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    She began to cry and she was crying red tears. Red tears! I had never, ever seen anyone cry red tears in my life, it was terrifying. By that time I was crying and feeling exhausted, finally the PA returned. She gave Sheelagh her medications and inserted the breathing tube that allowed Sheelagh to breathe more freely. The PA also took the packing out of Sheelagh’s nose (two days early), and put some cuts into the head casing to make it a little looser. That did the trick because after that Sheelagh fell asleep. With the fear of dying gone, she could finally rest. I ended up sleeping on the love seat in the living room and the PA stayed in the bedroom with Sheelagh.  

    I awoke at 3:00 A.M. and peeked in on them. They were both sleeping so I went back and managed to fall asleep. It was a harrowing and traumatic evening for everyone. We made it through to the morning and the PA did the morning cleaning with Sheelagh and had me watch so I would know what to do. Sheelagh had a tube inserted just below her right ear and it drained blood out through the tube into what I called a blood bulb. This bulb would fill up with blood and needed to be emptied twice a day – once in the morning and once before going to bed. The procedure for this was stomach churning. After that was finished, Sheelagh had to have her eyes cleaned and three different drops put in. Since she couldn ’ t close her eyes all the way due to the swelling, her eyes would dry out without the special drops. My work was cut out for me.  

    With the Diazepam and pain killers Sheelagh was feeling better and slept a lot easier. When it came to meal time she had a Mylanta cocktail for starters, and vanilla pudding for all three meals. The PA left that night at 6:00 P.M. because her twenty four hour shift was over. Now I really was on my own. At 6:30 P.M. Sheelagh got up and I fed her and we went through the whole cleaning list the PA had left for me. The entire procedure took one hour. It was exhausting for Sheelagh, and for me as well. I got her tucked back into bed around 8:30 P.M. and then when Sissy called I couldn’t control myself. I just broke down in tears – I felt totally overwhelmed, queasy and isolated. She was a sympathetic ear and a calming presence which helped to ground me.  

    After talking for an hour I felt better and ended up watching some television. I must have fallen asleep sitting up, because the next thing I knew Sheelagh was walking down the hallway ringing her little bell (you know the bell I gave to her and told her to ring for me if she needed anything, never give a sick person a bell). I cleaned her eyes and nose and gave her some medication and she was back in bed by 11:30 P.M. I hit the bed (a real bed!) by midnight and fell sound asleep.  

    Monday January 30 th , was a very early morning. Sheelagh woke up at 3:30, 4:30 and 5:40 A.M. wanting a cold eye gauze cover and Vaseline for her lips. By 7:00 A.M. we started the morning clean up routine, and she had a breakfast of vanilla pudding and Enfalac.  

    By 9:00 A.M. she was propped up in bed listening to her audio books but promptly fell asleep. She got some rest while I ran downstairs to get myself some breakfast. The next two days we followed the same routine, but Sheelagh progressed to being able to eat scrambled eggs and even a yogurt. The doctor dropped in and said everything looked great and Sheelagh was doing extremely well. That made me feel reassured because Sheelagh sure didn ’ t look well to me!  

    The next day the PA arrived and took off Sheelagh ’ s head casing and washed out her hair. This was a very long arduous process, followed by a sit down shower, now by this time Sheelagh was tired but the hard part hadn ’ t even begun. The PA showed me what the next step was going to be and it was a deep tissue massage on the face and neck. You actually massage along the scar line and you can hear things under the skin pop and feel bubbles move, it ’ s very