Margm

Possibly I'm letting Kelli's "friend" influence me into criticizing your friend. I hate it if it makes you uncomfortable being around him now.

This has to have been on here before. It was in my memories of four years ago on Facebook. Really, four years ago I read it, posted it, but did not even try to understand it. I do now. I got notice in my email of losing another classmate. I had not seen her in nearly 60 years, so I will remember her at 17, though from her obituary she too had lost her husband and she had had 2-3 children, she had many relatives and enjoyed reading her Bible and looking at the lake from her front porch.

Kelli went to work for a very old friend in his antiques shop, and he handles old postcards, etc. She is a cutie and very personable so she brought in business and he would get jealous of the people she would wait on as customers. She took care of an antique show for him one whole week-end and made him money. Then when he would pay her he would want to put the money in her pocket, or hold her hand a long time. His hugs became too many. We are looking at about a 30 year age difference. He knew her when she was a nurse so he hit her with the real reason he hired her. (His wife is in a nursing home), and he needs his diabetic feet operated on. He said last time he had trouble using a urinal and he would need her help. Now this man had been her friend, some distance between them over 30 years, but she trusted him. She enjoyed learning from him the history of the city through arranging the postcard collection. People do collect these things. Her last day of work he became too personal. She wrote him a nice note and told him he knew of her past history and the abuse she had suffered and has true PTSD from it. She told him she would not be back. He "cold shouldered" her for two days and then began texting. She blocked him. She needed the money, but sometimes people can take "friends" too far. None of us have to put up with this Kay. I do suggest, although you already know, to somehow get that dog out of your life (and the man too, although both are the same in this case.)

My family uses it mostly to keep in touch with each other at night. I have been known to get into political squabbles but since I don't understand politics (oh gosh, sorry I said that word), all I do is pick the splinters out of riding the middle. And, I keep up with classmates and people I used to work with as far away as Kansas now. Some of my friends who just lost their husband are having a hard time and thanks to this forum, I am able to tell them nothing they feel is wrong, we all walk different paths. But one begs her friends to understand her and I understand her and a lot more do also, but she wants people around. I don't. I have plenty. Her kids are no where close. All any of us can do is help hold each other up. Sometimes the scar tissue is thin, sometimes it is gone, but I worry about my two grown children mostly. That's enough, this has been a long day. It's okay to be grumpy, anytime you want to.

Y'all get a kick out of this, after four years I had one person tell me to "keep busy." It was "liked" by someone who had told me about three years ago to "keep busy." I wrote a reply, but deleted it. One woman's husband lives with their kids and grandkids and she lives alone most of the year on the old home place. She cannot miss her husband or she would be with him. The other one took care of her husband seven years and is very busy in her church. Some days I like to dig my hole a little deeper.......when I'm not too busy. I'm proud of myself for controlling my red headed roots.

I have to put this picture. My daughter had it. It says enough without words.

I have mentioned this so often, eighteen years after my grandfather passed, my grandma said it seemed like it was yesterday. We are moving during the month of November. and I give no specific date because I will be paying a month's rent in both places. I have had things stored mostly in my dining room and last night at midnight, Brianna went into a mad, insane rampage of cleaning out that storage area. Why? I cannot even move anything into the apartment until November 1st, and I am not going to vacate this apartment until the week before November 30th. The same company owns both apartment complexes. If they are going to double bill me, I am not going to let them make triple the money. The manager was asking if my dining room had carpet, and no it doesn't, but she was already planning offering it. Too bad. I have a lease, never been late, no complaints. The apartments are only less than half a mile from where I live now. Can have a W/D and important to me is two bathrooms. Last night the memory kept worming its way into my brain, "I had him with me four years ago" and this morning on Facebook, I had 12 memories in that section. You know how it hurt me to write memories down and go back and read them. I have not read the memory I wrote on here three days after he left. He was a wonderfully complex, simple, egotistical, loving person, a perfect contradiction, that was Billy. When I first met him he told me his name was William Raymond, which meant mighty protector. His name is Billy Ray and will always be. He helped take care of my dad and he totally took care of his father. It haunted him that he would pick him up to give him a bath and his cancer ridden body would break bones. He could not stand for me to give him a bed bath and he was my baby, it was an honor for me, and he knew it. What can I say? He went from a cane to a walker to a wheel chair in a matter of days and when he held his hands out to me to let me know he had to leave, I slapped them down and turned my back. He pulled me through months of fighting my double cancer and was with me every step of the way. I had his strength when mine was gone. The family was all in my room when the nun came and prayed holding my hand. The cross was on the wall of the Catholic hospital. They all expected me to die, but two weeks later I was up out of the bed. I never knew I was dying. Billy was not going to die either. But, he did. With no fanfare he just held out his hands and was gone. Mama passed less than 10 months later. I had no sad feelings. I was with her and I closed her eyes. That spark in her brain called Alzheimer's had burned out.. She had wanted to go so many months before. We had lost Mama a long time ago. This just released that exceptional brain. When I closed her eyes, I told her to tell Billy that I was so sorry, he had to know I just was not going to let him go. I was going today to visit my friend who is dying in the nursing home. She was a secret night drinker, and after years and years of this, her two sons put her in a nursing home.. A vivacious personality that in grade school climbed out one of the school windows with a group of the boys. No reason, just mischievous kids. That was long ago when the principal was allowed to use a paddle to "correct" the error of our ways. He was a good man, we all looked up to him, and all were afraid in our own way too. He would stand up and had a wonderful superior air of authority about him.. So, my friend took the paddle just like the boys. She was the life of any party, now she is almost forgotten, but I just cannot get out of the apartment today.........not yet. Word salad #???? Angelversary #4. But who is counting? The scar tissue wears thin today.

