The Irish Readhead was a diehard Steelers fan. I have blood that is Packers green. This morning I saw something from Packers.com saying that on February 6, 2011 the Packers won the Super Bowl against the Steelers.
I remember that day very well. She and I always watched the Super Bowl together and that Sunday was no exception. Except that she had been in the hospital in Miami for a month and had experienced a nine hour surgery the day before.
I was with her in her room watching the pre-game show and generally talking to her about what might happen. The usual good natured banter of football fans when their teams are playing. At least the good natured banter that occurs when the fans happen to love each other. The hospital cafeteria had a "tailgate" set up that day with burgers, hot dogs, pizza and all the fixings. She told me I had better get something to eat before the game so I went downstairs to the tailgate party. The food was actually great and I pondered having a piece of apple pie with ice cream before returning to her room. For some reason I chose against my nature and skipped one of my favorite desserts.
When I walked back into her room someone was giving her some pain medicine. For a fleeting moment I thought this was odd because she had an extraordinary pain threshold [albeit being in a lot of visible pain from the surgery] and because she was already getting pain medication from a patch on her body. We then watched the final pre-game predictions right before kickoff and I made some snarky comment about the Steelers. Which elicited no reply. Which was very out of character for the Irish Redhead. I looked over at her and her face was blue. And her eyes were rolled up in her pretty face. And she wasn't breathing.
Elsewhere in these chronicles I have mentioned that one thing which will surely get attention in a big hospital is walking out of a room yelling that your wife isn't breathing. All hell breaks loose. They throw you out of the room. They throw everything else out of the room. They bring in all this equipment. They make the spouse wait in some other room down the hall. Then you wait to hear whether you are a widower or not.
Ultimately the Packers won the game. I don't remember anything about it. The Irish Redhead won another six years of life. Another of her many thrashings of the medical odds. Not much comparison there.
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