Margm

When I was in the hospital the nurse had pulled a 12 hour shift, on her way to go home, gonna stop at Walgreens for Dramamine. That is what they all took to sleep. My daughter has been taking it so long it scares me. I know too much of it and it makes you have leg cramps. I don't mix anything with my Xanax but Clonidine, my blood pressure medicine that bothered me too much in the daytime to take. I asked pharmacist if I could take it at night and she said yes, so it helps, along with the 1 mg Xanax. Sometimes I dream, but I don't remember them. If I wake up and go back to sleep, I can remember my dreams, guess that is REM sleep. This is up for grabs, I would not drink alcohol and take Xanax. Lots of people will disagree, but will say it scares me. But what the heck, I can't drink alcohol anyhow.

“Grief throws them out of balance.” Grief affects our limbic system, which is the system of nerves and networks in the brain, as well as the pre-frontal cortex, Burnette explains. This can throw off how we regulate our emotions, our concentration levels, our ability to multi-task and our memory function.Dec 6, 2018. I don't know who "Burnette is, but we all feel such a change in our brains that sometimes I wonder if it is dementia setting in. I'm old enough. I know the concentration comes and goes just like an artist or writer's block. No matter how many years. This was written in 2018, but in 1918, it would have been the same. My mom was an on top of it housekeeper. But she swept it under the rugs. Dishes out of sight but still had layer of oily substance mixed with soap. Things were swept under the rug and we have to sometimes "sweep our grief" under the rug. That old rug gets too lumpy, builds up grief, we think we are better and then years down the line we trip on that debris we swept under the rug. It does not happen as often now, but it still happens. I'm sorry for your sorrow, hidden for awhile and then trips us up on the rug we swept it under. There are no answers, we all know that, just wade through it to the other side and then we know it will happen again sometime. Going with the flow is hard. Heart with you my friend. Know the feelings.

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed Nothing new in that quote. We all feel it. The thing was, Billy hated for me to be scared of anything. (He ought to have realized when I was in labor with Scott my quote, scream, yell, over and over was "I don't want this damn baby"). And a woman down the hall, when I was walking the next day, she laughed and wanted to know if I had had that damn baby yet. (I've got to say 1962, small country hospital, they induced labor with castor oil and orange juice), we did not have epidurals. My ancestors might have had 10-16 kids at home, but I was not my ancestors. It was being a natural childbirth, and I'm not fond of that). I am a coward. I am afraid of everything except storms, strangely, I enjoy them. I'm afraid of where I put my feet, I'm afraid of walking. I'm even afraid when I go to bed that I won't breathe, and I don't want Bri to find me "gone." I started to read about "yogic nidra sleep" and now I'm afraid to try it. Well Billy, how do you like me now. I'm afraid to breathe, afraid not to breathe. Something tells me he just does not care right now. Okay, fixing to go to the store, don't know what store, I will know when I get there. Gwen, I just hope you are not in pain, and I hope where ever I go to the store I don't have a bodily function emergency. I like being in my apartment, but it is necessary some times to leave it. My granddaughter does not want to leave it either, and I want to help her so much. She has a counselor. He is gorgeous, and she can talk to him. I look at him and I think "I sure wish I had hormones and was 50 years younger." ...................not really. I'm tired.

I have developed a brain block against holidays. I guess I am the original Grinch. I have my grandma's sensibilities toward holidays. I do not have enough kids to save their presents and regive them the next year, but my mind sort of shuts off. The first couple of years I bought cards and signed mine and Billy's name since it was his money that went into buying the presents and cards, but that made them too sad. So, got my card from my son yesterday. I did not buy cards. When we first got married Billy was one of the regular men who did not remember dates and I would have to give him hints way ahead of time. One year it dawned on me the good qualities he had outweighed the bad and the remembrance of dates kind of died inside me. It was not a sad death, it was kind of an uplifting feeling. No worrying about dates. But my daughter's husband was typical and Billy saw how much it meant to my daughter and all of a sudden he became a man like my dad. He remembered dates, he read cards before he bought them, and on our 50th he showered me with surprises. I should have been more like my old me, but by this time I didn't really care. I forgot to get him a 50th anniversary card. Maybe it was intentional neglect, I don't know, but I had adapted the persona of my Grandma. I still have her. I hate that.

Did not bother mine at all. Agree.