Thanks Gwen. I even bought a heating recliner and a heating small blanket. Winter extremes are the same. Bless her (and your) heart, she has had it since a toddler and it causes all kinds of things, including heavy periods and making her anemic. We keep thermostat on 72 in summer (when I'm gone it goes below 70), but I can wear a sweater.

Kay, I have not turned it off the A/C setting yet. Brianna is hypothyroid and her body temperature gauge is never running on an even keel. She wears sweat shirts in the summer (in humid Louisiana). If I get cool, I put a sweater on. I have been reading a lot of things that pop up talking about the generic levothyroid is not the same as the name brand Synthroid. I'm gonna ask about that.

Karen, I so remember the magic of the desert. I also remember coming down the White Mountains and way down below I saw smoke. First ever cell phone. Of course I got no reception. I was going to call 911 for a forest fire and about that time came to a sign saying "controlled burn" and know I would have to had told them I was a Louisiana flatlander that only worried about floods. But do know, you probably can see those pine/Aspen covered mountains with a tiny drive. Beautiful country, but yes, we have water, sometimes too much.

Love the pictures. We have some cold winds today. Yesterday the A/C in the car and house were both on. Will probably just use ceiling fans today. Tomorrow is Billy's Angelversary, it will be four years, but who's counting. I will move at the end of the month to an apartment house owned by the apartments I live in now and built about the same time. It is less than half a mile from where I now live. My sister has an upfloor apartment around the corner, mine will be apartment 105, which is at the beginning. I will have the biggest patio (fenced in), which just like this fireplace, I will probably never use, but the two bathrooms and the W/D connections are so necessary. The "no steps" is also necessary. I am wondering about your knees also Kevin. No surgery I hope. You have mountains to climb and thankfully I will not be around lakes because these alligators come into back yards and they take family pets, if the yard is not fenced. I am only about 30 miles from the Arkansas line, I do not live in Cajun country, but my kind of country can only be called redneck, and we have to be careful. My cousin, when looking up her family's DNA found out her husband was her 3rd cousin. I at least picked someone in the most south of our parish (county) and I lived in the most north of our parish. After our children were born though, I sometimes wondered. Enjoy all that beauty. One of my neighbors mentioned she had to get out of Louisiana. I told her I had to stay, all my roots were here and somehow, some crazy reason (I don't really have to have an excuse for the insanity part), it means something to me. She said "Why!!!! they are all daid" as only a Louisiana dialect can say "dead." And they are, but some reason it means something to me while I am alive.

Nope, actually they were more me than Billy. I keep thinking "all I ever get is older and around". Billy would not drink at all. I would when I could but only at parties and only if Billy could make sure he was close to carry me home cause I never could hold my liquor. Three drinks and I was throwing up. Of course, cannot do it at all now. Billy wanted to be "Jeremiah Johnson" and would have been happy living in a tent way up in the mountains and roughing it. I liked it too as long as I had my own private commode. But without him, I want to hear life all around me. Even that 10-year-old stomping on the floors upstairs at least made me know I had people around. Guess animals are safer, but I am a coward without Billy.

