Margm

Oh Mitch, I got a kick out of that. This goes along with faulty memory. Keys in left pocket, phone in right pocket, glasses hanging off top of purse (tremendous purse), Nexium in purse, Xanax in zipped pocket of purse. If any of those are out of place, I am totally lost. Yes, I will cry if they are not in those places cause, I WILL NOT remember what I did with them. No idea, purely hysterical. As an addendum, no harm was done even with what I fell on. A good thing about soft hips (big.)

Thanks Kay.

Without that one person I am lacking, I would not have to find myself. No problem here except we are saying the same thing in different words. Semantics, that is all. And I probably do feel sorry for myself sometimes. I have a lot of feelings, we all do, that can be described in any number of ways. Guess what? They are all correct. None of us are wrong. We hurt, we try to help ourselves and if some small idea hits home with someone else, Eureka, we are all on the same track.

Getting ready for bed last night I fell backwards, tripping over my purse on the floor. I quickly had three people and two dogs beside me. My daughter is getting ready for a yard sale and there were boxes everywhere. Really, there is not far to fall when you are 5" tall and your behind is even closer to the floor. But nothing makes you feel old like that much attention to a little fall. I guess I am going to have to get one of those "life alert" necklaces. Damn I feel old.

When Billy and I separated a long time ago. We still were together and saw each other every day, but our error in life could not be mended, we thought. I did not want to live without him but I did not want to live with him either. Yet, there he was, still alive. "I love you Margaret but I just don't like you." Okay, I ask my single (not ever married) girlfriend " "Who is going to change the oil in my car?" Yeah, that was a big block in the road of life. She looked at me dumbfounded and said "You will go to an oil changing place." So we are finding ways to live without them. The guys on this forum are learning to do the things we women did, or they are learning to live without that "service." It is not simple. Life is horrifyingly grim. It is lonesome in a sea of people. There are those who will take advantage of our grief, they do it without a backward thought. We have to be observant, very seriously observant. Even Sears will take advantage. So the boat has sprung a leak, the sharks are there. Well, I just hope you carry plenty of chewing gum, or in my place, a lot of gorilla glue. I cannot swim, so hopefully I won't have to go in the water. The sad thing is, we do have to find ourselves. We did not want this, but we have no choice. I cannot rely on Billy. He is not coming back. I don't like living without him, but he did say the one left must stay. In the meantime, I have other family members that I cannot desert. I am selfish. It is hard making my way without Billy's help and I want to scream at all the outstretched hands and say "Leave me alone, let me just find my way and you find yours." I eventually have to do that. I cannot carry three families loads when I have to learn to carry my own. We each have our own loads to bear. We each have to learn to live without our mate. It is not easy. It sounds sensible, but this is the most complicated life I never even dreamed a nightmare about. And tell me what choice do we have? Seriously, they are not coming back. In the meantime, I have to go pay the rent on the apartment so I can go back to Hell's Kitchen and pay for it. Also, if I write more, I am going to be here long enough to get skin grafts on my butt. We do have to make a way. Not to honor our mates, but the only other choice is to die ourselves. Don't worry about that, it will happen soon enough. The last thought is, you can do it because you don't have a choice.

Well, I never could drink. I know morally I should not drink. But physically, I wish I could. I would just plain get pie eyed drunk. I cannot hold my liquor. Am I that weak, well hell yes I am. Am I smart enough to not want to throw up, well I am that smart. Not intelligent, just know what it would do to me. Drugs would just bother my colon, so I will just breathe, walk, and live. I don't suffer quietly.

Oh my gosh, you are girls after my own heart.. I just did not feel wrong reading feelings I had five months ago and feeling those same feelings. I know he is gone. I know how I felt, I know how I feel and I don't want to review them over and over. I will never have nothing except what is on here, and I don't read anything past a week. I used to call it numbing down and it felt so much better. Nothing we will ever forget. Nothing we can ever get over, but damn, I don't want my butt to have to have skin grafts from sitting still 24/7. Thinking is dangerous in a mind like mine. Hugs to you both.

