Any Other Thursday

In a haze, I gathered my children, said my thanks to all that had participated in helping my husband, and went to the car. As I buckled my seatbelt, Hannah asked, “Mom, you won’t get married again if something happens to Dad will you?” In her short life, she’d been exposed to another tragedy, a friend that had lost his father, which led her to ask that question. However, in that one inquiry lay all the answers to the “what ifs” that flooded my mind. As I sat in the driver’s seat, I knew I had to take control of my future in case it was just the kids and myself, thus I devised my personal survival plan.

My plan did not consist of a step-by-step list but of an overall picture of what my life would look like without my husband. Where would I live, how would the kids handle the loss of their father, and even though I didn’t need the money right away, where would I work? My husband is a thorough record keeper and years ago he created an online notepad that had all our accounts and passwords. So, I didn’t dwell on the finances and turned my attention to what frightened me most—basic day-to-day life without him. By the time I reached the hospital, I had some degree of confidence knowing that I had direction, which then allowed me to focus on my husband’s condition.

Seeing my husband laying on the gurney in the ER was almost more than I could bear. What came next is something I will never forget. The assigned doctor introduced himself and then proceeded to tell my in-laws and myself that my husband would live for approximately six months, but he would spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state. From that point on he was no longer my husband’s doctor. The first twenty-four hours were the most difficult, as we just had to wait. He was in a drug-induced coma and on life support and the doctors had explained to us that they would not run any tests until they knew he had a neurological path. The next two days were a series of tests without any specific diagnosis or conclusion. It was on the third day that this dynamic doctor (I refer to him as a cross between Patch Adams and