But if this world keeps right on turnin' for the better or the worse And all he ever gets is older and around From the rockin' of the cradle to the rollin' of the hearse The goin' up was worth the comin' down I "discovered" Kris Kristofferson one night when I was driving up the Linwood entrance off of I-20, going to my work at LSUMC. I cannot remember where in this apartment I put my two flashlights this past week, but I can remember the moment I heard this man sing in the 1970's. The song was "Loving Her Was Easier" and I went the next day and bought the album, which probably was an 8-track, or maybe it was a cassette tape. I know on our recordings for the doctors dictations we used "belts." Does not matter, I have been through the 45's, 8-tracks, cassettes, You Tube over my Kindle, the CD's and my granddaughter has a vinyl player with lots of needle and vinyls, which we are returning to often now. For some reason these lyrics are stuck in my head, mostly "And all he ever gets is older and around." I think in this song "The Pilgrim" he covered a lot of lives, and mine too.

I so appreciate what I have. I just as much as anyone else, I miss what I had for 54 years. But, I am so happy we had 54 years. Some of those years it seemed like the road had come to an end, but we somehow made a new road around the old one. When the bridge was out, he swam and carried me along to the other side. I found out, after we had fought and won so many medical battles together, this time he could fight no more. Accepting that fact made me angry. Different steps? Over the years you go through those steps often, and no one can carry you on that path except yourself. Faith in God helps those that have it. My faith is always with me, just like my memory of the times we had together. I see and hear Billy in my son, and I see and hear my mom and Billy's mom in my daughter. And "the great man" is missed by us all, sometimes I hear the sadness in their voices. There could only be one of him. We all feel the void he left in our life. He was so slow walking, so slow moving, I knew he would be slow leaving. He wasn't.

Gwen, please feel better. I know you want to so bad. Hate the ER, hate tests. When I could eat apples I discovered one, cannot remember name for sure, but they were huge. They were sweet, enough tartness to be an apple, crisp, and just wonderful to eat. Seems like they were called Pacific Northwest apples. That might have been an overall group of many apples, but in Louisiana and Arkansas we found them ever so often. None were their match. I like a crisp, very sweet, slightly tart......again, very crisp apple. These were the biggest I had ever seen. Cannot eat them anymore. Can have applesauce.

Kay, I'm so happy they made you a day to remember. I love it and know you did too. You deserve it.

We have always been covered by our state group insurance, both retiring from civil service jobs. Keep getting calls, emails, snail mail trying to get me to change insurances. I have no complaint with my group insurance but know if I change, I will never be able to go back. So far it pays almost 100% of what Medicare does not pay. I bought four (3 months worth) of medications Friday for $13, so I will just stick with it. I don't like change. I hope everyone gets coverage. I don't have reason to go to doc much, already have been told the radiation and the colon rupture and sepsis make it impossible to do any surgery in the usual places, so hope I can just keep rolling along. I still am a walking time bomb. They are having various years school reunions and its the people who are not there that are most noticed. Doom and gloom feeling to life. Talked to sister widow last night. She was always such a "tomboy" and could fix things like my mom could. She has some blockage in her lower body that makes her feet and legs swell and a leaking aortic valve. She remarried two years after losing her husband and spent the honeymoon and next nearly 12-13 years with him in hospitals. Now she is alone in a house on the lake that bottom garage will be water soaked when it rains. Strange, but she spends most of her time trying to get rid of the reminders of his being ill for so long. I say "strange" but she is following along behind me on this same path, and though there are some differences, not enough that we cannot hold hands across the divide between our paths. She was just glad to hear that I understood her avoidance, and her trying to stay away from the things that reminded her of so many years of his illness. She thought it funny a guy had already asked her for a date. Her mom married three times after losing my friend's dad. My mom could be very cruel. A man approached her in Walmart to ask where something was. She turned her back on him and walked away, very rudely. I helped him out. When I told my mom she was very mean to a man who might have just lost his wife and had never bought groceries by himself. Her words were "just another man wanting a woman to take care of them." My mom had many admirable qualities, but kindness was not one of them.

I live in a town of about 12,000, probably less. Parish seat. I cannot imagine going to an office in "downtown" Seattle, Washington. My heart is with you Gwen, as always.

