Echoes of Trauma

This is Deuce, looking out the window of our hotel room in Biloxi, that I paid $600 for to find a pet friendly room after Hurricane Ida. The 96 mile, typically 1.5 hour drive had taken four hours.

We had damage from Ida, not catastrophic damage to the house, rather catastrophic damage to Cecil's health.

He was already struggling with the side effects of chemo, and was down to less than 115 pounds. We lost power and the water was not safe. He told me that he would die if I didn't get him out of here. I found a $600 dollar hotel room for one night in Biloxi, and then a room at Homewood Suites in Mobile, AL for a week at a perfectly reasonable rate.

His body temperature was 94.6, and I could not get it up to normal. He drank some orange juice. When we got to Mobile, he ate some fruit. The first day, he slept the entire 24 hours.

He told me that he needed to go to the hospital, and I told him that if he needed to go to the hospital, I had to call in reinforcements. I was not going to take Deuce to an animal shelter. He decided he didn't need to go to the hospital. He stopped taking all his prescribed medications, and took Pepto-Bismol.

On Sunday, he ate an omelet from the complimentary breakfast, and that was the start of him regaining strength and having a very good year despite having Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer. I realized this week I have never processed any of the trauma from Ida, and it is hitting me hard. I think the thing that I have not talked about is how lonely and isolating it is to care for a terminal cancer patient, especially one who does not want people to know he is dying.

Trauma will not be denied. It has to be processed, and reprocessed, until it doesn't provoke the visceral response. I have a long way to go. But I have started. And I will keep processing until the emotions provoked by this anniversary are manageable.

The death of a loved one from a terminal illness has so many layers of grief attached to it. Each layer has to be unpacked and processed. This week demonstrated for me just how long of a journey I need to travel with my grief.