Two Lucky

Week in review

I haven’t slept very much these past days, though sleep has come in mere seconds. Standing up. Sitting down. Waiting for a drink to fill from the tap.

Most of the time, it is for minutes, an hour, maybe two. It’s been six days I’ve spent at the hospital, but it feels more like one very, very long day. Without sleep, the days and nights have lost their compass. There are too many hours, not enough minutes to go round. I stand. I sit on the toilet with a giddy cigarette. When I walk, my limbs are warm with the glimmer of consciousness.

This dizzying half-wakefulness.

In the last 24 hours, Rusty’s condition has deteriorated. Although his blood work came back satisfactory, the disorientation from the drug has intensified, cheating him of present reality.

Boxed in a hospital room at New York-Presbyterian, he thinks we are in North Carolina, at an elaborate, colorful circus show. There are land-angry Indians knocking at the door. He is begging me for another dose of IL-2. “I don’t want to die,” he pleads with the doctor. Minutes later, he is tugging at his IV tubes, struggling to stand, asking to go home.

My hero is stuck in a dream of demons, and while I cannot reach his mind, I do my best to nourish his body. There is always something to see to. Some event on the brink of emergency. Water he wants but cannot reach. The walk to the bathroom when his legs cannot hold his weight. The vomit, the stained sheets, uncleaned hands.

He is taking longer than usual to re-orientate because of the tumors in his liver. “His liver is in bad shape,” said Dr Kaufman. “It will take some time to metabolize all the bags we gave him. Let him sleep. We’ll keep him here for another night if we have to.”

While another night makes little difference to me, I am aching to go home.

I want no more tricks and fantasies, but the solid hearth of my lover’s chest, breathing into mine. I want sleep in its circadian comfort, days and nights that stay in their respective skies. Maybe that will be tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 2:06 pm and is filed under New York, Melanoma, Week in review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.