Actually politics are part of how we have to live and when we die. Politics are involved when we pay the succession fee. Arkansas did not make us pay it. Louisiana did. Politics run the medical bills you get and politics run your car. We try to escape things like religion and politics, but faith in God is what keeps most of going and politics are what we have to pay when we do get going. Politics are never mentioned, but they are the elephant in any room, in any forum. And yes, politics stink. I hate them, but politics are involved when you die, when you live, when you walk out the door. What little is mentioned here is such a relief and unfortunately, to keep living we have to go to the doctor, we have to have insurance and somehow, without politics, our burial, our medical, our life story has them involved. I do not think anyone mentioned conservative, left wing, right wing, liberal, democrat, republican, any political label.. But unfortunately, we the living have to have insurance, and everything we have to have to live and die puts their mark on it. I think this forum does good things, and all the "labels" I mentioned I have no idea what they mean. I think in my going on four years, yours is the only one that wants to leave because politics were mentioned. We put a disclaimer when we mention religion. I'm so sorry about the insurance that is turned down, the frustration of dealing with all of this crap that is governed by politics. Great forum, politics is not made an issue, never mentioned, nothing said untoward that I have read, frustrations vented, an issue we all face, but leaving because you saw it once, I'm shocked. No one fusses if religion is mentioned, even though we know it is a subject to stay away from, but to some of us it is sacred. But really, I don't think anyone has left because we mention it. Have never been fussed at either. And there are those that do not believe. " but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Death - we grieve. Taxes -- we are not to mention.

Gwen, I love Eeyore. I grew up with Lil' Abner. Mama would give the cartoons names to all my friends. Of course, as I mentioned, I was Moonbeam McSwine. I had flies circling around me because I hated cleaning my room. Billy, with his crew-cut was Little Abner's cute brother Tiny Yocum. One boyfriend became Andy Gump. I looked him up and he just was all mustache. This was because he had thick eyebrows that almost looked like one. He didn't talk much, he was cute as he could be. Strange, I looked around and Mama is gone. She was more real than life though. And Billy has just gone fishing. Feel better my sweet friend.

I have his picture also, and of course Eeyore

Y'all, as to the oxygen content, measurements, I was only a transcriptionist all those years. Never hands-on clinic experience except taking care of my family. I know people get "oxygen hungry" and that is just something I typed. I know I hear my sister needing more "breath" and I would hate to see her made sicker with too much oxygen. I do not know anything but terminology. If I sound like I do, it is just not true.

They did heart cath on Scott. Blockages were minimal. Kelli got a new med to help build platelets and did not have to have immunotherapy this morning. The new med has a steroid in it and it is not making her allergic like she is to steroid shots. She has so much energy (she is moving this week-end) to town close. I have nothing but praise for VA Hospitals while some of my friends are complaining on FB about the large hospital complexes around us. Thank you for your prayers. I got up at 4:00 a.m. this morning. We got home in daylight. Scott drove us over there. He has no ill effects from the cath. They gave him a shot they said would relax him, but it only went into the skin, no vein, and he felt the wire going to his heart. No hurting, just interesting (to him) feelings. Gwen, I hope your week end goes good and you can stay away from the ER. Heart is with you girl.

Gwen, so sorry. I'm so tired of hospitals I won't even watch my recorded TV shows. Got to spend tomorrow at the VA Hospital and hope and pray it is only angioplasty. His liver is not in good shape. And yes, I want Billy with me and hope he will be. We've seen that boy through IV dope addiction, gunshot wound to the femoral artery where he coded more than once, and then hep-C chemo. A year that I am so glad Billy was with us. We've all got to get through this gal. It sure ain't no fun. I'm so sorry you have to face this alone and yes, your will to live is strong or you could not make it through all this.. My heart is with you my friend and Kelli might be facing bone marrow transplant. I think we all need prayer in a big way. I hope they get that fluid off fast and you get to go on home. Love you my friend.

The kids gave Billy a new jacket nearly every winter. He would only wear the one or two that fit for the cool or cold. We gave them all to the thrift shop that helps keep the nursing home and assisted living open. I kept the navy blue one that is a wind breaker and still have maybe one or two packed away. He would only wear a couple of pair of pants anyhow, so gave the rest to the thrift store. They were closing when I got there, and older women volunteer at the store. I had the back of the truck so full they reopened the store. They are gripey, gossiping old women and they never bend the rules, not getting paid. It was fun to shop there because they would banter back and forth over some community person having another baby, running around, and the only aggravation I felt was I didn't know anyone they were talking about, but was glad I never got to know them personally. I figured they held the doors open of all the churches around. (Now, I'm being cynical again). Gossiping had gone out of my life. Kinda like it like that. They all stayed and helped me get them out of the truck.