Gwen, I have talked on and on and on about my feelings about doctors. Still we cannot do without them. Do they make mistakes........OMGosh, only the older doctors from way back remember their oath. Medical Definition of Hippocratic Oath. Hippocratic Oath: One of the oldest binding documents in history, the Oath written by Hippocrates is still held sacred by physicians: to treat the ill to the best of one's ability, to preserve a patient's privacy, to teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation, and so on ... Now, how do we make them remember this? You call for an appointment and the first thing they tell you is, if you think this is an emergency call 911. If I had kept taking the medicine the doctor gave me, with me begging not to be put on an antidepressant, well, I would not be typing this. I read that they were thinking about starting back a debtors prison for people who do not pay their medical bill. We could buy a new house with spending the night in the ER. Well, all mine have been paid. The doctor that saved my life told me that I scared him. I realize the condition my condition is in. But, he definitely realized it, he never had a followup for me. But, how can I be angry, he saved my life and left it up to me to keep living. But, he obviously did all he could and was through. My fever hovered around 101 for weeks. His answer was "normal temperature for people vary" but he did save my life. If you do not trust your physician, if you do not trust your medications,, you get a 2nd and then a 3rd opinion. I realize Xanax is addictive. It is the only medication my "condition" can take to even give some control to my Parkinson's--like tremor. If I have to go somewhere where I will have to sign something, I will take one. I know they make other medications, but my "condition" is so precarious, even an aspirin will make it where my fever will go up because it will make it difficult for me to go to the bathroom. Doctor's do not believe this. They will give me something that will "stop me up" for more than a day and I'm a goner. There comes a time when they have got to listen to us. Our "condition" makes it to where we have to question "quality of life" along with "quantity of life." If you think they are not listening to you, find a 2nd or a 3rd. In a city as big as Seattle, surely one will listen to you. If you think they are not listening, flash that Hippocratic Oath at them. I have no time left to go to a doctor who won't listen to me.

Kevin, I had legal biphetamines in early 1970's, I was in a female circle of people who used my gynecologist as their "drug mill." I did this for seven years. Never any illegal. Then I heard the federal boys talking to him in his office. I was next patient. He said "they seem to think I have women hooked on pills, is that what you think?" I said certainly not, "now write me my prescription" which he did, but the next month he tried to substitute one that was totally less effective, and legal. I quit going. After seven years, I went cold turkey. I destroyed my house, like to have cut my wrist off with a broken candle and hit Billy in the head with the reel end with me swinging the fishing pole. He bled. I hit an artery on myself and had blood everywhere. I worked at a hospital, I knew doctors. (The ER doc was a neighbor or he would have sent me directly to psych ward.) Instead, I went back to my "provider" with my stitched, very thick wrapped hand. He saw me, held up his hands, walked backwards and would not see me. I left totally hysterical, got in my car and blindly drove to first psych doc I recognized name who immediately put me in the hospital. I was so bad off, I thought that first antidepressant had cured me, I felt so much better. A man had seen me hysterical and followed me and when he saw where I went, he waved me an okay sign. They shut off the "dealer" to women from Texas, Tennessee, all over the Ark-La-Tex. I took them because I could stay awake all night, (working 11-7) most of the day and sleep the evenings when Billy came home. That way both of us would be with our kids at all times. I did this seven years and the mental hold that drug had on me was horrible, for years, but I didn't take another one. When I was examined finding my cancer, on the thing I filled out I did put being on the biphetamines for seven years. It was an older doctor and he said "yeah, Dr. XXX got a lot of our women hooked on amphetamines. (He is gone now), but there are plenty of doctors that got our people hooked on opiates. Drug dealers come in white coats too.

Kevin, you know we had to move my son in with us back in early 1990's. He told his dad one time he was going to town and Billy told him to go ahead and go, but don't come back. (He didn't go). He was IVing these things too. Got hep-C probably from dirty needles. Fixing that hep-C was another story, hard. Clear now, cannot drink alcohol, and I trust him 100%. His son has been lost in the drug jungles of California. Been to rehab numerous times. I read the notes he wrote to his dad on FB, or tried to read them. He was so delusional I could not understand them and they went lengthy, on and on, purely psychotic and paranoid. Picture in newspaper of him pulling big knife on policeman. They kept him in jail a minimal amount of time. Scott has been out there 2-3 times going into wooded drug jungles that police told him he was lucky to get out of alive. How the boy has made it this long I don't know. He took any kind of drug, even sniffed Tylenol. I knew his brain was fried. This has gone on over 10-15 years. It is a miracle he is alive. Now we know he is in a constant care facility, under medication and diagnosed as schizophrenic. I don't think there is a diagnosis for fried brain. Worries his dad so bad, because he has been through it. He lived with him a long time and had to leave to keep his own sobriety. My heart is with you. Know you are worried. My son is 57 now and has been clean since early 1990's, but you can hardly believe some of the things he did, but maybe you can. I hope my grandson can stay in this facility. He sounds sane on medication. Heart with your family..

