Margm

I gave up on writing a complete autobiography. Sometimes you just have to handle things and hope it turns out okay. I gave up my God credentials when Billy left. I cannot save everyone. I can protect myself as best as I can from the fall-out, but I cannot separate myself from the problems. I care. I hurt for them. I hurt with them. To quote Fats Waller: Chillun', listen here to me This is my philosophy To see me through the day To scare my cares away All God's Chillun Got Rhythm All God's Chillun got swing Maybe haven't got money Maybe haven't got shoes All God's Chillun Got Rhythm For to push away the blues Yeah ! All God's Chillun got trouble Trouble don't mean a thing When they start to go ho ho ho de ho Troubles bound to go 'way, say! Hey, I don't have to make sense, I just live here.

As I've said many times, Mama was a farmgirl. She was very smart in handling farm animals, had a gaggle of geese that followed her around like she was their mother. She would pull her boots off and they would stay with the boots. She never let me keep my pets inside, never to a vet. She taught me that animals when they want to die will usually go off by themselves to die alone. I don't know about that, I had at least two die at my window. I could only make them as comfortable as I could, as a child. My kids kept their pets inside. We used veterinarians also. Times change. People actually do too.

When my dad was dying they could give him only enough morphine not to kill him. He would have moments between breath that we thought he was gone, actually prayed he was gone. He was unconscious and secretions built up so they had to snog him. His eyes had been closed for days, they put the snog machine on him and a look of horror opened his eyes. Then slap the morphine on again. No water, no ice chips, nothing, waiting for him to die. He'd dig his heels into the special mattress and had bed sores on his feet. They doctored them. It is like I said, our animals get the better care to die. He had the continued Cheyne-Stokes breathing until it finally quit. My own mama wondered why they did not give dying people heroin. It at least causes euphoria and there have been cases where the patient improved. I know when Billy smoked the marijuana those last couple of weeks, he could not walk. I came out the kitchen door into the garage, they were on the outside. He looked like a bowlegged cowboy but that boy ran to get me with Scott and Kelli on both sides of him to catch him. If you have to die, and we all have to, why not something to cause euphoria instead of pain. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of that.

No, it is all but completely faded now. Toes intact. I just really "get my feelings hurt" that as good of insurance as I have, and really what holds me back is they think I am drug seeking, and also, and I hate to say it, but I believe it is age related. I will let them know my medicine will be given by my home clinic, which is too far from "home" and they will never be asked for Xanax. I'm doing okay on my medicines prescribed by my "home" physicians. I just need someone to read my case history. I cannot be fixed, so they do not need to try anything new. But, if I have bronchitis (which I have had once in the last 5-1/2 years, I will need IM antibiotics. Otherwise, with the aggravation they cause my colon, cannot take. If they do not understand, I don't want one. I'd like them to know me in case I have a stroke (gosh hope not), but need to know what I cannot take and what I can. Not like the gung-ho new doctor that was going to cure my grief with the newest antidepressant that nearly killed me, could have killed me, with me telling her I understood it was grief depression. I guess they want to practice their new medical tricks and I'm too old to give something new. Gotta make them understand. My clinic in Arkansas understands my needs. I just need one closer.

I screw things up sometimes. Deleted response. Did not mean to. Will write later. Your right Gwen, we know sometimes better than the doc. There was a word they used in dictating, cannot remember it, but it meant "at the doctor's skilled request" and he was doing it because he had had success using that med, but it did not always work. I saw Kelli in the hospital. She told them she could not take "mycins" and they overrode her knowledge, said it was the newest "mycin" and she would not be hurt by it. I sat by her bed and saw her breaking out in red welts all over her body in a matter of minutes. They were fast to give her the medicine to stop the other.

Not necrotic. I didn't know what they were. Could have gone to urgent care (less than a mile away), last night they had faded to almost natural color. I thought about the dropping something. No soreness except where I tried to rub the color off. You live miles from a doctor. I live within less than a mile from a few. After the "interview" suggestion, I was ready to tell them all where to put the interview. I have to tell them I take the Xanax, but I do not want medicine from them. I'm sure they would not like my primary doctors to still be used, but I will keep using them. If they have suggestions for different blood pressure meds, I will take them. After the local MD had to "interview" me, I just sort of gave up on local docs. I can still call mine in Arkansas, but they are not here. I can call and talk to them any time, but they still are not close, and they know my history. I've written it down for local doc's, but I don't know how they would enter it in the computer and the first local doc I went to didn't listen to me. I did not have to take the medicine prescribed. A new antidepressant. Even I know you have to be cautious about antidepressants with the elderly. I still have to find one, and use my own will as to what they tell me. One thing I know, I cannot be fixed. But they can monitor blood pressure. Sometimes you cannot make a doctor understand you know your body better than he does.

