Realization

Rather matter-of-factly my husband laid it all out for me:

• His numbers have doubled.
• He needs an MRA to check for an aneurysm.
• He need additional bloodwork.
• He has to switch to a no salt/low salt diet.
• He has other dietary restrictions.
• He has to decide what type of dialysis he wants.
• He doesn't know when he will start dialysis. Soon.

I had successfully denied the presence of this thing, this disease, for eight years. 

If I even bothered to think about the disease, let alone dialysis, it was always in terms of an eventuality, something that would happen in the future. I never considered that each day, each week, each year was propelling us closer to that reality.

This, in spite of my husband telling me over the years that he had lived longer than his grandfather, that he made it longer without serious complications than both his mom and his uncle, that he's lucky, I still thought of this as something belonging to the future.

When the realization that the future was now sunk in, and I went into a tailspin. That's the only way I can describe it. I did wonder what I could have done differently. Should I have insisted he see a nephrologist over the years? Should I have pushed him to see a nutritionist? Should I have done more research?

But mostly, I was just so sad for him. He doesn't deserve this. He's just a good person. He's an awesome stepdad and father. He's a great husband. He's the one person who "gets me." He's my lobster.

For the next 24 hours, I didn't sleep, couldn't eat, and out of nowhere my eyes would fill up with tears, or worse, it'd be a full on crying jag. I was heartbroken. My favorite person, and one of the best people I've ever met, will be going through hell. This is the reality.