Okay, don't want to gross anyone out, remember I live in Louisiana, but when Billy had two yellow labs, he would take the heavy sprayer on the water hose and break up dog poo in back yard. I know we had the prettiest green grass in our back yard of any on the block. (Again, don't gross out), I would imagine where y'all live the outside hose is now in the garage to be used in the summer only. My friend who had two Rottweiler's did hire a person that came around pretty often to clean up after her dogs. This was in Albuquerque and the "yard" (tiny patch) was sand. The dogs liked me but she did warn me not to stare into their eyes.........I didn't.

I'm off to the "big city" and we have floods everywhere. I cannot take a Xanax or I will end up in the Red River for sure. Here goes nothing. Maybe my sister will be too afraid to backseat drive. Nah, that won't stop her. I remember my mom taking my dad emergently to doctor. He was back seat driving terribly much and at the time I thought what she said was cruel, but it was to save her sanity. (And that was iffy). She told him to "shut up or I'm gonna put you in the nursing home." He shut up. Hmmmm

My apartment manager did not know. I hated to say the words and she almost fell out of her chair when I did. Not only that, she had me repeat it over and over. Hey, us girls have to keep clean and that darn tub scared me to death. My legs are short anyhow. I hope your shower taking is uneventful Gwen, and I hope you have as good a night sleeping in your own bed, as you can. I hope things run smoother than they have in the past few nights. I don't know if it was Medicare that sent people out to keep check on Billy, but they came twice a week. I don't know how close you are to Medicare age, and maybe I am like Cinderella and think the people were magically called upon and the mice turned into people that helped. My friend's sister was my classmate and a caretaker of all her family. Now they are having to take care of her and it made me realize our golden years are sometimes, most times, just rust years. Still we gingerly tread ahead, slower and slower, but just making the steps get to where they matter and seem like accomplishments. Say a prayer for me tomorrow. I take my sister for her first cataract removal in the "big city." I love my sister dearly, but she is the "back seat driver" from hell. I can easily get to the place by hitting I-220 and going around that way, but no, I have got to go down a busy street for miles and miles, traffic light after traffic light. And I just bitch and bitch.

That's my Kelli. But high fever has kept her in the house, doc explains that giving platelets sometimes is like a transplant as they were someone else's before they gave them to her. She has minded me for a week now and they did not give her a new dose this morning because of the fever. Gwen, maybe you can keep in touch with your former roommate and you can see how she is tolerating being at home. I'm positive it is frightening, but having to depend on the undependable was frightening also. I hope the kinks smooth out. My heart is with you. I do not "know you" like being kin or living next door, but somehow I feel I do know you, and if they have corrected anything you were going to the ER for, if life goes back to even "humdrum," then perhaps that will help. Not sure I trust more than 75% of professional medical caregivers. Life or death situations, I have to. Please take care. I think I finally have my shower 77-year-old 5 foot fluffy woman fixed, so that is better now. (They have my tub up so high it scared me). A lot of "PTA" baths, and I will let your imagination figure out what PTA is. You got this gal.

If it isn't "instant" I don't want to fool with it. Hurts my back too bad to stand up cooking. Only short cut I leave out is peeling potatoes, no instant potatoes. Karen, I know that must have been so hard on you. I'm afraid I would be in jail still from cutting that cop down to size. Sometimes I think I am a sweet old lady, but talking to those robot callers got to be such a drag. Sometimes 10 calls a day. Thought about removing the phone. Finally got a hold of same person twice. I have even called Apple (who they say they represent) and told them the foreign calls were losing them money. Then I had the idea of being a little old woman who never heard from her kids and they were the only people I ever got to talk to. I had my own self almost crying. I was pitiful.. I begged them to not quit calling, their voice was my only touch with outside world. My voice has been affected by the tremor (not Parkinson's) and he hung up on me twice. Cold hearted people. No more calls. I think they can take your name off a list as fast as they can call you. Reminded of Uncle Remus tales: "The helpless, but cunning, Br'er Rabbit pleads, "Please don't throw me in the briar patch," prompting Fox to do exactly that. Guess fairy tales help sometimes. I saw where some government office was attacking six of our phone companies for letting foreign calls come through. Hope everyone has a good Sunday. I somehow got the feeling that the hospital felt like a routine to you "Gwen" and you are good at adapting, though you don't want to be. I think if there is a way to be found around your troubles right now, that excellent, inventive, tolerating mind that you have in bushels, I think you are going to find the most comforting way. It won't be easy, but you will adapt, just like you were adapting to your medical routine. I wish that for you anyhow.

