Stress, words, and memories

One of the biggest changes I've noticed in myself since Stella died is I can't handle stress well anymore. Even the tiniest little contrary event has my heart racing and me almost hyperventilating. Starting a new job 3 months ago hasn't helped. This place is a lot more laid back than where I used to work but almost too laid back. And I stress about it. Every little thing I do wrong feels like a huge failure and I'm knocked down for the rest of the day. I rationalize it by telling myself I used to have the same amount of mistakes at my old job but because I did 4 times as much it seemed less. But I know it's just me feeling off. This is the new me...or at least the me right now.

I am not my usual positive, optimistic self anymore. I also make a conscious effort not to use certain phrases that bring me back to the NICU with Stella. Before we knew the extent of her injuries the nurses would use every glimmer of hope to say they were "cautiously optimistic"- can't use that one anymore. And when the attending doctor told us what the MRI revealed the first word he said was "devastating". Can't use that one either. I've never talked about this with R. but I have noticed that he uses one word that the attending used often to describe Stella's brain damage- "global". That has always stuck with him but every time I hear him use it I am brought back to that moment on that day in that room in that NICU in that hospital when all the color left the world.

I can't remember everything from the hospital or what was told to us at that moment with the attending and the neurologists and the nurse with the box of tissues but I have so many memories. Those awful cheap tissues, with so much crying they should invest in some quality tissues. I can still hear the beeping of the machines. I can hear this whimper that Stella had. We never heard her cry. She always had the ventilator in and when they took it out she was so sedated she wasn't really ever "there". We were in charge of telling the nurse when she needed more morphine. She would come up from the fog sometimes and whimper. It always sounded to me like she was trying to cry but it was this terrible muted scream that would always make me freak out. I will never forget that sound for as long as I live.