Well folks, I have company, and they are all amusing themselves. I am trying to kind of listen, Trying to not listen. I did accidentally get back in the year 2020, don't know why, but I was terribly confused and sorry for the things that were happening. Could not figure out when Gwen went to rehab. (I then checked my dates.) Also, company has gone. I'm doing okay. Kay, I hope your situation will figure itself out. I know when it is my time, if my sister goes first, I'm just going to have to have help. If one of my kids go first, I probably won't be far behind them. I've got to where if I have a different skin grabbing pain, I will say, "well, lets wait and see." All I can do. If I see blood from anywhere, there is nothing they can do. (Have not seen blood in 7 years). I still don't have a doctor here. I need to have one. Don't laugh: I had discolorations above my toes. Looked like I had drawn about three inches long, two inches wide using a Sharpie. I washed, rubbed, scrubbed and it would not go off. Looked like I had dirty toes. Did not hurt, except I had rubbed so much. It has been on now about five days. I showed Bri, she is so against me getting dirty. She is really OCD about cleanliness.. Mama used to call me "Moonbeam McSwine" so you know, I get by on PTA baths most times. I shower, no tub baths since 1982. I know this is not "normal" but it is "my normal." Brianna smartly mentioned COVID toes. Yes, they are real. (I looked it up naturally.) I have had no fever, no cough, no chest congestion, headaches, any flu symptoms. And now that I probably need to go to a doctor, they are fading and I have decided, they are the two toes next to the big toe. If they fall off, I'm okay. I probably told you I called a doctor, they asked my age, insurance, meds I take. I believe telling them Xanax made them think I was drug seeking, so they said he would "interview" me as a patient in July, his next open date. I said "elf them anyhow" and will go to urgent med if I have to. I don't think they want to be bothered with old people. Either that or the Xanax. My blood pressure had been going high so I called the clinic I have used for about 25 years, and really cannot drive 175 miles for an emergency. She assigned me another blood pressure med I had been on a few years ago. My insurance is very excellent, being almost 79 and taking Xanax are not good patients to get acquainted with.. Word salad. I'll leave it. Toes don't hurt. They are still hanging on the same as the other foot. At the time I thought it was my black sneakers and black socks and walking in water. At this point, I'm my own doctor. (Probably like the lawyer, equaling a fool for a patient.)

I'm sorry Kieron, I get carried away sometimes. "It is what it is." Those were the last words my beautiful aunt said to me. She got our family's inherited tremor late in her life. I've had from the 6th grade to get used to it. No one treats me with any hatefulness because of it. Never have. I had it mildly as a teenager and at our dances at the teen club, a slow dance was interpreted as the male feeling he made me "excited" and he liked that. I didn't and quit going to them. It was only a slight tremor. It advances and my dad, and my aunts and a distant young cousin have it. We really should be studied by some neurological institute, but myself and the young boy are the only ones left. My grandfather and his brother died of Parkinson's and I worked in the neurology department, but was told there was no correlation in mine and Parkinson's. I retired from that hospital in 1997, and in 1997, they did discover there was some of the parkinsonism genes inherited. My aunt was late in getting it. She had lost a husband, a daughter, and her lifelong neighbor, her sister by then. She had a son left, they were not that close, she hated his wife. My aunt was certainly old enough to die an elderly woman, but she had been a beauty even in this later life. She decided to give up. I went to see her one last time before COVID and she told me how much she loved me, we had grown up together even though she was five years older. She actually willed herself to die. It is possible, I saw her do it. No stopping her. I wouldn't have tried. She wanted to give up. I'm sorry I got carried away last night. I felt the cancer had taken some of my existence, but remember, that was in 1982. I've lived many years since then. I knew so much radiation could come back as other cancer. It didn't. Thirty-two years later my insides simply exploded. My colon burst through my female organs and I had sepsis all over and was expected to die. They didn't tell me though. Instead, my best friend, he left the next year. Sorry for all the gore. What doesn't kill you cures you. I got that close enough.