Well I look up to the sky and say to Billy, God and Jesus "I don't know." What do I not know? Well, I don't know how to proceed with anything. Just saw a relative wondering about where money was coming from. They need help. I said I did not get my money till the 1st. They said they were not asking for money. And none of them ask for it, they are just used to letting me and Billy know they are in need. We always came through. So, Billy, Jesus, God, I need these people, and myself to have help, and with me it is not just money. The fact is, I'm running as fast as I can. My mom, last night had fell again. No soft restraints unless there is a fulltime nurse. Life sure gets complicated. The thing is, if Billy was with me he could do no more than I can, but we could talk. Now I talk to you all and no one can solve all my family's problems. I miss Billy, but he is not here. So, "I don't know anything."

Kay, I am sorry about the loss of a fur baby also. Please Gin, let us know how things are going. I wish one of us could be there with you for any test that you have to go through. And, I hope the only thing they find is that you are wore down, worn out from all this emptiness we have to go through. Please stay healthy. I have not moved my muscles and bones in the seven months since Billy left me and I go to bed each night hurting from all the movement of the day. I am overweight also. Just got on the scales this morning and had lost 25 pounds after Billy left. Have gained six of those back. Weight with me has been a constant battle. After the cancer battle I was afraid to lose weight, afraid it meant it had returned, so I gloriously gained weight until it got to the point it was not the cancer that was going to get me, it was the excess weight. My GYN doc said "Margaret, you are gaining too much weight." I showed him, I quit going to him. Anyhow, let us know how you are doing.

“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind There is a joke about "my family does not suffer from insanity, it delights in it." I know I said that wrong, but I live that life. And we are told that grief is not insanity. Maybe not, but it sure feels like it. Sometimes it feels like we are fighting a losing battle. I lose myself in this moving calamity. Am I sane. Happily, I am not sane. Is it because of the grief??? Well, I was not too sane before the grief and now I am doubly not sane. We handle things the way we handle them. If you want to get angry, get angry. If you want to get bitter, get bitter. If you want to stay in bed all day, if you can honestly stand to be around yourself in bed all day, then go ahead. If John Smith has already remarried two months after Jane died., then more power to him.. Only in the back of your sane mind you think "poor schmuck, he is going to have to go through this all over again." I really got into genealogy. I found out the great grandfathers on both sides of my family married and their wives, both of them, had about 12-13 kids and finally with that last kid, poor woman, in her middle 30's or early 40's, she escaped. Of course she died from all of this. But wait, there was an old maid of 25 living down the road. "He" needed a babysitter so he married her and she wore herself out caring for the 10-13 kids and then having nine or more herself. Soon she escaped too. Finally, "he" got so old a wife outlived him. But, "he" populated the woods and bayous with enough people begetting all those other people. I think my bloodline was very undiluted. (Is that the word I want?) I have done a lot of crazy things. My parents did not kill me, but I don't think either was too sane. If they had been they would not have fussed for so many years. Finally death claimed one and the other, which had never met sanity face to face, she slipped over that fine edge of genius and insanity. So, however, you handle this grief, it is yours to handle. This forum seems to be here to help us with whatever is bothering us at the moment. Maybe one day we can graduate and be a member of society again. Society? Does that mean the sane world of politics, religion, ISIS, gun control, the fight over who uses what bathroom? Do you have any idea how many public bathrooms you have been in where there was a transgender person sitting in the next stall. Have you worried or wondered about it before now? As a kid I used to wonder why the blacks were made to use one water fountain and the whites another. In our small town Christmas parade the black high school band had old dirty uniforms but they were so glorious in their performance while our vanilla, white bread band just walked and played some stupid music. And churches. The black people have such a wonderful church service. I have sat through many a Baptist church service where the loudest noise was stomachs growling from hunger. We do what we have to at any given moment. We have to roll on down whatever hill we have started rolling down, and unless you die yourself, you have to experience whatever you are feeling at the moment. I just really have a fear of being that woman that sits on her butt on the couch for so many years I have to have skin grafts. But whatever you do "do your own thang." (and that is my redneck talk). Don't worry about doing "it" wrong. I don't think there is a wrong in grief. There might be a "move on" and I think I will just ignore some things. If that is your "thang" then do it.

