oh no in Each Day

I woke up to a voicemail from M. We don’t do voicemail with each other. His pained voice telling me he’s calling an ambulance. I don’t hear from him again until after noon.

Mom, my sister and I didn’t change our plans. I called the hospital, they confirmed he’s there. We drove to the greenhouse and looked at the plants. At that point I had not heard from M. We tried to enjoy the day we had left with each other before leaving me to tend my husband. As soon as I heard from him I wanted to be there.
Hospitals are awful places.

So it turns out three things are making M’s life hell right now. His neck is an issue. A doc told him on Wednesday that he has degenerative disc disease, so that fucking sucks. The stress of the neck pain, the coursework and not sleeping because of the neck pain gave him fucking shingles. And then that developed into viral fucking meningitis.

So right now he’s admitted to the hospital, in a swanky single room, and he’s getting all the drugs. He did get a tiny bit of sleep while I was there, and with time I hope the meds plus painkillers will give him a little more peace, more sleep, and then he can heal better.

It was sad, at one point he realized that I’m at risk, since the meningitis is viral, there’s a possibility I could get it. I could see in his demeanour he immediately felt guilty he’d put me at risk.
After a bit of reading, it seems that, because his meningitis is from shingles, and I can’t catch shingles from him, it would be extremely unlikely for me to get meningitis from him.
That didn’t stop me from washing my hands 5 times before I ate (being careful to not touch the things I’d brought back from the hospital. I stripped down, had a more thorough than usual shower, and I’m sleeping in the spare bed. I think the cleaners changed his linens today but I don’t think that’s a smart risk.

Anyway. If I want to make the smartest choices for my health, I think a lot of sleep is a good start.