
(Daddy and me on the day of my eighth grade graduation in 2004)
And worst of all is seeing my father, my big strong reliable father, lying in a hospital bed or sitting in a therapy chair, with bony shoulders and a still left side. Worst of all is knowing that HE must be terribly sad, and worried, and frustrated at the way his body--which has never let him down before--is blocking easy communication with the people he loves. It's hard to see how hard he has to work to nod his head and mouth back the words we ask him to say.
We have had such an outpouring of sympathy and love and support from family and friends. It's quite incredible, actually. People love my father. And they should. He's amazing. People have brought food, and donated money, and sent cards, and called, and Facebook messaged, and visited, and just been unfathomably kind! Some dear friends set up a Facebook group, which now has over 300 members, and a website: http://www.randyspruill.webs.com/ . It's touching to see just how people come together when a family is having a crisis. I can't help but wish that we weren't the crisis, though.
The impossible"
--Joe Nichols, "The Impossible"
(Daddy and me, August 4th, 1990)
When I look through the old posts on this blog, I always have to laugh at myself. There are whiny posts about working, and irritated posts about my ex, and excitable posts about knitting and sewing and other handicrafts. They were all very important at the time. They still are important, actually. But I post infrequently, and so it's a little bit like reading through a time capsule, one that leans ever-so-slightly to the shallow side (because, really, who writes deep, thought-provoking essays on making nightgowns out of men's shirts? Not this girl). So as you trudge on through the months, and live a little more life and have a few more experiences, it's inevitable that the things that came before seem simple, even trivial. It happens to everybody. Especially when you're looking from the vantage point of a summer story like my family has this year. My mom's friend Lisa wrote this up for us, and since I don't want to write it out, I'll copy it here:
"Randy Spruill, native and resident of Kitty Hawk, NC, suffered a brain hemorrhage while riding his bike on Sunday, June 6th. He was airlifted to Sentara Norfolk General with a suspected aneurysm. When no aneurysm was found, doctors determined that Randy had suffered a stroke. He stayed in the neurological ICU for about 9 days before being released to finish his recovery at home.
"Sadly, his stay at home was short-lived. On Friday, June 18th, just four days after being released, Randy again was airlifted to Sentara and this time an aneurysm was found. In the early morning hours on Saturday, June 19th, neurosurgeons began the risky procedure to clip the aneurysm.
(Daddy and me carving pumpkins for Halloween, around 1992)
"About four hours into the surgery, the aneurysm was successfully clipped, but just as surgeons began to close him up, his carotid artery developed a tear. This new development made already risky surgery even riskier. The surgeons now had to repair a vessel that carries 20% of the blood to the brain.
"Through the skillful hands of his surgeons, Randy survived this surgery and has spent the past 4 weeks recovering. As of July 6th, he was moved out of the neurological ICU and into a step-down unit. He no longer is reliant on a breathing tube and our hope is that the feeding tube will soon be gone.
"Randy is working hard to recover from this major brain trauma. He has movement on the right side of the body and is beginning to regain movement on the left. He has experienced many bumps in the road, including unexplained fevers, allergic reactions to medication, and blood clots in the legs and the lungs, but we all know that Randy is a fighter! He is working hard to recover the use of his limbs, his speech, and be well enough to move to a rehabilitation unit.
"Randy's shop, Spruill Automotive, is the family's sole source of income. Since Randy has been unable to work since early June, the family is reliant on the business bringing in enough income to pay the employees and also pay the family's bills."
(Daddy and me, about 1993)
That accounts for all the facts. What it doesn't account for is the abrupt awakening out of a beautiful Sunday-morning-in-bed day the sixth of June with the first stroke; the worry; the struggle to keep going to work, to keep Daniel's birthday happy; the homecoming; the slow mobility and gentle hugs; that golden night going out for pizza, thinking things were looking up; my mother's screaming; unidentifiable thumps; the four-letter words yelled into the night at the ambulance that just wouldn't get here fast enough; my brothers huddled on the damp grass, praying; the paramedics who seemed way too calm; the night spent awake on the couch, clutching my phone and knocking over three glasses because I couldn't hold my hands still. It doesn't account for the way my brother David hunched his shoulders in the NICU and looked as though he might cry when he asked our father to squeeze his hand if he thought Dave should still go to his robotics competition in Hawaii. It doesn't account for the panic that attacks every time there's a setback. And there have been so, so many setbacks.
It has sometimes been difficult to keep a cynical voice out of my thoughts when it tries to put reality in far harsher tones than necessary. It's hard, after all, to stay committed to celebrating progress when I can't entirely get it out of my head that we're all crowded around the bed of the strongest man I've ever known, the man who has always been able to lift me with one arm and explain the world and fix absolutely everything, cheering because he moved his toe.
Hospitals are places for prayer and hope and science and hand sanitizer. They are not places for cynicism.
(Daddy and me, around 2001 or 2002. That's my grandfather in the background pretending he's not laughing at us.)
