Our 2007 family vacation to Germany, three months before Terry was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Pretending to be the Competent Wife

(part three of Terry Harper’s story)

This was just a typical Sunday a few minutes ago. Dale and Jace were helping me get flyers ready to mail for a family reunion next month. We were sitting in the living room and Terry was up here, whooping and cursing at the video game, depending on his virtual aim. That’s all! But here we are, waiting for a group of strangers to come tell us what bizarre new world we’ve entered. And hopefully lead us out of it as soon as possible.

A few minutes later, a dozen firefighters in protective gear fill our upstairs hallway. Our wood floors complain as their heavy boots tromp in to the small room, making their way past the gaming equipment, chairs, musical instruments, and computer desk. When the room is full, the rest of them stay in the hall. Terry is still snoring, unconscious on the floor, his head resting in my lap. I look around at the rubber boots and fireproof pants surrounding me. Someone asks me questions.

Name, age, date of birth, health problems, illicit drugs, medications…they ask and I answer, trying to control my shallow breath. I describe the few minutes of his seizure in as much detail as I can and realize I’m starting to panic as everything becomes more real. Terry opens his eyes suddenly and looks wildly around the room at all of us. It’s over! He’s waking up and he’s fine. But, instead of making one of his zinging one-liners, Terry just rolls on to his side and starts snoring again. He reaches out to grab the pant leg of the firefighter standing there, gently tugging on the heavy canvas. It looks like he’s trying to pull a blanket over his body, like he thinks he’s in bed. From my seat on the floor, I look up at the firefighter and tell him this.

With a little smile, the firefighter says, “It’s OK.”

I feel like I’m moving in slow motion and my mind is moving even slower. Nothing makes sense but it most certainly is not OK. None of this is OK. I move out of the way as the medics crowd around Terry with their equipment. They work to secure him into a stair chair, the only way to get him down our old house’s narrow staircase. They carefully lift his body into the contraption and strap him in tight. Just then, Terry opens his eyes and looks around again. I tell him he is going to the hospital in an ambulance but he can’t seem to grasp my words; his eyes are wide and they scan the room but he doesn’t say anything. This alone is enough to make me worry; I’ve never seen Terry speechless.

The medics ask questions in loud voices, trying to get him to respond, but he only opens his eyes for a second then falls back asleep. I’m trying to take it all in when a medic asks me where they should take him.

“What?” I don’t understand the question.

“What hospital should he go to?” she asks.

I tell her his doctor’s hospital, one that is 30 minutes away. She shakes her head.

“Yes, but this is an emergency.”

I can’t think straight to decide which of the closer hospitals he should go to. Terry told me once which emergency room is best for a gunshot wound, a remark I thought was slightly crazy at the time, but this is completely different. We didn’t exactly plan for this. Terry would know which one is best and instead he’s stuck with me, the indecisive one. Our older son was born at Indiana University Hospital, 10 minutes away.

I say, “Take him to University.”

After Terry is in the ambulance, I find the phone again and call my friend Denise to come stay with the boys. Dale and Jace are certainly old enough to stay alone but not under these circumstances. I don’t yet understand what is happening and I can’t tell how scared they are. I know how scared I am. I get Denise’s voice mail. Shit. In a message, I try to explain why I need her as soon as possible. We’d planned for her to drive us to our monthly women’s group meeting so I know she is available to stay here while I’m gone. She’s the perfect person to stay with them; they love her.

I look for any medications Terry might have taken because it seems like the logical thing to do, something he would do. They’ll ask about these. I pass Jace’s bedroom and see him lying face down on his bed, crying big gasping sobs that shake his bony shoulders. He must have watched the paramedics take his dad out the front door. I want only to crawl in next to him and hold him until this is over. Instead I sit on the bed next to him and rub his back, willing myself to be the adult in control. I promise to come home with some sort of explanation for what is wrong with Dad. He sits up and sniffs an OK; I hug him and kiss the top of his head.

I find Dale next, still downstairs, and wrap my arms around the frame that is so much taller than me now. He’s shaking.

“I know it’s scary,” I say. “I’m scared too but I’ll call you when I know something. They said Dad is stable now and they’ll take good care of him. Denise is going to stay here with you guys, OK?”

“OK.” He tries to smile.

I go back to the pretend mode of confident, competent wife. I find Terry’s wallet, cellphone, and any pills he might have taken and dump them into my purse. Where is Denise? I write down a few other things I can think of that Terry takes regularly: a fiber supplement and ibuprofen. Can that really be important? Stop taking valuable time to consider things you know nothing about. You just need to get to the damn hospital.

A minute later, Denise rushes through the front door; “I’m here, I’m here.” She drops her purse on the entry table and comes toward me with open arms, which I welcome. “I got your message, kiddo; what happened?”

I fill her in quickly, trying to hold back tears. She hugs me and her comforting makes me feel more vulnerable somehow. When we decide I have all that I need, she rushes me out the door and promises she will stay with the boys as long as needed. I run to the car.

As far as I know, Terry’s never been in an ambulance before. When he dislocated his finger, after a daring ride on an empty shopping cart in the grocery parking lot, he drove himself to the hospital. Once he left the house in the middle of the night during a kidney stone attack; never woke me, just drove himself, stopping on the side of the road when he felt faint. Both times he called home later to tell me what had happened. This is obviously different but I’m trying to gauge how different — and obey all traffic lights, per the paramedic’s instructions (I truly am a first-born child). Is this something serious or will it just be some new condition we’ll need to learn about, something that can be controlled with daily medication? We can do that; we did that with Dale’s asthma and he never had a second attack. If it’s serious, how serious? We’ve been so lucky in life, so blessed. Of course, when I say that to Terry, he just laughs and says, “We make our own luck in this world.”

Perhaps I’ve been lucky, never needing to be the strong one. I’ve always had him for that.

— — — — — — —

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Yes, first name is Lee and last (married) name is Harper but that last-name-first thing gets comments. I aspire to be similar to her in other ways!

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