Sorry, I will take my word salad down. Love you all. My heart is with you. Really, advice is something I think I should not give. My life is played out in so many scenes that talking about them is kind of out of line. Like going to the grief sessions at the church. I cried all the way home from each meeting, not for the women who lost their husbands, but for the focus of each meeting was the death of their children. I loved Billy, grief does not compete. You have it, you live with it, you cope, but I could not handle the grief of these mothers. I love you all. I am having some of the same troubles. 5 years and 8 months, but who is counting?

Some days I sit around and think about all the mean things Billy said to me. But, when I do this, I have to include some things that I said to him that had to cut him to the core.. I blamed him for me having cancer. This was an ugly thing to do when he was with me every minute of the way, took annual leave time off work just to stay with me in Houston, just to be with me, and I cut him in the worse way. The thing was, it was like he said one time, "I love you, but right now I don't like you." When I was my lowest, he was there to lift me up. I guess after any number of years, there may be times you doubt their love, but somehow or other, neither could ever leave. When we forgave each other our terrible things, it was never mentioned again. Sometimes when I think about what he said to me, I just wonder why he stayed. Then, on the other hand, when I sliced him with the verbal knife, why did either of us stay? I miss my best friend. He kept me alive. I tried to do the same for him. When he reached for me, I slapped his hands and said "NO!!!!" and he did not listen to me. Even when I turned my back on him, he left anyhow. (I usually can fight that off and try to get that picture out of my head.) Maybe there really is a "happily ever after." Somewhere. We are all just human. I have chronic depression. Billy had OCD. Mama and Daddy knew each other two weeks. I saw a lot of fusses, mostly money. Both were hard workers with no alcohol or dope messing with the marriage. Lots of religion. I was lucky, neither should have been parents, but they gave it their best and I never missed a meal. Daddy lasted out 44 years and my son said he had a smile on his face. (Mama had said he did). Scott was convinced he did too.

Oh Gin, I so very much understand, maybe more even than when they were 4-5-6, at least we could hold their hand. I'm so sorry. I've got to say, if his dad was here, he would listen and still mind him. Billy and I neither were perfect people/humans, but he admired his dad so much. He loves me, I know. I'm supposed to be more saintly, maybe because I'm getting closer to "The Heavenly Gates". I said an ugly word "eff" the other day and he flinched. I don't like being saintly. Not in my DNA.

Please try to get word to him. VA saved my son and brother-in-law's life. My son works for the VA now also. Our hands are tied when it comes to controlling things after they hit middle age, for sure. Scott still won't go until his appointment time in July. And he works there. Scares me cause my dad would not go either. These men, when it pertains to their "private parts" whether it is life or death, some have too much ego to save their life. Billy emptied my bed pans, cleaned my bag that held the drainage from my colon rupture, but giving him a bed bath, instead of seeing how much I loved him and didn't mind, he minded so much he just checked out. I have Scott within 30 miles of where I am, he won't listen to me, it is too much a "private" matter, also an assault on their manhood. He is just like his dad. I can only hope and pray. Gin, I hope you hear good news. My thoughts are with you, I understand.

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble with Xanax Dee. They no longer look at us as having quality of life but want quantity of life. What good is that if you are in a ball of elastic rubber bands. Control it!!!!! That is like they told my granddaughter, "get a grip". Those grips slip through our hands. They give death medicine by buckets, but won't help us elderly. I'm in mental pain, guess I have to get a grip. So far I can get mine. I will not interview for a new doctor. They do not see anything but someone that "might" ask for a benzodiazepine. Think that is the only reason for coming. I will go to my old family practice docs so far away and if I need urgent care, I have it close. Not fixing to "interview" a new doc. This moving is heart rending enough. I wish you all the luck in the world. Maybe after this many years you will know what to let go. I have my memories of all our RVing trips, all our other life happenings. I hope my mind always remembers them. The pictures stab me in the heart. We have to do what is best for us as long as we can. My heart is definitely with you.

Oh. that is good because I just talk everywhere.

Your right Karen. We just talk to each other, and I am happy to see George back. I talked on FB yesterday with some friends I worked with 10 years. I came from another state and this group of women, who knew each other forever, took me in, made me feel more at home than I had even at the huge impersonal hospital I retired from a year before. We talk occasionally. Our group was disbanded (after I retired again) and transcription was eliminated. But, I felt totally at home with this group, as if I had known them forever, just like we are on here, you get to be "family" even though we have never met.

