Friday, April 23, 2010

Unsettling Nightmares

About Michael. I don't have them often anymore but on occasion, I will have one that leaves me pretty unsettled and upset.
Last nights...
I'm at a huge mission conference type thing..I'm not a missionary but my dad is the mission president and there are a bunch of missionaries all over the place. There is a visiting General Authority - oddly enough, Elder Wells, and the meeting is going to start soon. Uncle Floyd is over in the incoming crowd with my dad, who are making their way into the big room where it appears they are going to have some type of news conference. I am sitting on some stairs with other family members and my mom comes in and sits up front, and then my sister in law Ann comes in holding my son Michael. I can tell he is getting tired and she is trying to keep him pacified, so I go over to relieve her and take him to the very back of the room where we have his respirator all set up.
His trach tube is somehow attached through his mouth instead of his throat and I am able to hook up the respirator to it.
I'm starting to get settled into a rocking chair with him when another child or two at the conference, come over and start playing with the respirator settings and removing things. Alarms start to go off and I ask them politely to quit playing with the machines. They continue for a minute and then walk away as I try to figure out what the settings were on the respirator. It's then, that I realize, I don't know the vitally important settings as to the oxygen and the carbon monoxide levels of the machine and putting the wrong settings could kill Michael. I start to cry and panic that I don't know them and people in the crowd can see how upset I am as Michael gets sleepier and sleepier and I don't have anything to keep him awake and breathing for him.
Then someone advises me to call Betsy, one of Michael's nurses in the major hospital where Michael stayed and see if they can bring over another respirator for Michael.
While waiting for them to come, I am again trying desperately to get the machine going and frantically send someone up to get my dad from the front of the room to help me. He comes down from the stage and comes over to help, making a slight comment that 'he really needed to be up front to handle the perfect timing of the meeting but then he got right to work in trying to set up the respirator. He wasn't mean, just appeared inconvenienced for a slight moment but then resolved the immediate problem. I'm trying to keep Michael awake and breathing on his own, but he's barely surviving.
Then appears the medical team from the local hospital with a brand spankin new respirator. I collapse into grateful tears as it has literally been 20 years since I've seen all of them but they look familiar and very reassuring as they begin to get things taken care of. They say that our respirator is so old and that we can now have the new one. They greet me and I recognize several faces and names. They are so warm and comforting.
And I begin to sob...uncontrollably sobbing grateful and relieved tears of joy.
Things would be okay.

And then I wake up.

Now, what did all that mean!!??
I hate trying to analyze it - I don't WANT to analyze it -
It's over and I can't do anything about it...so then why do I feel SO unsettled??
So...I write it down - I don't know why I write it down. I don't necessarily want to remember the dream but feel that I'm supposed to write it down.
I hate that it MIGHT mean something.
I don't want it to mean anything...
He's gone physically - I can no longer help him physically.
But Del wants it to mean something. I tell him 'I had a bad dream about Michael' but don't want to go into details. He wants to know them because he feels dreams are not by mistake....
ARGH!!!
So, I write it down, using all my energies to write it once so I don't have to rethink it or share it a second time.
Now, it will affect my whole day.
I hate when my dream the night before sets the mood for the kind of day I'm going to have.
I wish I could dream only happy dreams...
Don't we all???

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