Screw you guys, I'm going home

... as Cartman would say.

That's kinda how the day after my husband operation went.

He did smashingly well, which I was happy about. Nothing is more thrilling when a) your husband lives through a tricky surgery in delicate, super important area of the body and b) exceeds everyone's healing expectations. Cognitive, he was still him. Perfect.

The problem? They wanted to release him. They wanted me to take him home, make the hour and half drive in unfamiliar territory when I could barely keep my eyes open to hold a conversation about it with my husband.

I'm not sure if anyone has ever noticed, but I'm the person who seems to hold life together every effing second of the day for everyone, especially through this whole "Oh my god the Chiari thing is killing him right before my eyes" thing. I know I've mentioned the having the Asperger's kid, too, right?

Yeah, cause when you have an Asperger's kid, a parent who had surgery can get rest. Everyone knows that. 

Let's think here a second: Every single person around me says that my husband is going home 16 hours after being at the hospital regardless of my capacity to drive and care for him once he gets home? And on top of it, my in laws are going to tell me he doesn't NEED care?

Yeah, I don't think so. Now trying to express this while having a nervous breakdown is incredible hard. Having said break down in ICU is down right impossible.

You know what I wanted to do? Check myself into the psych ward for a 3 day vacation.

My inlaws had no clue and while I didn't expect them to, they didn't do much to help the situation. If anything, they completely severed the lines of communication between my husband and me so that divorce was looking pretty imminent for awhile.  

Being a care taker is a taxing job. There a few to no breaks. During times of intense stress sleep in a rare commodity. There is a lot of hard work, worrying, and its on top of running a regular household. I am only human. I was cursed with the need for sleep or rather being unable to function well with the lack there of; It's just how God decided to make me.

It's my job to advocate for everyone I take care of, but I have no advocate. Who takes care of the person who takes care of everyone? I can understand that years ago, women were given Valium and other sedatives because of the occasional nervous breakdown-- and nervous breakdown is now something I understand wholeheartedly.

When I say I can't do something and when I say I'm done, I mean it. I can't provide anymore care to anyone. And I didn't-- other than driving my husband home half asleep-- I slept for three days, I think it was three. All I know is that between yelling at everyone to go eff themselves and taking Xanax by the handful, begging someone to let me visit the ER and debating whether to get out of bed to call 911 for a vacation, I woke up to find out it was Sunday.

I just wanted someone to understand the pain I felt; to understand that I just need a moment to process watching my husband deteriorate rapidly before his surgery (the symptoms we shared with friends and family were merely the easiest to explain and understand, but just the tip of the ice berg), the knowledge that I was bringing my husband back to a home with an autistic child whose is half toddler-half 50 year old.

I certainly didn't want anyone to tell me that my husband required no care, to suck up and stay strong. Those were insults. And my husband knows me well enough to understand when I'm over-taxed and over-burdened. Had I been allowed to have a conversation with him, maybe things would have been different, but, alas, I'm just his wife, which is a lowly position.

Can you tell I'm still pissed? Yeah. Maybe I didn't handle it well, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. If that wasn't good enough, than I'm the wrong girl for the job.

Now its time for me to work on my to-do list and then throw up again because I can't handle food.