Are You Dying or is This Just a Little Spell?

I came out to sit in the living room since I wasn't getting any sleep listening for Mary's moans. She's had chest pain on and off all night. I pigged out on candy I'd made last night (a new type of bourbon ball I'm working on) and made myself a cup of tea and got all cozy with the baby monitor on, when the moaning started in earnest.

After going in and giving her nitro once or twice, I decided to bring her out here. When I give her nitro, she usually wants to sit up. I hold her with her head on my chest. It's hard not to rock her, but she finds that annoying, so I restrain myself. I stroke her head and she doesn't seem to mind. I also hold her hand or hands. They're usually cold and mine warm. Eventually she seems to be falling back asleep, so I'll help her lie back down.

After I got her in the living room and got her all set up--music, pillow under feet, blanket, cough drop (she's developed a nasty cough)--she started moaning again and kicking everything off. She said she had a bad pain under her arm. Then I noticed she was sweating. She said she was going to throw up. Should I call 911 or not? I hate having to make that decision. I thought I should wait and see and the spell did eventually pass. I blew on her and she said it felt good. It's so hard to know what to do at all because you don't want to annoy the person; you want to bring relief, but your idea of what's comforting may not be the same as theirs.

I went ahead and gave her the isosorbide pill that she usually gets after breakfast. Some of the other pills require food and she doesn't feel like eating yet. The isosorbide is a slow-release nitroglycerin. It does seem to be helping. About half an hour later I gave her a Coricidan, which is a cough and cold pill for people with high blood pressure. The Mucinex (expectorant) didn't seem to ever help. She seems to be sleeping now although she's still making a lot of noises and coughing occasionally.

She never catches a cold. I'm always the one who gets sick. Jo asked if I'd be taking her in to see Dr R, but I said no, if I took her anywhere it would be the ER. I think Jo's worried, but I'm not. I guess I've gotten complacent. Or I'm just tired. Sometimes at night I can hardly hold my eyes open as I'm holding her in my arms while she has chest pain. I feel so unemotional, just the physical desire to close my eyes, and I wonder if I'm a beast to be so unfeeling when Mary could be dying. I wonder sometimes how it's going to happen. How will I react? Will I just want to go back to bed and deal with it later or will I be freaking out? Will she die at home or in the hospital or in the ambulance on the way there? I've thought about it and I'd rather have her die at home and wonder if I should have called 911 than to have her die in an ambulance or the hospital and know that I should have just kept her at home. I know Mary wouldn't agree, but at her age I think it's rather silly to get too uptight about her dying. That doesn't mean I won't be miserable missing her when she's gone, just that I'm trying to be rational about the matter.

She's still sleeping. Her tiredness from the night before is probably catching up with her. Bonnie was supposed to come today but I may tell her not to. If Mary doesn't feel well, I don't want to go out. I don't really have anything to do today anyway. We don't really need any groceries. It would be good to save the money.

We were supposed to go to the Thanksgiving lunch at my great-nephew's pre-school tomorrow, but I'm going to see about someone else going. I can't take Mary if she's got a cold. We thought she'd enjoy seeing all the little kids.