You have not rambled. You have given us a new perspective on loss. You are one brave person and I certainly hope they can find the person responsible for your loss. It will not bring them back, nothing can do that, and that is why I ramble on. Please keep in touch and please lay all your feelings on us. We cannot do a single thing to help find the person/persons/reason for your loss, but we all know loss and we can "listen" to anything you have to say. I wish we could do so much more.

I think I have hijacked someone's original post. Sorry about that. Will find appropriate next time.

I don't know if this pandemic has made the doc's more selective. All our health workers have been the marines, air force, army and all other services with this mad pandemic war. I do appreciate them. "He that Consults his Physician, and will not Follow his Advice, must be his Own Doctor: But let him take the Old Adage along with him. He that Teaches Himself has a Fool to his Master." (not sure who to give that to, it has been said in many forms, this one (I think) came from the 1600's.) I remember them doing a thyroid biopsy on Mama, as she was going into Alzheimer's, and I will never forget, and it makes me cry to remember this. They didn't get enough tissue and wanted to do another biopsy on her. Mama was the bravest woman (along with my daughter, her granddaughter) and it tears my heart out to remember her grabbing both Marcy and me and begging us (her grown children), as the decision was taken away from this strong woman. We both agreed with her, no doubt in our mind, she did not want to be put to sleep again, this was her choice and she got her choice. Yesterday I got the first big box down from the foot of my bed. I had written on top "Dining room stuff" and it threw me into the deep end of misery. It was totally filled with pictures of us, my parents, all the places we RV'd, and Kelli came over. I could not find the picture of our five generations, but did find the one of our four generations. The other one has my dad and grandmother with us. You have to remember in this one, I was two months away from MD Anderson and look sick, so take that into consideration.. I look like a squat troll right now, and hurt like an old woman does sometimes. The only way I would want to go back to that time was to have Billy taking the picture. Me, Scott, Mama and Angelique (Angel) our first grandchild. I got that picture out, sealed up that big plastic box and Kelli helped me pile it on top of another. I won't go back to it. Some things I still cannot do and I won't do. I have memories in my head and seeing pictures is like a knife stabbing. I know I am different. I'm getting ready to get rid of the California King sized bed for a twin, so I will have more room. Today, I am feeling so low, just from that box of pictures, I just don't want to move.

I go back to my clinic I have gone to over 20 years, but it is 175 miles away. If they make them quit giving them to me then I will wean myself off. I need them, but have lived years without them and believe I can live a few more maybe. I do believe in quality of life instead of quantity. If I go to a neurologist he may have a wonder med that will take care of the parkinsonism like shaking and one pill might kill me. I can take the Xanax and live or I can do without it and possibly still live and just warn people that I have to use my card to pay for things that I cannot enter my number because my hands shake too bad, or figure out something else.. I just cannot take some medicines because of the colon, and if they dissolve in the stomach, they could take me out. Do I trust the doc? No. I trusted one who was so positive she knew what she was doing and learned I should have been in the ER from the side effect. So far, I get two scripts a year that take care of 12 months. I won't even ask for them from him. If he approves me. He might see that I am on Xanax and not take me. I do good with the urgent care woman if I have to. She is an MD and we get along, but she is not a family practice doc. I think I need to find me a geriatric physician, maybe a good veterinarian. They are kinder to their patients than MD's.

If he can tweek my blood pressure into better numbers, that is all I want from him. I do not require him to do anything for me but that. I don't want them to "find something wrong" because I am all "wrong." I do take Xanax, not looking for it from him, do not want it from him. Will not go back once a month to get it from him, so the Xanax is no problem. I have not had my shots yet. I am afraid of them and everything else except what has kept me alive these past seven years. One of the blood pressures is give twice a day. One doctor told me not to take the 2nd as my heart beat went too low. I only go twice a year and have had to go twice since I have been here in Louisiana again. The sitting on my foot (falling) and a "cold" (is what I will call it) and could not take the antibiotics by mouth. The shot cleared it up. If he does not listen to me, if he tries to push an antidepressant or a medicine that will mess up my stomach/colon, if he does not listen, I will just go twice a year to Arkansas and if need be, to the urgent care clinic. I don't want blood tests. I don't want life saving measures, unless the blood pressure meds help. And yes, it sounds like I am doctoring myself. I have taken other blood pressure meds, but nothing different since the colon rupture. Cannot take pain meds.

