Really, I don't. I'm typically a rather positive person who'll fight to the death for anything that matters to her.
But today, life got the best of me.
It's been two days since the doctor told us my husband might have Chron's disease. Two days of worrying and wondering and hoping and praying. Today he begins prep for a colonoscopy to make the final diagnosis tomorrow. In preparation, for 24 hours he can have nothing but clear liquids in his system. He still has to go to work doing hard labor today. So my plan was to get him ginger ale to calm his miserable, aching stomach. Gatorade for electrolytes and to take his disgusting medicine in. And chicken broth for protein and substance. His prescriptions for the ulcer were $116 last week. And this morning I realized he had to take not just one, but two bottles of medicine before the procedure. I had $7 in my bank account. I went to CVS and bought the medicine first - I knew there would be a $4 off coupon from that.
Well, the coupon never came. When she handed me a blank receipt, I asked about it and she said I was ineligible because I had already purchased that medicine and gotten the coupon. I asked for a minute, went a few aisles back, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the summer aisle. I was shaking, and I just couldn't stop. I cried for a few minutes before finally approaching the counter, still teary eyed, and asked for just the ginger ale and broth, and not the Gatorade. The sweet woman behind the counter gave me the coupon instead, so I could get everything my husband needed. I thanked her repeatedly and apologized profusely and briefly explained our predicament.
We have about $0.31 in our bank account right now. But my husband has a full, although pained, stomach, and all of the medicines that he needs so we can find out the truth behind these horrible symptoms.
There is only one other moment in my life where I've felt so helpless in watching the one I love suffer and knowing there was nothing I could do about it. And that's a day I try to never speak of.
He's taken care of now, and I can breathe again. For the moment. But the truth is it'll all come back tomorrow when we step into the hospital for a procedure we can't afford to find out about an illness we can't afford in a man that's too young to have to deal with any of it. It's my job to be strong for him. If he can work through the pain, then certainly I can do what I can for him. But that doesn't make it easy. Quite frankly, I'm scared to death.
I'm going to talk to my mentor about cutting down a few days at the shop so I can get a part time job to make up for all of the time he's been taking off. That and he needs to get an easier job with less hours. But I guess we'll just see how this goes.