I've always said/felt that talking about this with someone, it cannot be treated/advice given, unless their feet have touched the coals also. (To me), it takes a special Angel that works at hospices, visits dying patients regularly, and ministers to families. Your feet have been held to the coals all those years you visited nursing home patients. I just feel you have a purpose my friend. If you don't find it, it will find you. And, (being so computer intelligent,) I think I have done something with this post. Don't know what I did, but I own it.

Ice on my son's windshield when he ventured out before 9:00 a.m. The day before I ran car A/C for awhile. Put on sweater coat to go out yesterday, had to come out of it. Shirtsleeves again. Nights cold, days kind of warm. Louisiana weather. I'll take it. Do not like big temperature changes, means tornadoes. The good with the bad I guess.

Gene123: After three days I wanted to follow him. I had a plan. I thought of no one but myself and being with him. My kids found out, they were so angry. I had doubts of my religion that made me doubt trying to follow him. That 3rd day I found this forum. Now it has been four years and three months, close to four. I realize I can do nothing but stay here. Something I found out, after the third year, I think, I could see the flowers in the spring and the changing of colors. So many things I avoid to keep from getting personally/mentally hurt. Plans are something I don't think about. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. (Robert Frost). I would have loved to have 54 more years with him. You have good days, more bad days. Then as time goes by you have "just days." This place saved my life. It will show you that "widow's brain" is actually a real thing. Concentration comes and goes and then comes more and more and yet, it still goes too. I tried talking it out with pastors and for the first time in my life, my faith did not take any pain away. But, Billy always helped me with my faith. He didn't understand why I was so steadfast, but if he saw I was possibly not allowing myself to feel my faith, he would say something that brought it back. I pray at night and I pray to Jesus, but somehow Billy is standing beside him so I talk to both of them. Cannot explain that, but it works for me. You just have to keep going, even though you get tired. This helped me, putting earbuds in my ears and listening to meditation. Then it didn't help me. People on this forum help, having them hurt does not help, but knowing what I feel, others feel also. Please just keep reading. When it gets the roughest, find the first posts of those that are walking in your shoes right now and think about one day wearing our shoes. Won't make you feel any better possibly, but you will know we are still here. We hurt, but one day you will realize flowers still bloom. Maybe you won't know why, but you will see them.

It being "New" Mexico, I always felt like I was a visitor (which I was) and the natives were the ones who belonged there like our Native Americans. Was so disappointed I had no Native American blood in my DNA, but less than 1% was from the Congo region, so maybe I had some "native tribe" in my blood after all.

Alas, I will go to Albuquerque no more. Billy's sister moved to the valley, down to Bosque Farms where she can "grow" things. One of my best friends lives up on the East Mountain side of Albuquerque. I get confused when I go to her house. (will never go again, I'm sorry to say). Her house front yard is only a few feet from a main street, no where to turn into her house so you go into an alley and her driveway is in the alley. Beautiful view, big beautiful house, good neighborhood (and now in Albuquerque, that is important). The west valley is a den of murder and bad things. Billy and I went once a year from 1969 until the 1980's. Loved it. I sat on the floor of that thing that took you up in the air to the top of the mountain and would not go back down it. One of the most beautiful views anywhere though. I went on business in about 2010, Kelli took me. Billy stayed in Arkansas with Brianna for school. I was so miserable without him with me and I cannot imagine ever even going past the Texas/Louisiana line ever again. Some things we have to do by ourselves (as you are doing now), and other things, if you have a choice, we cannot do or go without them. I have my memories and even those still hurt. I look forward to memories being sweet, but I don't think I will live that long. Again, my heart is with you Gwen. You and your roommate shared conversations and obviously faced things alone. I am so sorry. Our being with you in spirit, well, that is only words typed into a formed box on the page. Still thinking about you. Sounds like you might ought to invest in a lot of bacterial cleaning solutions with this new virus going around and your home might be your safest place.

Kieron, I don't make long range plans. Gwen, honestly, if I didn't have to I would never leave this apartment. I really don't want to go anywhere. My mom and sister can/could be hermits and I just want to pay my bills by computer and let the Orkin bug sprayer in every three months. I think I could go by the drive-in once a day and live off burgers. No onions, tomatoes or lettuce. I have one down the street, two stop signs and I can turn left and never hit the main road. I don't get to do this though.

