I've never really been in a situation where I've spoken to someone without them speaking back to me. Even as a public speaker, I appreciate and welcome an interactive audience. I've never really understood how people could stand next to someone that was in a coma - or, in some cases - in a coffin and just talk and talk and talk.
To be honest, I still don't understand.
It isn't that I don't agree with it, it's just that I don't understand. For instance, my grandmother would insist on "visiting" my Aunt Elisa and grandfather in the crypt/chapel at Holy Rood Cemetery in Woodbury. She would talk to them for a really long time. My opinion is that, if someone is dead, they don't just stay in the place where their body was laid to rest... You can "talk" to them anytime, anywhere. I believe that they are always with you.
But it isn't the same when you've got a loved one in a coma. They're there, but they can't respond. It was extremely difficult for me to sit next to my husband while he was on a ventilator and just talk to him like nothing was going on. What was I supposed to say?
Thank God for my best friend, Kristen. (Different Kristen than before... The other is Kristin.) She just went through this type of situation with her grandfather. She is friends with my husband, and she would go in and just talk and talk and talk to him. My husband even responded to her, by raising his hand. I could barely spend 5 minutes by his side because it was so overwhelmingly emotional for me, I would start to choke up after my third sentence. And, honestly, I just didn't know what to say. I had been living in the hospital since he had been admitted... Talking about the change in menu in the café just didn't seem enough.
Nothing seemed to be enough.
But Kris found stuff to say to him. While I sat in shock, usually crying, in the waiting room, Kris talked to my husband. Many people came to visit and went in to see him, but Kris talked to him the most out of anyone. It took a lot of weight off of my shoulders, and I will be forever grateful for that. I don't know what I would have done without my friend.
I can't really explain what it is like to see someone you love with your whole heart and soul, lying in a bed, motionless, with a machine breathing for him. It winds you, really.
My sister flew in two days after he was put on the ventilator. (Or was it the next day? Everything is so blurred together...) I felt so much better when Julienne was there. She's a doctor, so she knew all of the medical mumbo-jumbo that they were spitting out at me. Julie could digest it and tell it to me in plain English. She would visit with my husband, too, although she was there more to make sure I didn't completely lose it and that I took care of myself.
My mom had a hard time seeing my husband, too. My husband was a big, tough cop and to see him reduced to relying on machines was just... ugh. No words.
They tried to take him off of the ventilator three times, all of which failed. I was told that he would need a tracheotomy if they weren't able to take him off by the 14 day mark. I knew that, if my husband came out of the coma to a tracheotomy, he would give up and that would just be it.
We were "in the woods" for what seemed like forever. I didn't know if we were going to come out of it together.
