All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
Gentle Rain
Words and Music By Jim Robbins
When a mother expresses her love through a hug, a touch, a gaze,
Her child carries that love through the day, carries it in her heart
on her paths through the world.
I want you to feel my love through a touch, a smile, a prayer,
And carry my love through the day, carry it in your heart
On your paths through the world.
Love spreads through us like blood through our veins
And flows like streams to an ocean, and love comes back like a gentle rain
To revive our thirsty roots and make us new again.
I want you to feel my love through a touch, a smile, a gaze,
And carry my love through the week, carry it in your heart
On your paths through the world.
Love spreads through us like blood through our veins
And flows like streams to an ocean, and love comes back like a gentle rain
To revive our thirsty roots and make us new again.
I want you to feel my love through a touch, a smile, a prayer,
And carry my love through your life, carry it in your heart
On your paths through the world, on your paths through the world.
ENTANGLED:
Part Two
Just before the queen’s evil spell took effect, Simon had said goodbye to the princess and wished her well with all the love in his heart, which is reflected in the song “Gentle Rain.” After the princess returned to her room in the castle, the spell did its worst: The princess disappeared, leaving only golden symbols in her place: a crown, an equal-armed cross, and a cup and plate on a brilliant white cloth. The princess was still in the room, but totally invisible, except for those symbols.
In a similar way, the stroke caused my daughter Katie to disappear as well. Katie had to be constantly sedated because every time she approached consciousness, she tried to pull the breathing tube out of her throat, which caused her blood pressure to spike to dangerous levels. We could not, in other words, attempt to comfort her without threatening her life.
After the brain surgery to remove the AVM and the aneurysms, the entire left side of Katie’s body was paralyzed. Nobody knew if the paralysis would ever go away. A nurse told us that the swelling in her brain might be causing the paralysis, and Katie might get back to normal in three or four days. All we could do was sit by her bedside and wait.
icu update
Nurse said surgeon will cut a large incision
above forehead down to ear, open the skull
and take out avm, clamping the blood vessels.
Should take about six hours. Surgery tomorrow.
Not sure what kind of brain damage might occur.
One patient in icu can only scream ouch or no. sometimes says yes to everything
Much of what occurred over the next few days is now a blur. I still have trouble recollecting the experience in a linear fashion and tend to remember only traumatic events in detail.
After a few days, I recognized that my memory was slipping due to lack of food and sleep. I often had trouble during those first few days remembering where I had parked the car in the eight-story parking garage across from the hospital, for instance.
I have to maintain a strict gluten-free diet since I experience atrial fibrillation, or A Fib, if I ingest even the tiniest amount of gluten. I had great difficulty finding gluten free food in the hospital cafeteria or the surrounding area (even in San Francisco, believe it or not) and I felt myself slowly becoming more and more worn out and disoriented until I eventually discovered a taqueria in the student union across the street that served gluten-free tacos. Atrial fibrillation itself can lead to a stroke: due to irregular heartbeats, blood can pool in a chamber of the heart and coagulate; a clot can form that finds its way into the brain. I was going to witness over the next few weeks exactly what kind of damage a stroke can do to a person.
icu update
Not retaining water. Heart rate extremely high,
blood pressure low. Arteries narrowing again.
Every moment they are saving her life.
Every time for the first few weeks that Katie seemed to be having a good day, something would spiral out of control that night or the next day. Without being conscious of it at first, I began to realize that the doctors and nurses, all of whom were calm and positive, were battling to save her life every moment, fighting against vasospasms and dangerous blood pressure levels and narrowing arteries and her inability to retain water. They knew exactly what might occur during this battle but never provided any advanced warning to the family. One day, without emphasizing the seriousness of the operation, doctors performed an emergency angiogram where they inserted a balloon-like catheter into her femoral artery and pushed it all the way into her brain to keep the artery open. At that point I clearly understood that she had been at death’s door the whole time, and it seemed like the threats to her life would never cease.
icu update
Left side paralyzed. Could be from swelling of
brain. 72 hours until swelling goes down. Just
have to wait.
One day, as I was nodding off in the waiting room, I noticed a patient being rushed in his hospital bed toward the operating room. A few minutes later, a code blue alert blasted through the NICU. We found out the next day that the patient didn’t make it.
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