One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn through all this is, I can only be me.
When Jo first awakened from the 16-day coma of critical care I was there. I can still remember the look of fear and bewilderment on her face and my overwhelming desire to take all the pain away. I wished then it was me so she wouldn't have to suffer and the feeling still rises to the fore every time I see Jo struggling with the aftershocks of what has happened to her, of the cruel hand that fate has dealt her.
Today Jo dislocated her jaw, not through some trauma but by the simple act of yawning. The hemiplegia means the muscles on her left side are weaker and, as she was tired from the Physiotherapy session today, a massive yawn engulfed her and dislocated her jaw.
A very capable doctor at A&E put it back but, later on tonight, another overwhelming yawn caused another dislocation. I had seen what the doctor did and had also suffered such a dislocation myself on several occasions. Perhaps I am just a slack-jawed idiot. In any event I was able to coach Jo through the process of resetting her own jaw by yawning widely and moving her jawbone sideways while doing so.
I could see, through her tiredness, her bewilderment and resentment that this was happening to her and I realised that this was just another thing she was going to have to come to terms with; that I could not bear this for her, in fact that learning to "keep her big mouth shut", as I jokingly chided her, was her lesson to learn, not mine.
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