No, he is in Louisiana. They will prescribe if you come back once a month for a new prescription. I'm not looking for Xanax. Might have to go to a neurologist for that. I cannot just take any medicine. This works. I'm not asking them to prescribe it. It calms the anxiety and sometimes quality is smore important than quantity. I do know how to get off of it. The mental health situation in every state is not what it was when I went in the 1980-1990's. An opiate would kill me, would lock up my colon. I am very careful, but even careful does not catch you. I fell and sat on my foot. They said hairline fracture and put my foot where I could not move it. It hurt, and they wrote a prescription for opiate with me telling them I could not take it. I did not get it filled. Tylenol is all I can take for pain.

When I spent so much time on the scan table in interventional radiology, that description you made is exactly how I feel. I have wanted to write a letter to the CEO of St. Vincent's Hospital for over seven years. But then, I wanted to write one about them keeping Billy in the ER with a bag to throw up in his last night on Earth. I've never written either. I was naked on that table. People coming in and out. I kept thinking, which one of you would let your grandmother lay naked, without even a sheet until you got all your plans made about where you would cut, would do it under scan, and then mercifully a sheet going back to the room. We had a doctor I worked for. He was from an aristocratic family in Chicago. His father had wanted him to be an architect. All other doctors loathed him because he gave off a "better than you" attitude. He really was not well liked, and I heard him once talking to a black man that had come to judge our program, keep it legal, he had a suit on, was very nice talking and our doctor knew he had the "say so" as to if our program passed or not. I heard him talking to this "very important man" about the backward ways in this part of the country. He didn't realize he was talking to a black man from the deep south. We passed. But, this arrogant man made sure there were curtains on the little rooms where the urology patients got their prostate exams at the VA. He also would personally see the cousin of the woman that worked as his maid, free of charge, and instead of a student/resident taking care of this person, he would do it himself. He might be arrogant, but he also had a big heart. Our department head would not see the free patients himself. He rubbed his fingers together to show they did not have money, so actually it was not worth his time. Faculty loved him, hated the arrogant one. I'll take the arrogant one anytime over the other. This is the first time I have "applied" to be seen by a doctor. I have proper insurance, and am in no distress. And if he picks me, I have already warned him, I am mean, I am hard to be a doctor to. Never had to audition for a part to see a physician.

Not me. I appreciate it if anyone can define their normal, and we really do have to accept it. I've never been normal and am lucky/blessed/something that I have made it this long. Sometimes I feel like I'm being punished (very Baptist upbringing). No one in my life is normal either, well, actually, they are "their normal." It is what it is. Not for them, they, or anyone, just however we feel ourselves. I broke down and called a friend's doctor's office to have a doctor close. She (receptionist) said he would read my information and decide whether to take me on as a patient. First appointment would be in July (last part of July). He would review and decide. I told her that was good, "do not forget to inform him that I am almost 79, mean and cantankerous." We will see if he accepts me.

His April 14th for years was hysterical. Papers everywhere. I told him not to lie. We always paid while I was working, so I guess he didn't lie much. I am supposed to keep, I think, 10 years back the woman at H&R Block (or whatever it is called) tells me. I bought a shredder. I have to shred all of his writing, all of his figuring. And, I do know how stupid that sounds, but that even hurts. I have not done it yet. Years and years and years. I should let Kelli figure my taxes. I really have nothing to figure, but that was "Billy's job" and H&R Block is impersonal. Kelli is part Billy. I cannot explain some of the crazy reasons I do things. My son understands and is the same way I am. Kelli feels closer by doing what Billy would do, I run away.

After 5-1/2 years, sometimes I think I just hear him puttering around in another room. One day in this past week I remembered a dream. But, I only remembered it after I carefully got out of bed so I would not disturb him. My feet hit the floor and I was awake thinking "silly me, of course he is not there) but he was there 54 years and old habits actually sometimes don't die, even if the person has. A portion of our life, personal, mental and physical is gone. Somehow the indentation in our daily life still includes that person. It is just one of the many paths a person can go. Like Rose Kennedy said, the wound never heals, we develop scar tissue, and sometimes that is gone too. John Denver sang this song. Substitute the diamonds for zircons. No more diamonds. When you asked how I've been here without you I'd like to say I've been fine and I do But we both know the truth is hard to come by And if I told the truth that's not quite true Some days are diamonds, some days are stones Sometimes the hard times won't leave me alone Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones Some days are diamonds, some days are stones And we just do the best we can.