My son, who is not 100% well, he is a disabled veteran and has to wear a brace on his right leg. He has what they call drop foot also, and his foot is floppy without shoes or brace. He takes gabapentin because they did a nerve transposition surgery on his leg, he was shot in the femoral artery and coded twice on the table. He says four times, but I typed his surgery dictation. His doctor had to take him off surgery the first time to keep giving him blood. I don't know how many units of blood they gave him but his friends, my friends and Billy's friends were all in line to donate. When I saw him in ICU he was so puffed up with transfusions, I didn't recognize him. They wanted to remove his leg, but he would not let them. He has what they call that phantom foot pain that people who have had their leg removed suffer from. His foot is still there, but he cannot feel it. When he would sit down he was constantly rubbing that leg and foot because what was not numb, hurt terribly, it was nerve pain. They gave him a medicine that didn't help so I told him to ask for Neurontin. (gabapentin). Now for years he still has the pain sometimes, but with this state of the art brace, you cannot tell he is crippled. The nerve transposition graft did not help anything, probably made it worse. But, you cannot tell he wears a brace, he never complains, never did, (maybe if I had given his dad time to complain sooner, but that's another story. He stayed a month with his daughter who is going through a divorce, in Georgia. A messy divorce. He came back home and he spends the evenings with Bri and me each day. It was like a foreign country coming home. That is how it was when we traveled. As long as we just lived in the RV, that was home. But when we had to get off the road and made short trips, we bought another home. Coming "home" after those trips was like coming to a new place and it was not like "Oh, I'm home, glory-glory," it was more like "I gotta get used to this place again. We were both still able bodied people, but you are not. Still, your coming home is going to seem like a foreign place for a few days. I have always been a gypsy and hate routine house living. The only real home I cried leaving was in 2000, and leaving our 1998, 28 foot Holiday Rambler RV. I still have pictures of it. Only home I cried leaving. So see, we are all so different in how we tolerate "home." To you assisted living sounds terrible. To me it sounds like an adventure. They won't let you have anything but microwaves in assisted living. (Yea! No cooking for me). But, I think you can sign out and go when you want to go. I'm terribly speaking out of turn, because I have no idea. And we are all different. In our Escapee's RV Club we had an "assisted living" type of place. Nurses were hired, a big building was built, spaces to keep your RV and live in it until you either got well, or didn't. Rides to the local doctors and hospitals were provided. Activities and physical therapy in the big building were provided. I wanted that for me and Billy, but sometimes God thinks I am a comedian and just laughs at me. I hope it works out the best for "Gwen" and that you can fall into a routine that will make the unfamiliar become a familiar and comfortable routine. I wish that for you.

I have a note Billy wrote and put on the computer screen. It says "Love you. Be home by noon" and I put it on his wooden urn. Kind of striking when you look at it.

Still cannot go there Karen. I have two huge plastic boxes, the biggest ones Walmart has, I decided to clean one out. Nope, just closed the lid. No more. Don't know what my kids will do with them. Maybe burn them. So many has double pictures anyhow. Mama used to put them all in photo albums. Even the boxes I left behind. She enjoyed doing it. Not me.

The job would have been perfect for her as she is very timid. She is like Brianna and is scared of people. Her father is a pastor and I cannot intervene, but if it was Brianna, I would be calling Walmart headquarters 2-3 times a day. It was her first job application and someone had referred her for it. She was really crushed. Brianna is a teacher's dream student and she hates the people to be rude to the teachers, and I am surprised at how mean they are.. I "went to school" many-many moons ago. I remember being sent to the principal in my senior year. Never before. I had written a girl and called her a jackass, which was nicer than the one I had erased. She turned it into the teacher and she gave it to the principal. He told me the girl may very well be a jackass but I should not write notes in school. I rode a bus to school. I was so shook up I walked the country way home, through the oil fields, I was so upset. But now, they say curse words to teachers. This young girl is very quiet, and like Bri, she can take up for herself but her width of standing is very slim.

Funny story. Brianna's best friend is sort of a solitary person, like Brianna is. She filled out application for the "personal shopper" for Walmart and was told her personality did not fit in good with Walmart, so she was turned down. So perhaps, if you use Walmart personal shopper, you will get an exceptional person to help. The girl was crushed. She and Bri both get their feelings hurt easily. Neither are ready to step out in the world of today.