In the last week she’s seen at least five different doctors. The ER doctor, our personal physician, two surgeons, and some random doctor assigned to her case but she’s only been in there twice that we know of. I threw in a sixth today when I met with the PIC of the ICU to discuss her pain management. It was actually anticlimactic. I went in there ready to butt heads but he had already reviewed her chart and spoken with our doctor and the random doctor and agreed that something needed to be done to manage her pain better. He switched her from an IV medication to Percoset and she says she feels more clear headed and instead of her pain being off the chart it’s around 8 on a 1-10 scale.

That was around nine this morning and before lunch they moved her out of ICU to another floor. She’s in a private room so there won’t be any disruptions from a roommate and the kids can all start to visit her. Alex spent an hour with her this afternoon and I felt comfortable enough to leave them alone for most of it. They didn’t need me hovering and to be honest I needed to walk the halls for a little while and it was nice to have a chance to get food that didn’t come out of a vending machine.

Because I have friends who are a bad influence on him, a few weeks ago Alex bought himself a Kindle and he brought it with him today and left it with Char so that she would have something to do. He bought a couple of books for it he thought she would like and she’ll be able to read without having to turn pages. This kid is a heavy reader and for him to give it up means a lot (though he did hint that it might be a good idea if I bought her one of her own, considering all the down time she’s facing in coming months. I feel stupid for not thinking of something like that myself.)

This is where I clear my throat and point out that someone we know is writing a book and she would very much like to read it even if it is still in the rough stages. Just saying.

Tomorrow I’m letting Rachel and Kevin come. I’m not convinced it’s the best idea yet but she really wants to see them and Rachel especially needs to see her mother, as I am apparently not the go-to parent for things a pre-teen girl need. It was quite the shock to find out she’s more comfortable discussing certain things with her older brother. He believes it’s because she doesn’t want to bother me with anything right now but I don’t want to put him in that position with his sister and I don’t want her to feel like she can’t come to me ever.

Kevin is the one I am most uncertain about bringing over, but Brad will be here and if Kevin balks at the last minute he can hang out with his grandpa in the cafeteria. He’s ten but he’s a sensitive ten, so we'll see what happens when he gets here.

Char is starting to ask questions about the accident but there's not much I can tell her. I know I have to deal with the legal side of things soon. And a couple people have asked in email, so I'll answer it. The guy that hit her was drunk but he did not survive. And we'll leave it at that.

She’s out of ICU and in a private room, and her meds have been changed. She already thinks the different pain med is making a difference. More later but I know a few people wanted to know.

You know family dynamics can look odd from the outside yet perfectly ordinary from the inside; I've had to explain my family so many times I can do it from a rote, practiced explanation, but today I tried explaining it to a nurse and mucked it up enough that she either thinks I'm insane or sleep deprived or both. Our oldest is 13.That's easy enough and the nurse met him yesterday. Today she met my grandkids and I could tell by the look I got that she didn't quite get it. I didn't quite explain it either. But they weren't there to see Char so I didn't really have to.

I took custody of my niece when she was 15. There's a lot of unpleasantness behind that but the short of it is that my sister is no longer in her daughter's life, and God only knows where the girl's father is. So my niece is more like my daughter and the relationship was sealed pretty much like that before she graduated from high school. Her daughter doesn't realize I'm not actually her grandfather yet, and her son is too little to know who anyone really is. But the gist of it, my oldest child is 13 but I have a 6 year old grandaughter and a 5 month old grandson.

Erin brought them to the hospital today while she visited Char. She knew they would not be allowed in the room with her but I think her bringing them was intentional. I stayed in the waiting room with them and got to hold the baby while trying to convince him it was not possible to get lunch on the tap from me, and I got read to from an assortment of Dr. Seuss. The distraction was nice and I probably needed it more than I realized.

Erin was the only visitor I allowed in to see Char today, because she just wasn't up to it. Alex (eldest son; not using their names was turning my brain into crap) didn't ask this morning and I overheard him telling Rachel and Kevin that Mom was"exhausted after the operation" and he didn't want to bother her but he promised he would see her tomorrow and if they want to send notes he'll take them. That kid drives me nuts sometimes and after all the crap we've gone through the last month with him it's easy to forget that he is a good kid and he's a very good big brother.

Tomorrow I'll start making a pain out of myself at the hospital because I'm not convinced they're handling her pain levels well enough. I would have done it today but I wasn't exactly sure who I needed to talk to but Mike (Thumper's Spouse Thingy) turned me in the right direction and I have an appointment with the PIC of the ICU tomorrow and hopefully we can figure out what to do for her. Today she was in a lot of pain and spent most of it fighting tears because of it. That just pisses me off because I don't think she needs to suck that much up.