Kay, I know to what you are referring in your note. I agree with sometimes the frame of mind is this way. But you see, Juanita was bedridden for months and Larry was dating the new bride during this time while his mother took care of my friend. Now, I do feel a little bitter from this. But, I did see him when I went to her grave. I visioned Boot Hill in Gunsmoke. That part of Texas was so barren. I had a plaque I put on her grave. It was the most beautiful cemetery with those tall skinny trees that won't grow in my home territory. Larry came to meet us at the cemetery. We did not discuss anything but his fishing trips on the big lake near this small town. She crocheted me a round tablecloth while she was sick. A big one. We had the same kind of cancer. I can still hear her voice after 32 years. Why can't I hear Billy?

I just heard on TV a woman sat on a couch so long that she had to have skin grafts to her bottom half from sitting so long. How about that? Surely she got up to go to the bathroom. When I was pregnant (first time) I was so big I lay flat of my back on the floor, no AC, on a mattress. I think I gained 50+ pounds. Then someone told me about this woman who lay on her back so much the placenta grew to her backbone. I got up and ate another watermelon or two, but did not stay laying down for long. I just wonder about the woman that sat on the couch so long she got decubitus ulcers from sitting. Life is sad and funny. Like I said, Florence Nightingale felt she was not needed anymore so she went to bed to die. She did when she was 90. So I guess you do whatever you feel you have to do. Personally, I don't want them to graft skin to my butt. My legs hurt a lot, but the skin on my butt is safe. My knees might not be from carrying around that butt though. Anyhow, if I go to bed, I will just think. I am a dangerous person when I think. So it is best I keep moving. Billy's gone. He is not coming back. I am a little miffed at him today, even though it was not his fault. I just cleaned out the linen closet. That was fun. I saw stuff I have not seen in years. Lots of stuff for Kelli's yard sale. I don't think God is gonna let me have time to be bitter. So, I keep saying, "breathe, walk, live." I do not say "be happy" but I do say "live." I'm sorry, but I do think there really was a "Saint Margaret" and I am sure she was a relative.

One of our GYN doc's, his wife/live in girlfriend (whatever) died of breast cancer and she was a nurse. I think sometimes we are afraid to find out, but in this doc's case, I'll be he kicked himself all the way to his new wife, and there was one later. But, the only time I doubted grief was when my cancer friend died, we were all together at M.D. Anderson, her husband and Billy became good friends. When she died, I called to talk to Larry. The MIL told me he had been so lonesome, he was on his honeymoon. He married the week she was buried. I know he grieved, but honestly, maybe a little respect. Just a little. But the Bible teaches us not to judge. It does not tell us how not to be human though.

Kay, Allen sounds as wonderful as Butch, such a nice, feeling person. Please tell Allen to tell him we are pulling for him and know he has so much to fight this stuff for. We love you Butch and you have our prayers. This little family has had too much. Thank you Allen. Thank you Kay for keeping us updated.

You are right, doctors are human, or at least supposed to be. I worked with them 43 years. The head of the department I worked for, in the same hospital I retired from, I had to run the patient's symptoms by him before he would talk to them. I explained one patient to him, his symptoms, and then I said "I do not know what he has." He looked at me with all his over 6'5" frame and held his hand up in the imitation of Johnny Manziel, (which Johnny had probably not been born at that time), but it was to rub his fingers together indicating money. He said "I know what he does not have, send him to the residents in the clinic." Yes, doctor's are human. Some of them. I have two first cousins that are doctors. One is an ER physician, the other was just in the past few years voted one of the best in Chicago. We all make mistakes, even doctors. I cannot blame them for Billy's death. That is mine and his fault for not recognizing symptoms and trusting that his twice a year lab work and physicals were being followed. I blame myself a lot because my job was typing symptoms for everything. After I found out how sick he really was I saw things that should have been noticed by me long before. Doctors are not magicians. If you don't go, they cannot help. And speaking of magicians, I need a fairy godmother terribly. I am in the middle of the biggest mess I have ever been in. I have at least a million (and really not much of an exaggeration) papers trying to put the important things where they were supposed to go in the first place. Those things from 2002, I just threw away. Will leave tomorrow to take a truck load so my daughter can have her yard sale. She can have all the money, I was going to give them away. I have the big plastic buckets everywhere with "move" written on them. I will handle it.

