As much as Boulder was our home, after Matt had a stroke and we went back, we had to accept the fact that our life there was not the same. You have to keep in mind that Matt and I had been dating a mere 4 months when shit quite literally hit the fan so we were getting to know each other, but we were not there yet. I knew tidbits about his family and had met his friends and vice versa, but we did not know the inter-workings of each other and guess what now we were roommates and one of us did not communicate well, talk about a relationship shift.

Matt struggled with the fact that time is everything in stroke world and he had been showing signs of a stroke for days. He thought that if only his family had taken him to the hospital sooner he may have had a very different outcome.  A minute can mean the difference between being saved with few deficits or having a long road to recovery or in Matt’s case the difference between being administered a clot busting drug and being ok or having the clot bleed and having brain surgery.

I encouraged Matt to take ownership in his role in all of this. He  should have listened to me when I said it sounded like Crohns Disease and gone into the first urgent care center saying I think I have Crohns instead of lying about how long he had been having GI symptoms. I also pointed out that if he had not been living such the party lifestyle he would have never thought profuse diarrhea for weeks was normal and would have gotten help after a week or two of it. I also prodded him to talk to his friends about their drug use and what he now knew about all of the complications that happen from them.

Instead of his friends reevaluating their life choices they decided it was just Matt’s bad luck and it could never happen to them and even crazier than that they assumed Matt, who let me remind you could hardly speak and could not read or write, would be back partying with them in a few months at Red Rocks.

I listened to them talk to Matt about when he had to partied hard at various shows and rolled my eyes as I thought ahead to the next days round of doctor appointments and therapy. They had no idea because they chose not to have a clue. It was easier for them that way because they did not want to leave that lifestyle behind, but they also were not ready to realize that Matt had. That version of him died the night he had his stroke and had been slowly dying even before that as he was trying so hard to transition away from all of that.

Matt did not have a phone at this point in time because he did not want to pay for something he could not use and this right here was how it became so easy for me to be the “reason” he had changed. I read Matt every text and handed him my phone every time someone called for him, but he rarely wanted to answer and when he did it was always that he was busy. Naturally, this was seen as me “keeping him from his friends” which is hilarious to me because if you know Matt one of the things we have in common is that there is no telling us not to do anything. I was warned by his neuro-psychologist that this would happen. I was the easiest one to blame, but it was not easy for me at all. I hated being hated for something that obviously was not my fault. How had I made him have Crohn’s Disease or a stroke or not want to hang out with them as much? The reality was his reality had changed and their reality had not and rather than accept and adapt to the new Matt they fought it and blamed it on me, inevitably driving an even larger void between them and him.

This being said when it was time to move onto our two month stay in Chicago we were more than ready. It was the fresh start and change we needed. I was beat down from care giving and dealing with his friends and my friends and our families and my class and the Praxis test. I wondered if I would ever have any semblance of a normal existence again and Matt clung to Chicago as his hail Mary in his recovery.

Continue reading “Begin Again” →