expectations

Our expectations are funny things. Sometimes perhaps it's not so much the day we've had, as how far removed it was from what we planned that affects our feelings about it.

Bronwyn's had a couple of weeks now that have certainly not fitted with her expectations. In eight years of teaching, there was once one afternoon where Bronwyn left school early and came home because she was feeling unwell. And that was the total extent of her sick leave career to date. So when, a Thursday afternoon 17 days ago, she threw up on the bus on the way home, I guess it was only natural that her expectation was she would be back at school soon.

Bronwyn basically stayed in bed for five days from that point, but from about the following Wednesday she again started setting her alarm for 5:50am, back to usual. Despite having spent the previous day unable to even sit up in bed, she would leap up expecting to be able to go to school. She would start her morning routine, and have a shower, before collapsing back into bed for the rest of the day. Next day, rinse and repeat.

Even now, going into her seventh day of hospitalisation, Bronwyn had tears in her eyes today as I said to her (and not for the first time) that she obviously would not be going back to work this term, and certainly not this week. (There are eight school days left in the school year here.) This idea is just so far from Bronwyn's expectations that she continues to struggle to come to terms with this. She simply has not comprehended just how unwell she has been, and, though things are progressing well, how unwell she continues to be. (To drift into psychobabble, it is clear to me this is a cognitive dissonance/psychological defense mechanism-style lack of insight, rather than one related to any cognitive-impairment! Bronwyn is quite alert...)

Despite all this, Bronwyn's progress actually fits my expectations and I'm pleased to report she continues to seem stronger, more comfortably mobile, and to have less pain each day (though she is now saying she doesn't need paracetomol... I have firmly encouraged her to keep taking this). She has however lost about 6kg since her illness began, including at least a kilo of that during her admission. She's not close to dangerously underweight but nor did she have six surplus kilos to hand. After an earlier visit to Bronwyn this afternoon, a loving church friend returned to the ward this evening with two large bags of hospital-venue-preparable food, which will be able to supplement or replace the food on offer in the ward. The hospital food had been of variable palatability to date. Thank you food angel!

Meanwhile, my expectations have been all over the place too. I don't know what I was expecting exactly for my birthday but as yesterday's entry said it wasn't all to plan! This morning I woke to discover the optical drive in the laptop now reading the disc I'd been sent. While the drive has stopped working again since, that moment allowed me to copy all the files to my hard drive, and Bronwyn and I had a lovely time watching the footage from home. It made our day.

Finally, expected discharge date: either tomorrow, or maybe not tomorrow! We still don't know... If you're of the praying persuasion, you might like to pray that the medics decide to keep Bronwyn in a day or so longer and still do that MRI. And if you're not, but say you're a Consultant at a local hospital, maybe you should just try and pull some strings in a scanning department somewhere! After all, the Lord works in mysterious ways...