Someone I met recently keeps telling me over and over, life will be great again. You have been cut, and you are bleeding and holding pressure on the wound.
This made sense to me. Sometimes though when you’re holding pressure on the wound the gauze becomes soaked, and it needs to be re-applied. What happens if you run out of gauze?
I was beginning to feel so strong. I have met an enormous amount of people in the snowmobiling community who have experienced the nightmare that Nick did, and they have shared their stories with me and they have welcomed me into their lives with open arms. Their stories are so powerful, and I am so incredibly grateful that they are alive so they can spread awareness.
I was beginning to realize that so many people have suffered tragedy. So many people have witnessed their friends and family die in the same way Nick died. So many people have had to live with the nightmares and the struggles that I am living with now, and it reminded me that I am not alone in this experience.
Where I am alone though, is in the day to day life struggles that we face time and time again. When I go to bed at night, I don’t get to kiss Nick goodnight and tell him how much I love him. He doesn’t get to return that love with the forehead kiss I always loved and miss so much; it made me feel so safe. We don’t get to discuss our stresses and our plans to overcome them. I am alone in my thoughts and alone in the place that once brought me so much comfort and relief.
Last night I was sitting on my couch contemplating going to bed. I don’t sleep, but sometimes I will go to my bed in hopes that I will just pass out. I started to hear Juno cry, and she was scratching at her head so badly it was bleeding. I didn’t panic but had a look, and it looked pretty painful for my poor girl. I decided I better take her to the vet, so she didn’t have to scratch in agony all night.
I took Kota along too because I figured if I am going to be there paying a ridiculous amount of money, I may as well have Kota’s eye checked out too which she hasn’t been able to blink in over a month.
Five hours later and a $600 bill I found myself back in my car in the parking lot of the 24 hour Animal Hospital with no gauze left. I had completely run out, and I had nothing to put pressure on the wound.
Juno most likely has a skin disease, which makes sense because she has always struggled with allergies and itching and I guess I neglected to have that looked into deeper because the thought of something being seriously wrong with my dogs was a thought I would never entertain before. Juno also lost a portion of her left k9 shortly after Nick died and we have been monitoring it to determine if it needs to be removed. It can eventually cause her a great deal of discomfort. This will cost a lot of money. Juno is seven years old.
Kota needs to see a neurologist. The vet thinks there is a very good possibility she has a brain tumor that is causing the facial nerve paralysis. The neurologist visit is going to cost me at least $1500, and if she does have a brain tumor, a surgery to remove it would be upwards of $10,000 with no guarantees of recovery. Kota is nine years.
I tried to hold it together in front of the vet but she knew I was not okay. I told her about Nick. She asked how he died, and I said he was killed in an Avalanche. She said oh no, you are the fiancée who they were talking about on the news. She said, I saw that on the news. I said there were so many deaths of snowmobilers on the news this season, not just my Nick, and I am going to try so hard to change that.
So needless to say my gauze is soaked, and I am currently holding no pressure on my wound. It is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, and I am running out of strength. I do believe the loss of energy I have right now is very similar to the feeling a person would have while they bleed to death.
I don’t like blogging unless I can leave you with something somewhat inspirational. I have no idea what is going to happen. I do know, and I have said this for years, if I were to lose one of my dogs, that would be it for me. But I am not going to go there yet, because nothing is confirmed and right now they are both laying beside me as I type this asleep and beautiful.
Someone keeps telling me that someday I am going to get through all of this, and when that happens, I am going to be an incredibly strong woman because of it. I want to believe this person, I really do. I want to believe them because I know those words aren’t empty. Those words come from a soul who has overcome a significant amount of tragedy and lived to talk about it.
I didn’t want to get out of bed today, but I had to feed my dogs their medicine. They are definitely seniors now, and they have a ton of pills to pop.
I am numb, I am sad, and I am terrified but I also know that I have run out of gauze, and I really need to find something to cover up that wound and I can’t do this from my bed.
All I want to leave with you today is this; when life is good, embrace it. My God just embrace the hell out of it. Unless someone is dead, dying, or extremely ill, embrace it and even then, do like I am doing and just keep trying. I look back at the things that caused me stress and the things that I lost sleep over before Nick died and all I can do is sit here and laugh. What a waste of time that was worrying about that unimportant shit. Money isn’t everything. If your boss is an asshole that is their problem, not yours. People who are jerks to you are only trying to put you down because they are jealous. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have time to cook dinner tonight, just eat some damn popcorn and go to bed.
Happiness comes from within, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that we have a choice, but when things are good, make the choice to live. Right now I am existing, and I am just barely floating, but I am going to get my ass up and choose to find that happiness again. It hurts so bad, and I would love to go back to bed right now with a bottle of vodka, but luckily for me (see positivity), I have two dogs that need taking care of, and if there is one thing I can’t live without right now, it’s them.
So today, remember to breathe and remember as bad as you think things are right now, they could always be worse. Today, just live.
xoxo
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