Standing on the Edge of a Nightmare

There is a term from nursing school that I adopted into my vocabulary because sometimes it is an incredibly accurate description. 

Sense of Impending Doom. 

While Jeff was in Kenya for 2 weeks, I would get this overwhelming feeling that I was truly single, all alone.  He couldn't really call and we could barely communicate by e-mail, so perhaps that was contributing. 

Then he came home, but for some reason I couldn't rest.  Something was wrong with him.  He would have what we thought was an asthma attack every time he exerted himself at all.  He slept constantly.  He was irritable.  It was like he was here, but not really.  I tried to tell myself it was jet lag; the long plane rides must have triggered his asthma.  I tried to get him to go to the doctor.  Today he finally went.

Tonight he is in a hospital room and the girls and I are alone again.  I hope he comes home soon.  I think everything is going to be ok, but maybe not.  The doctors can't make promises. I know just enough from my nursing school days that half of medicine is guesswork.  And I know exactly what pulmonary embolism means. 

He has a large blood clot in each lung.  The one in his left lung is so big that it has killed lung tissue.  The doctors say that if something "catastrophic" was going to happen, it would have probably happened. 

I have rehearsed this day in my nightmares several times.  I know what comes next in the nightmare, so I hope I wake up soon, before that happens. I want him home safe.  I want the doctors to tell me everything is going to be fine. 

Do you know what I mean when I say that I feel as if I'm calling upon the emergency version of myself that I hoped I would never have to use?  The one created in response to the lurking fears that pop up every now and then, the one invented "just in case" ever happens?  The strong woman who can pick up the pieces of life and put them together in the event of a disaster ... I really never wanted to test drive her.  I'm sure she's better in theory than practice.  My friends are wonderful and supportive and I love them dearly and know that however strong Disaster Response Tiff happens to be that she is powerless without them.

I also know that Everyday Sustainable Tiff, whatever postmodern Christian feminist she fancies herself to be, is half of who she is without Jeff.