My mother has stopped staying overnight at the hospital, but she still goes up every day, and my grandparents are there most days, too. It's impossible, though, for the boys and I to get up there often when I work full-time an hour away from home and David works, too. Most days now, I get home from work at either 5 or 8, and try to tidy up and sometimes fix supper and eat before Mama gets home around 9 or 10. It's so good to have her home, even if it's only for a few hours before we all have to go to bed, and I worry that we crowd her too much when she walks in the door. It makes for a summer of tremendous abnormality. Let me say right now: we are a family that thrives on normal. Family is our thing, but under that is routine. And all of a sudden, both are all out-of-whack. There are four place settings at the table--scratch that; there are three. Sometimes. Often there are zero, because the boys and I are eating on the floor in the living room or I'm eating at my computer and the boys are eating in all the wrong chairs or on all the wrong countertops. We're walking into Pizza Hut on Fridays and saying "Four" to the girl who seats us and "Four Dr. Peppers" to the guy who takes our order, and nobody's calling us the Dr. Pepper Family. Daddy usually takes me to see the Twilight movies when they come out, but I saw Eclipse alone, trying to file away and remember the funniest parts to share--later, when I felt surer that he could hear me. We saw Toy Story Three without Daddy, too, which is sad because he would love it.
(Daddy and me on the day of my eighth grade graduation in 2004)
Things are just not the way they are supposed to be.
This past month and a half has held a lot of sadness for us. Except for babies, hospitals have a lot of sadness in them. It's sad that I answered every call from my mother for weeks with "Mama? What's wrong?" and braced myself for any sort of news. It's sad that my grandfather, a quiet, gruff-voiced man with twinkly eyes and more common sense than most men are blessed with, cried in the hospital on Father's Day this year. It nearly broke my heart when my younger brother and I got home from our second visit to the ICU--where he had acted supremely awkward, uncomfortable, reluctant to approach Daddy's bedside, and extremely fond of the waiting room--and he mentioned to me that he'd been scared. I went to play the comforting older sister with something like, "I know it's really scary, bud. But just because he looks bad, that's not the important part--" and he cut me off. "It's not that," he said, "It's all those tubes. I was petrified to be in there because all I could think was...what if I tripped? He'd die, and it would be all my fault. I was just so scared of tripping."
This past month and a half has held a lot of sadness for us. Except for babies, hospitals have a lot of sadness in them. It's sad that I answered every call from my mother for weeks with "Mama? What's wrong?" and braced myself for any sort of news. It's sad that my grandfather, a quiet, gruff-voiced man with twinkly eyes and more common sense than most men are blessed with, cried in the hospital on Father's Day this year. It nearly broke my heart when my younger brother and I got home from our second visit to the ICU--where he had acted supremely awkward, uncomfortable, reluctant to approach Daddy's bedside, and extremely fond of the waiting room--and he mentioned to me that he'd been scared. I went to play the comforting older sister with something like, "I know it's really scary, bud. But just because he looks bad, that's not the important part--" and he cut me off. "It's not that," he said, "It's all those tubes. I was petrified to be in there because all I could think was...what if I tripped? He'd die, and it would be all my fault. I was just so scared of tripping."
(Daddy and me after my last dance recital in 2008)
And worst of all is seeing my father, my big strong reliable father, lying in a hospital bed or sitting in a therapy chair, with bony shoulders and a still left side. Worst of all is knowing that HE must be terribly sad, and worried, and frustrated at the way his body--which has never let him down before--is blocking easy communication with the people he loves. It's hard to see how hard he has to work to nod his head and mouth back the words we ask him to say.
We have had such an outpouring of sympathy and love and support from family and friends. It's quite incredible, actually. People love my father. And they should. He's amazing. People have brought food, and donated money, and sent cards, and called, and Facebook messaged, and visited, and just been unfathomably kind! Some dear friends set up a Facebook group, which now has over 300 members, and a website: http://www.randyspruill.webs.
I hate being the crisis.
(Daddy and me trimming the Christmas tree this past year)
And although I love and cherish and replay in my memory those touching, locket-worthy moments--when the boys and I say grace by ourselves around the kitchen table; or when I watch my father take my grandfather's hand and press it to his lips as my grandfather's eyes go glassy and he clears his throat; or when Daddy chokes out "I love you, Katherine," and "I love you, David," and "I love you, Daniel"--I would trade them in. I'd trade them in a heartbeat if, for one minute, late at night, I could hear the garage door squeak open and look up from the laptop to see Daddy coming in in his uniform, smelling like grease and oil, patting me on the shoulder on the way in. I keep thinking I hear the door open and his keys jingle--nearly every night I hear it--but it's all in my head. I don't think I'll ever hear that for real again.
Well...that's all I've got right now. Thanks for reading. I'll be back soon with some more upbeat posts, though, so keep checking in. :)
(Daddy and me, June 2010, NICU)
