My Tired Is Worse than Your Tired

 You know, it isn't a contest.

Really.  It isn't.

The last two weeks have been emotionally, physically, and mentally draining.

Gary woke up the morning on May 2 with little to no vision in his right eye.  Fast forward to today, May 14, and he is sitting in the recliner next to mine, with a bag of antibiotic fluid attached to a line leading to a PIK line embedded in his right shoulder . This will be his mojo for the next four weeks while he recovers.

Appointment with ophthalmologist at Arnett leading to an appointment with a retina specialist in Carmel. 

Emergency surgery on his right eye,

Blood work in ER to check for infections?  None found.  

Two days later....summons to ER to treat infection in blood, potentially life threatening, admittance to hospital.

Through five days of hospitalization - tests, more tests, IVs, and more IVs.  Infections.  Foot.  Eye.  Blood.  Surgery.

Finally treatment of 4 weeks of antibiotics in IV.  Home again.

Through it all...fear of the unknown.  Fear of losing the one person in my life who is my stability, my true love, my rock, my best friend.

When I am scared, I don't sleep.

When I am scared, I being to ache, or hurt, or shut down physically.  I know this.  

My knee hurts.  My chest hurts.  My head hurts.  My body hurts.  

My appetite is gone.  My mind isn't working right.  I am scared.  What will happen to me if I lose him?  What will happen to the girls without their dad?  What will Landon, Tessa, Cooper, Owen, and Lynnlee do without their Papaw?   

I know...faith over fear.  I know...I merged into the interstate with NO traffic coming behind me.  That was a sign.  I know it.  

But I was still scared. Scared to the bottom of my soul.

Being scared makes me tired.  Actually not being able to sleep makes me tired.  

And I am tired.   When I am scared, I don't sleep.  I feared the phone ringing in the middle of the night to tell me that Gary had died for some unexplained reason.  I feared hearing noises of someone breaking into the house.  I was afraid. I didn't sleep. I was tired.

I was afraid of hearing bad news from the doctors or the nurses.  I was afraid of the test results.  I was afraid, which meant that I couldn't sleep, which made me tired.

Now I look at the calendar with all of the times for 28 days of infusions and multiple doctors' appointments and trying to juggle my appointments and Cooper's ball games, and I am tired again.

Yes I know that others can't sleep.  I know that others haven't sleep a full night's sleep for days or weeks or months.

I know that people work and are tired.  I know that the school year has been super stressful with COVID and trying to meet standards and stay healthy.  This makes people tired.

I know it is hard to be  a mom and teach.  I know it is hard to be a mom and a teacher and be married, yet feel sometimes like a single mom because your husband isn't available to help...because he is farming, he is taking care of a cow trying to calve, he is concerned about the health of his parents and has had to take them to the doctor or be with his mom while his dad is in the hospital, or he is delivering the mail, or he is away doing some insurance adjusting work so we can have more money so that our daughters can participate in sports or music events or clubs or have better clothes or braces on their teeth, so that we can buy two more vehicles so our daughters can have transportation and pay the insurance and plates on those vehicles too. 

I remember what it was like to work on multiple 4-H projects including sewing, foods, ceramics, collections, flowers and more;  teach two Purdue summer classes, plan and play the music at VBS, keep the house going, take the girls to 4-H meetings, buy groceries, and watch June vanish before I could even realize what day it was.  

I remember my husband planting corn or soybeans or putting on anhydrous or cultivating, taking care of livestock, while I was fixing dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, supervising homework and baths and bedtimes and starting laundry, then staying up until after midnight to prep for classes or grade papers because it had to be done and papers needed to be returned or grades submitted, then needing to be up at 5:30 to get myself ready for school before the girls were awake because we had just one bathroom.  

My point is...

It isn't a contest.