Friday, September 16, 2016

Excerpt # 7: Rising from the ashes of loss, my voyage through grief.

February 5, 2008
Details of the surgery
The Riverside campus was fairly easy to find and get to, even though that day was plagued by a snow storm.  "Gawd, I hate snow", I bitched as I desperately struggled to find a spot to ditch the car in the overcrowded parking lot.  After many attempts and confrontations with other over stressed-out poor saps like us, we finally succeeded in squeezing the car in a tight little spot which was probably illegal (didn't care), and we rushed through the front door.  With feet still dripping wet with the yucky white stuff, we proceeded hurriedly through a labyrinth of corridors and alleys to finally arrive at our destination, barely making it in time for our appointment.
After only a short wait, which I very much appreciated, we were called into the gyn-oncologist's office.  At that point, even though the emotional numbness had set in for some time now, my legs were a little wobbly and my heart was pounding at the anticipation of learning the details on how the surgeon was going to butcher my wife.  No other way around it.  He explained every little gory detail of the operation to come: complete hysterectomy.  Trust me, you have to have a good stomach to be able to sit through this, and even though I always thought of me as a tough guy, I wasn't so tough now, feeling cornered and scared like a child in that stuffy little room.  A nauseating wave of fear was mounting and I wanted to run away as far and as fast as I could.  But my wimpy fleeting moment of weakness soon dissipated when I noticed how Louise stood tall in front of it all, how strong she was.  At that moment, my thoughts when to her and I wondered, in spite of her bravado, how it really felt to be at the receiving end of that prickly skewer.
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