Of course this is true. Damn, I wish I did not have feet of clay and a wax brain. I think bitterness should be one of the stages of grief. Maybe it is. No matter what stage you are in at any given time when you think about it rationally, there is nothing we can do but just trod on. I walk to the mailbox about a half mile towards and back and I say "walk, breathe, live" and that is my cadence for each foot in front of the other. Thinking rationally. Never have been in that country.

Before Billy passed away, I received a survey from the big hospital about our treatment. I think this is customary sometimes. We had had much anger with a resident who we demanded not be on his case. And, I do believe patient's should have this right. Finally, and how ironic, I put at the bottom of the survey that I would not recommend this hospital for anything but an autopsy. Sadly, by the time this survey reached them through the mail, that is all that was left to do. (There was no autopsy). I never heard from them again, except for the various bills from the various doctors that were on his case. There were plenty of them. Insurance covered almost everything and I finished up the rest in January. My final destination in this life is to see this state in my rear view mirror. Even though intelligently, I realize the state was not at fault. I could write the smokeless tobacco people, but nothing would be gained. When they are gone, they are just gone. We cannot look back and change a thing.

Laura, I think my family's picture is under dysfunctional family, in Wikipedia. One thing, as much fussing as goes on, if any of us was down and could not get up, they would all be there probably fussing over which one gets the prize of picking that person up. I love my family, but I am so glad none of them were twins.

Karen, I think about you. I bear the burden of the death of a husband of many years, you have to bear the burden of a child and husband. My heart is with you.

I have a phobia about reading some of these things. It is okay to read this month's posts, but I don't want to read anything that happened in 2015. I know it is not sensible, but there is a lot about me that is not sensible right now. I started reading and one right after the other said "7 months ago." I know realistically I was alive seven months ago but then unrealistically I did not live in 2015, and won't read about it. Just where I am right now. I can look forward but looking backward scares me as much as writing the journal and going back and reading something I wrote Christmas, so I won't write again. I don't want to visit yesterday. I will visit Billy's younger days. I won't visit him in 2015, I remember his walking to the mailbox down the road and I wonder if he was hurting. He obviously was dying. Was he hurting when we rode the back roads to take pictures, he was dying, he must have hurt. I did not want him to hurt. He did not complain. I can go back in the past that is way, way past, but I cannot visit the dead past. I cannot explain it and it does not make sense even to me but I have the attitude,...........so what.

I know I am a weird old woman, but I want to be like Frankie in Grace and Frankie when I grow up.

Will call my computer guys, probably in Antarctica and try to get this fixed. I think I am the only one having this problem and twice it has done it. Does not do it on the short ones. Probably letting me know I take up too much room.