On the bright side, she had a little bit of an appetite today and was willing to try to eat. She hates that she needs help but even though the right side of her body is just bruised it's still sore as shit and hurts to move. I don't want to contemplate just how upset she's going to be when the solid food is actually digested and the bedpan gets dragged out (and yes, I apologize for that, angel, but it amuses me a little because now you know how I felt.)

It amuses me too how someone you've been married to for 14 years can suddenly be so modest. Evidently bed baths are mortifying and husbands are not allowed to be witness to them. Lesson learned.

Today Char was the most awake and alert that she’s been so far, and the swelling was down to a minimum so I didn’t think it would be a problem for our oldest son to visit. I still probably over-warned him about her facial injuries but she was still a little swollen last night and I worried it would upset him. I forgot that because of my age I am now stupid beyond belief, and he informed me that she looks just fine. His biggest concern was about how much the airbag burns bother her.

They spent about half an hour together before she fell back asleep. She managed to carry on a reasonable conversation with him and he didn’t seem bothered by all the stops and starts of it. I’m still not sure if that’s because she’s fatigued or if she’s in more pain than what the drugs they’re giving her can handle. But he was able to go home with his grandfather and let his brother and sister know that I’m not lying. She really is getting better. I’m not sure I’ll let him go back tomorrow because this afternoon she had the rods put into her leg and she’s back to being completely wiped out. I’m not sure if she’ll be up to trying to put on a good face for him. We’ll see.

The surgery went well, but she was still very groggy from it when I left tonight. Yeah, I’ll go home every night now. It’s what she wants. I’m not as freaked out as I was a few days ago, but when I am there I still sit in the corner while she’s asleep to watch her breathe. It occurred to me this evening that I probably do that more often than I realize even when she’s fine and home asleep in our own bed. And when she reads this she’s probably going to find that a little creepy.

Surprise, angel, now you know what I do when I can’t sleep. It’s not what you thought it was, is it?

There’s a long line of people who want to see her so I’m hoping that she’s not as groggy tomorrow and that she’s given enough medication for the pain to be able to start handling people. If she’s still in a lot of pain then I have to start getting more aggressive on her behalf because someone needs to assess her pain levels and do something about it. I have high hopes that won’t be necessary, though.

It feels pretty damned wrong to be happy that someone spent a chunk of the day crying, but I am a little bit happy about that. Char woke up in pain and was aware enough to let me and her nurse know about it, and after some medication she went back to sleep. Her pain meds have been adjusted a little bit so that she's more coherent but it feels like they're walking a tight line because she obviously feels more pain. Today she spoke some, which relived me. In the morning she wanted to know what had happened and was satisfied with being told she was in a car accident but would be ok, and she wanted to know where the kids were. That started the tears but I wasn't sure if she was upset because she's worried about them or because she really wants to see them. She tried to tell me but she couldn't talk and cry at the same time and the crying won out.

Her facial swelling has gone down enough that our oldest can see her tomorrow morning, I think. I still don't want the younger two in here yet. I haven't asked about the rules but I'm going with what the rules were when I was a kid and back then you had to be 13 to visit an ICU. I think they'll accept that.

She slept on and off all day but at least now I can tell when she's awake and when she's not. They propped her bed up for a while to see how she took it, and she let me feed her a little bit from her dinner. Her temper is also in good form because when I asked her to try to eat just a little bit more she told me to f@*k myself, and a little after that she told me to go home.

So, I'm home. I stayed until nine o'clock to make sure she was asleep and had gotten her pain meds, but I came home tonight. I think my youngest was disappointed and worried that Dack and Theresa were going home for good but once he was assured they were staying he seemed happy. I think I'll have my daughter sleeping with me tonight. As a rule we don't allow kids in our bed but I think I have to make an exception this time.

Tomorrow afternoon Char is having surgery to put rods in her leg, but I'm not clear on how many. Her leg is broken in two places. Midway on the femur and on the tibia (?) closer to the ankle. If she's up to it before then I'll let our son in to see her, but he's already been told that I'm the only one who gets to make that call and he could wind up in the waiting room with his grandfather instead. He accepts it because we've already established in the last couple of months that I'm the World's Meanest Dad.

All in all it was a better day even though she spent part of it crying. She snapped at me and later said she loved me, so to me that's a good day.

For Mother's Day this year, Char wanted a tattoo. She dropped hints about it for months and had friends dropping hints; I pretended to ignore it all because I really wanted to surprise her with something unexpected. In the end, I couldn't think of anything that would surprise her and mean a lot, so I headed to the shop and prepaid for a tattoo.

