All Hell Breaks Loose

After the chemo treatment, Jeff watched TV, converse, talk on the phone and even play games on the Playstation with his brother Kevin.  That was a vast improvement.  His pain was tolerable with low dose pills, not IV infused.  He was much better, but still could not eat.

During the week of my visits with him after work, he continued to have a much better attitude.  I did notice that his energy level was lower every day.  He would switch back and forth between knowing how sick he was and forgetting that he had a terminal illness.  That was very disturbing to me, but I didn't correct him.  As long as he seemed to be improved, I would not do or say anything to make him feel hopeless.

By the time Friday arrived, his pain level was starting to increase, and the doctor ordered him back on the pain injections of morphine.  He had started sleeping more again and talking less.  I was grateful for the few days that he had felt better and knew that it was just temporary.  When I would walk into his room most evenings, his crazy girlfriend would be on the phone with him.  His pain level would increase, and the nurse would come in and give him his shot.  In just a few moments after that, he would be sound asleep.  I would reach over and hang the phone up, assuming that the dummy on the other end had done the same.  I never put it to my ear to listen to see if she was still there.  Jeff never remembered talking to her, so it didn't make any difference, and Natalie didn't know who hung the phone up.

Natalie and Jeff had a destructive, volatile relationship.  They had been together off and on for three years, and frankly, the bitch was crazy.  She had done terrible things to him, and he always took her back.  She was living in Dallas again, 500 miles away.  Natalie had three kids from two fathers.  The State of Texas had declared her an unfit mother and given the kids to their dads.  She had basically abandoned them two years earlier to try and get Jeff to marry her.  Crazy, however, prevailed, and he had broken up with her, but Jeff's cousin had told her Jeff was sick, and now she smelled an opportunity to try and get him to make her the beneficiary of his life insurance.  She was working on weaseling her way back in the picture.  I had already evicted her from my house and told her she was not welcome.  I was determined to try and keep Jeff from being hurt by her again while he was sick.  I assumed that she couldn't do much harm by talking to him because he couldn't remember it anyway.  I underestimated her degree of nastiness.

When I walked into Jeff's room on Saturday, it looked like a bomb had gone off.  He was surrounded by nurses trying to get him back in bed.  He was dressed in street clothes, had pulled out his port, and IV's and blood was everywhere.  I stayed out of the way and stood by the bathroom.  I glanced at the doorway and saw the destruction in there as well.  Water was everywhere: towels, blood, hospital gowns, paper towels, and shaving items.  I was trying to figure out what had happened.

The nurses put Jeff back in his pajamas, reconnected his port and IV and fluids, and gave him medication that was quickly making him sleepy.  They told me they caught him leaving the hospital trying to walk to a convenience store a block away.  They had to forcefully bring him back to his room with the help of cops and security.  They told me that he became belligerent when they got him back in the room because his debit card was not in his wallet.  Of course, it wasn't.  Jeff told them his girlfriend needed the money, and he was trying to go to the ATM at the store.  Natalie had called him begging for money. Asking for money from a dying man that no longer had an income.  Begging for money from someone who should not be put through any emotional upset, expecting him to walk a block away to get her some money and send it to her.  WHAT THE HELL?

I was so mad. I thought that I was going to have a stroke.  I really can't convey the amount of hate I had for her now.  Before Jeff fell asleep, he told me he was mad at me because "a man should have money in his wallet."  I told him that he could not have cash or a debit card in the hospital because it would be stolen.  He looked like he was going to cry, but thankfully he fell asleep.  I sat on the sofa in the room, trying to decide what to do about that woman. Jeff's dad and stepmom were coming to the hospital from Dallas to see him and would be there at any time.  I sat there thinking evil thoughts until they walked into the room.

When they walked in, the room was pretty much still in a state of disarray.  The blood had been cleaned up, but everything else was still a mess.  They asked me what was going on, and I told them.  They looked at each other and then looked at me.  Mike, Jeff's dad, said that Natalie had been telling them that I was not taking care of Jeff and they should take him to Dallas, where she would take care of him.  She had asked to ride with them on this trip, and they told her no.  Mike said she had been telling them crazy stuff for several weeks, and they had believed her because she was so convincing.  That was why they were there, to see for themselves.  They picked a good day.  Now they could see the kind of damage she was able to do.  They both apologized to me and told me they would never bring her, and in fact, they were not going to have anything else to do with her.  They had been taking her to the store and buying her groceries because they felt sorry for her.  I told them she was a crazy, alcoholic skitzo and would do anything to get her way.  They didn't know any of the awful but real things about her and Jeff.  Now they did, and her white trash rule was over.

Mike and his wife went home on Sunday afternoon.  Jeff had barely been awake the entire time they were there.  When he was, he was confused and disoriented, worse than he had been before.  They were shocked at the change in him.  I told them they were talking about sending him home under hospice care soon.  They had some more tests to run on him and some medication changes they wanted to try before leaving.  This was only the second time Mike had come back to see him, but he told me when Jeff went home, he would take off a few days to be with him and help me.

Jeff was never the same after that day.  He just started sliding down that hill so quickly. He slept most of the time after that, and he was heavily medicated.  He was still talking, well, listening to Natalie on the phone but would fall asleep while she was still talking.  One night, I picked up his phone to hang it up in particular, and I heard what sounded like a sick cow on the other end.  It was her crying and moaning and screaming at him that she was the only one that loved him and how terrible his family was.  I hope above all hope that he never heard her carrying on that way.  How upsetting for him if that is what she was doing.  I gave the phone to Kevin to listen to it.  His face turned purple, and he called her the name that she is and told her not to call him anymore, and hung up.  I was so upset, so mad, I wanted to hurt her the way she was hurting him, or worse.  I went to the nurse's station and told them to turn his phone in the room off; he could not get any calls and gave them her name and description and told them that she was allowed to see him under no circumstances.  I told them why.  She was banned from the hospital.  Kevin and I stayed until midnight, and then we left.

When I got home, I called Natalie.  I was calm, but my voice was low, and I am sure threatening sounding.  I told her what a cheap bitch she was.  I told her that I took Jeff's cell phone, had his room phone cut off, and left instructions that she could not see him under any circumstances.  I told her I would not call her when he died, and if she came to the funeral, she would be sorry.  I would have her removed, and I would deal with her outside.  I told her some other things that I can't say, but I still mean them to this very day.  She tried crying and making excuses, I lost it.  I told her she was a stupid bitch, that my son is dying, and she would not ever upset him again.  I told her not to call me and not call and hang up, which she had been doing.  And then I hung up.

A little later, I listened to Jeff's voicemail.  His inbox was full of messages from her.  Crying and wailing and telling him how unloved he was by his family, over and over again.  Fortunately, Jeff had never heard those messages and didn't have to endure that pain.  I made a vow that if I ever saw her again that she would most definitely regret it.  Jeff would never know that this had happened.  I was not going to have him upset by anything or anyone.  I would protect him from external pain.

Now it was time to get a couple of hours of sleep and start a new week just like the previous one, each one with a new measure of declining conditions that he had to suffer through.  But I would get through it, somehow.