I remember standing over my son in ICU in a Trauma Hospital where he was in a chemical coma to keep him from moving since he had just had spinal cord injury surgery. He was in surgery 9 hours and they could do nothing but pick the pieces of bone out of his spinal cord. He is a quadraplegic now.
I knew that he had tried suicide but it didn't work...just left him paralyzed from his armpits down.
He drank until he was totally intoxicated and drove over a 150 foot cliff. It was in a very isolated place but someone had been up there rock climbing and stopped because my son's dogs were on the road and one had blood on it. He looked over the edge and saw the brake lights of my son's pickup.
He had been married a second time just a year and his wife didn't know what to do either. She was there with him along with me...but after 19 days I had to go back to home because I was ill.
When he was slowly taken off the drugs, he then was told he was a quadraplegic but chose to not acknowledge it. When he was some better he was transferred to the VA Hospital Spinal Cord Injury Unit in Seattle where he spent 7 months before he came home.
He got a low-income apartment. His wife had moved back home with her parents and they both chose to get divorced. She was about ten years younger and he was pretty realistic at that time about what it would take for him to be cared for in his own home.
I can say my heart hurts for you and your husband and families. It affects everyone. You ask how you are supposed to feel....I think you are probably still in shock and a thousand feelings are running through your head. The hardest part of all of this is being the Wife or Mother waiting to see if he will recover.
I would just stand and look at my son and all of the memories from the day he was born would run through my mind...he was my youngest boy...he and I had a very special relationship as Mom & Son. He is 39 now and has been back in the VA Hospital for another pressure sore....so has been in bed several months waiting for it to heal.
I didn't do this but should have...please take care of yourself...try to eat, sleep when you can and everything will either be something you cannot change or can change and that is decision time when you can help change something for the positive.
kelsh :ghug2