TheBanyanTree: Deathwatch still

[Monique Colver]

We shall call this Deathwatch 2008. That's the sort of thing Stew would have
found very funny a couple of weeks ago. I'm not so sure about now, so I
won't say it anywhere but here.

Someone called me a cute little thing today. Stew's mom and a friend of hers
dropped by my motel early yesterday, as I was getting ready to come over
here. They'd been out to breakfast and Liz wanted to meet me, before the
service. And so they showed up and called me from what we euphemistically
call the "lobby," though it's really just a standard motel check-in desk
with doors leading down the hallways. I panicked, of course, when Stew's mom
said to me on the phone, "I have someone here I want you to meet." I'm prone
to panic at the oddest times. Fortunately I'd just showered and dressed and
was minutes from walking out anyway. She said she'd heard a lot about me,
causing more panic, congratulated me on my recent wedding (12 months ago is
still recent, if you ask me) and we talked about Stew, and movies and Tom
Hanks, one of those conversations without an agenda that just ambles along.

Today she called Roberta (aka Stew's mom) and told her she liked meeting me,
I was a cute little thing. I don't think I've ever been called little, and
the only people who think I'm cute are my present and past husbands. I'm 50,
after all, past the age of being cute, not that I was ever at that age.
Maybe it was the shirt I wore to amuse Stew, my new dragon shirt. A bright
green momma dragon is feeding a little green baby dragon . . . and the food
she's holding out to him is a little knight, dressed in a suit of armor, his
little arms and legs flailing. It's a good shirt. I also had on pink madras
plaid shoes to heighten the effect.

Anyway, we're all still here. Sometime in the night I felt myself drifting
off, and then Stew felt his pain increase, so I went out to the living room
where Stew's dad, Ken, was sleeping in his chair until I needed him. We gave
Stew some pain pills and then I crashed on the couch. At 5 am, or somewhere
around there, a plan was hatched to move Stew out to his recliner in the
living room. It's a daily routine. Roberta and I waited in the living room
while Ken got him up. It didn't happen. Stew hit his head on the bed rails,
causing bleeding. His scalp is so thin now, it had started to slough off a
couple of weeks ago, and it's healing, but the skin is so sensitive. We all
rushed to his bedside, got him back in, and said we'd try later. Visitors
are coming today -- Stew's friend Jake, and a couple of the guys who's names
escape me right now. Perhaps then we'll get him in his recliner. Or not.
He's so weak now.

Got to run. Go to get supplies at the drugstore, shower, and I'll be back.

-- 
Monique Colver