Karen, you have been on my mind. Did you get your tests taken care of? I honestly think probably that whole first year (and I have no experience past seven months), I think we are all in an immunosuppressive state and we don't have the will to fight, so our immune systems give up too. I cringe at the last note Billy wrote. It was a grocery list of healthy foods. He hated to give in and take blood pressure medicine, his perfect body was going to defeat the blood pressure so he was mowing the big yard at the lake and he came in with horrible headaches. He never complained. Our lake house was 35 miles from the nearest hospital but as soon as I got him there they put him in ICU on a niipride drip. We did not have computers then, he was in his early 40s and I hated the diagnosis of malignant hypertension which just meant it was going to get worse. I haunted our library and I looked at his lab work. His renin levels were high. That meant his kidneys were not working right and his creatinine level was high. I only typed symptoms but his internal medicine doctor with his wiseass attitude toward me as nothing but a transcriptionist made me run to the bathroom crying. That internist doctor looked at his levels again and brought in a nephrologist. He has been under a nephrologist's care since those 1980's. He had three kidney arteries and one of those arteries was doing the work for the others. The stents were new back then and they had to tie him down to the table and go through his groin and insert stents. (One, they had to go under his arm). Luckily we were a research hospital and we had the research specialist to insert the stents. It was horrible. They had three cardiovascular surgeons sitting in the next room with me. This was new. Now they insert stents anywhere with no pain hardly at all. So, I say we had two miracles with me, but we had a miracle with Billy then also. I was not God, but dammit, I was not going to sit back and just accept something and they still do this. I know this is terrible, but Billy's nephrologist (a family friend) drew blood levels on him twice a year. He paid no attention to his liver enzymes, just the things the nephrologist was interested in. Dammit, a doctor is a doctor. We had a little transcriptionist drop to the floor pregnant, hurting terribly and she had pre-eclampsia. She was bleeding. Two doctors were in the study and I frantically told them her symptoms. The main doctor said, "what do you want me to do, I am a surgeon, and he laughed." I told him to get off his ass, and I used those terms (they could have fired me a lot of times I guess) and get in there and take care of her, I was a simple transcriptionist and I knew something had to be done. She delivered a tiny, tiny baby. The doctor got off his ass and took her as fast as possible to delivery. I had the benefit of being older, frantic, and angry too. That tiny baby years later was a big strapping teenager. Mistakes are made. A lot of us are on here because of those mistakes. Maybe if they had looked at Billy's liver enzymes in one of his visits. A lot of maybe's.. When it is all over, nothing can be done. When they are gone, they are gone. But doctors are definitely not infallible. They save lives. They saved mine. It was a fluke, but it worked. I have not been real happy about that for the past seven months. Our friend, the nephrologist, we never received a bill from him. Sometimes when you are not satisfied with something request a second opinion. My first doctor, a surgeon, looked at my MRI/CT scans and called my ruptured colon at the beginning a urachal cyst.. I don't know why I lived and Billy didn't. I did everything I knew to do, but it was too little too late. So, if you are going in for tests, if you are not satisfied with things, question them. If they don't like it, tough. Find another doctor. I wish I had moved Billy out of the state hospital to the private Catholic Hospital. It would have made no difference in the outcome, but he would not have been put through tests to "teach" young doctors. I was wrong, but I did what I thought was right. It was not for money, insurance, because the state hospitals make their money off those that can pay. I have done what I said I wouldn't. You cannot go back and change things.

Laura, I see how hard it is for a lot of you. Going without the one you love, the one that stood behind you, the one that emptied bedpans, cleaned up throw-up on the floor when I could not make it to the bathroom, without that person it is not impossible, but it is like when I was pregnant with my first child. Married in July, knew I missed a period in October, Christmas came along, Billy was at work, I had a case of the viral or bacterial flu, not stomach flu but head hurting flu. Billy was at work and I cried for my Mama. I had turned 18 in August, I see my grandchild at nearly 17, and I was such a child. But, Billy came home and Billy would have been an excellent nurse, he took care of me better than Mama and I never missed her again. Now, I have family that would "take care of me," would insist on taking care of me. In fact, I will have to put it in writing that I do not let either of my kids get into the fix my sister is in taking care of my mom. I will be in a nursing home if I am alive. My kids argue with me, but I could not take their life away from them. I have lived my life. I am still living it and as long as I can I will. There are some things we will have to do for ourselves. My son says, "Mama, let me drive you there." I tell him "no, I cannot start that." I drive just fine, no tickets, I am not reckless, but I cannot and will not drive at night. None of my friends do. I wish you very much luck taking your MRI's. We just have to buck up sometimes and do things by ourselves. We don't want to, but there are some things other people cannot do for us and if we start relying on someone else, we are in a prison of our own making. I want to do for myself as long as I can. I actually, am in as good a health as my kids or any of the rest of my family. We thought Billy was too though. We just never know, but as long as we can do it for ourselves we have conquered something. Something for ourselves. It is lonely, but we can still do things, even lonely, we can do it. We CAN do it cause we have to.

I am not going to leave that entrance way into the house dirty green/brown/whatever. I am going to get one more quart for no one but me of Santa Fe Red. Cannot leave that doorway bare and I need to sand the entrance way inside off. I have my purple wreath with the red hanging on it right now. Purple sparkling cause I cannot have dull purple. As for my life. This below is exactly how I feel right now, but I am purple and I am pulled at least this many ways. You know what though. I can gripe and gripe but at least as crazy as my family happens to be, I honestly believe insanity is hereditary, you do get it from your children.