It’s been a while since I’ve posted.

I got lost for a bit in a different dimension and just now coming back, though it’s a different me who’s emerged.

Let me explain.

A while ago, my mom’s husband-but-not-husband received a phone call from his doctor one evening after his test results came back from an ultrasound that morning. The doctor told him to call 911 and take an ambulance to the ER “right now.” 

It turns out his carotid artery was 99% blocked.

He was admitted into the hospital where they performed surgery and gave him a stent.

But that was the least of his problems. The most critical and timely, yes, but it was merely the door that opened to a whole new dimension for him, my mom, and the rest of the family.

While in the hospital, they did many, many tests. And he had many, many doctors. In fact, teams of doctors who huddled around him and spoke to each other in a clinical language he didn’t understand, debating about his condition and what to do about it.

He was an unsolved mystery to them. They’d “never seen anything like it before” and “didn’t know the body could actually do this” and “wow, I can’t believe the size of this bladder!” 

For at least 6 months, my stepdad-but-not-stepdad thought he was just getting fat. His belly was growing bigger by the day and his bellybutton, which for 82 years had been an innie, became an outie. My mom told him something was wrong and that he should ask the doctor about it, but he dismissed it as getting old and a slowing metabolism. 

Turns out, all that time, his bladder was filling with urine and in fact, it was so full by the time he made it to the hospital, urine had backed up through the ureter into his kidney. 

And like a balloon that’s reached its maximum capacity, it pops.

Much like a caregiver who’s reached her maximum capacity, she pops too.

So his kidney ruptured, the lining of his bladder ripped, blood filled his catheter bag and down the medical rabbit hole he went.

They drained 3.5 liters of urine from his bladder. Evidently, according to all the medical professionals who’ve come across his case, that’s a medical wonder, considering the male bladder is designed to hold up to 700 ml. 

And still, that was the least of his problems.

I’ve known Lenard, my mom’s husband-but-not-husband for 21 years. They’re not legally married but they’ve been together for over 2 decades and the term “boyfriend” just doesn’t do their relationship justice. “Partner” feels like a transaction, never mind that my mom can’t pronounce the “r” and “t” together. It’s hard enough to get a Vietnamese mouth to form an “r” let alone combine the “r” with another consonant. That’s why there’s the funny stereotype of them saying “fly lice” instead of “fried rice.”

I’ve always appreciated and loved Lenard, but he remained on the periphery, defined by his role as my mom’s significant other.

Except, after months of taking care of him and bonding in a way I never thought possible with another human being, he’s become “my dad,” a term I use with the deepest endearment.

I flew out to St. Louis to visit him in the hospital after his stent surgery, thinking that was the end of his medical problems only to discover that was merely the beginning, and suddenly I fell into the role of caregiver and learned what it really means to live, love and honor another.

There’s so much more I want to say, but if I don’t get this post out, I’m not sure I ever will. If you’ve ever been a caregiver for anyone, you understand that time warps and the days pass while you’re in somewhat of a body that acts with somewhat of a mind with somewhat of a capacity that’s somewhat like living but you’re not sure. 

And you have days where you love with everything in you and days where you hate with everything in you. 

Everything that’s left, that is. 

You wonder who you are anymore and yet you don’t have time to think about yourself because insurance companies need to be called, doctor appointments need to be gotten to, and catheter bags need to be emptied, among the 2,267 other things that need to be done today. 

And yes, you know about respite care and self-care and all those wonderful things to help relieve you for a time, but there. is. no. time. Even when you’re relieved, you’re still not relieved. 

In all this, you’re becoming something new, something different. Something touched by the beauty and brutality of life in a way you didn’t even know existed. 

Right now, I feel like I’m in the middle of my unexpected metamorphosis story. In a way, we all are, always. This journey through life is one big massive metamorphosis story with smaller stories and themes inside the macrocosm that serve as stepping stones toward the one big great transformation. 

I watched this fascinating video recently about what exactly happens in the middle, between the time and space a caterpillar is a caterpillar and when it’s a butterfly. I always thought a caterpillar goes into its cocoon, grows wings, undergoes a slight physical transformation to its original body, and voila – out comes a beautiful butterfly – a caterpillar with wings! 

But I was wrong. Dead wrong.

It doesn’t just grow wings and shift its body to be less caterpillar and more butterfly, it completely breaks down, to a mush of near-nothingness. Its brain, organs and skin – everything about it, even its DNA – is digested and dissolved into somewhat of a caterpillar soup. It’s just an ooey, gooey chunky mush.

And it remains mush for a while. 

And then, out of the mush emerges a whole new life. 

Last week, I felt myself emerging from the ooey, gooey chunky mush of Caterpillar Caregiver Tree.

I realized that I had to break down, lose everything I thought I knew, before I could be whole again, to re-emerge as something – someone – new. 

I’m still emerging.

I think.

Or maybe I’m still mushing. 

I’m not sure. 

Whatever is happening, wherever I am along my metamorphosis, I’m grateful. 

This life is beautiful. And brutal.

This gift of being human, I’m all in. 

Until next time,

Tree