The surprise was for me, though. She knew exactly what she wanted: a tattoo that would symbolize us. She wanted an ankh to represent the eternal, and a heart to represent love. What she ended up with was not exactly an original concept, but as soon as she saw the sketch of it, she knew that was exactly what she wanted on her for the rest of her life. And she wanted me to get one that matched.

I couldn't say no to that. The gift wasn't the paying for the tattoo, it was in honoring that she wanted something to represent us. So we got the same ink, in places where no one else will ever see.

She loves the tattoo. And in my sleep deprived fog at four o'clock this morning it was suddenly imperative that I make sure her new ink had survived the wreck unscathed. She'll be happy to know that other than some bruising around it, it's fine. Explaining to the night nurse why I was suddenly peeking at a certain body area on my wife was so important was a little awkward.

Today she was a little more vocal. She's still out of it and not speaking, but she's making noise. I hope it's not from the pain, but I still took it as a good sign.

I did go home for a little while today. I was torn about it, but Brad promised he would stay with her until I got back. And it has been pointed out to me multiple times that if I failed to go home and explain to the kids what was happening with their mother I might make them think she was surely going to die, and if that happened she would kick my ass the first chance she got.

They're all holding it together pretty well, thanks to Dack, Theresa, and Brad. No thanks to me as I am painfully aware. I felt all right about coming back to the hospital tonight because Dack and Theresa were taking them to see fireworks and the kids were excited about it. They all want to come see their mother, but I don't think it's a good idea. Once she's awake and can talk to them and looks more like herself I'll bring them over. I think right now it would just upset them more than they already are. They say they understand, but I'm not sure they really do. I know they don't like it.

Neither do I.

Yesterday was my wife's 39th birthday. Three days ago she was in a horrific car accident. As she drove through an intersection she was broadsided by a red light runner doing about 80 mph in a 35 mph zone. The only thing that probably saved her life was that she was hit on the passenger side. If she'd been hit driver's side, I can't even go there.

Her left leg is broken in two places, her arm is broken at the wrist, a rib is cracked, several fingers are broken, as well as her nose. Last night they removed her spleen and sometime this weekend they will probably operate on her leg. The miracle in all this is that she didn't wind up with a head injury. Her car had side impact air bags that probably saved her brain from being scrambled.

She's in ICU and will probably be here for a while. The first night she was listed as critical, but now the nurses are telling me she's stable. She'd be in a lot pain pain but they're keeping her heavily medicated, so I'm not 100% sure how much she's aware of, but when I talk to her and hold her right hand, she squeezes it if I ask her to. I'm told that's good. If she hears me and is aware enough to respond, then she's hanging in there no matter how much pain is seeping past the drugs.

Her father has spent most of his time here at the hospital with me, but he's gone home to spend the night with my kids. I know I have to go home to see them soon, but I can't bring myself to leave the hospital. Because what if? Yet I know my kids need to see me. They need to ask the questions they'll only ask me and they need to be able to break down with their father and not just Dack and Theresa, or even their grandfather.

A few days ago I did one of those Facebook memes and one of the question was "When was the last time you cried?" My answer was last year, when my father died. But right now I'm fighting them all the time, and it's so obvious that when I talked to my oldest son on the phone earlier he came right out and told me it was all right to cry.

He says he's keeping his brother and sister occupied and has told them their Mom will be all right but that it might take a while. That isn't his job, it's mine. Yet I still can't peel myself up to go home, because if I do and something happens to her, I don't think I could take it. They can't come here to see her yet. Eldest Son could take the sight of her like this but the younger two can't. She doesn't look like Mom and won't for a while.

When Eldest Son was just a baby, I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. Toxic Shock. I don't know how she managed it but when I was awake she was there. She says she went home, but every memory I have is of her by my bed. When I couldn't eat, she fed me. When the skin was falling off the bottoms of my feet and I needed distraction from the pain she spent hours rubbing my back and my chest. She read to me until she was hoarse, and when I needed social contact she helped me use my laptop to connect with online friends and she typed for me.

She has been there in every one of my darkest moments guiding me through them, and she's the reason for every one of my brightest moments. If I leave here now it feels like betrayal. If I don't go home and be with our kids, it feels like betrayal.

All of that sounds selfish. But it's after midnight and I've been up for two days and since we just started this blog few people are ever going to see it, so I'm going to be selfish.

Someday she'll sift through the archives and see this. And when you do, Char, please don't be angry that I didn't do what I know you would want me to do. I know you would want me to head home and comfort the kids, but right now all I can do is sit here and watch you breathe, because every breath you take means that you'll probably take one more, and if I see the next breath then I can go on for another one, too. It doesn't have to make any sense. I'm sitting in the corner watching you sleep, and the only thing holding me together is watching you breathe.