Margm

The minor difficulty about living with me was the commode seat. Poor Billy was fixing new commode seats all the time. He's gone, the commode seat is my problem. So, I get the Gorilla glue for the screws in the back of the commode seat. I am devastated every day without my Billy, but that Gorilla glue has kept that commode seat screwed in the back now for three years. Just in the screws. It lifts up and down normally so it can be cleaned, so I substitute Billy with Gorilla glue. The coffee cup, I understand. He was with me, our only visit ever to Bass Pro Shop. We wander all over the store in Little Rock and Billy does not buy anything. He thinks they are too expensive and prefers his "toy aisles" at Walmart. You remember, I leave him in the toy section while I get groceries. (I visited the toy section the other day, I have avoided the fishing tackle section for going on four years.) I still did not enjoy the visit. At Bass Pro Shop I had bought the coffee cup I still use, it is about five years or more old. I need to put it up, save it, like Karen's Gorilla glue cup. A memory of days gone by. I am not young. I have a couple of those big plastic storage boxes filled with Billy's "fly ties" and all the pieces of fluff, crochet yarn, deer hair, squirrel hair, all the things he used to tie flies for fly fishing. It was one of his hobbies. Family mentioned selling his flies on Ebay or advertise them and when they pushed like that, he would take his vise that held the flies and the clamp on light, all the natural things he used, and he would put them back in the box. Selling them made a job of a hobby he loved and he would pack them away. Now I have all that. When I pass on they will go to my family. Cannot put them in the trash. The only thing is, it will be something I do not have to worry about. Bittersweet memories. Addendum: 07/05/2019: Have told the kids when they mix our ashes, when the time comes, to just sprinkle all the flies and fly tying materials all around our cardboard box. They liked that idea. I do too. Billy would too. I don't want to sell them, he was an artist at tying flies. So, we'll just keep them close.

Would have been 58 on July 3rd. Will buy the card and put it next to his wooden urn, as always. But, we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

“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.” And we all know C.S. Lewis's quotes. That is my life. When I am alone, and it is not often, I am afraid. I do take the Xanax, sometimes 1 mg in the daytime, every night 1 mg to sleep. Am I worried about addiction? Not at all. I learned something typing medical transcription, the phrase "quality of life vs. quantity of life." If I take too much Xanax, it works less for me, but I take it when I need it. I cannot get my prescription refilled before "time" so I am careful. It helps me. And "me" sometimes needs my own care. Sometimes Bri gets miffed at me. I hear what I want to hear. They did clear up my ears though at the doc's office and now I hear fine. I can hear the tinnitus crickets, but they do not annoy me and at night the ear buds and "sleep" music makes them shut up. We do what we have to do. I mentioned before, my dad knew he was terminal but was afraid of getting addicted to pain pills, so he would hurt and would not take them. I cannot follow up that statement with anything but I am sorry he had to suffer pain, but I did not mind reading to him to try to sooth his pain.

I have gotten very cynical Gwen, about life, religion, politics, friends. The problems they are having with all the people and actually more than half are men that have been sexually molested by doctors and priests and people they trust. At one time there was a vigilante group of women in Brazil that when a woman was raped, beaten up, or molested, these women would find the man and "take care of the problem." I don't think they would kill him, but I doubt that he had use of an appendage to do his dirty deeds with again. That was years ago and all I can think of is if we took care of some of these problems ourselves, vigilante justice seems fair. God said vengeance is his, but I really have prayed that he would let me watch once or twice. My granddaughter is hypothyroid and will take medicine all her life, and will be tired all her life. I think most of us lost our "energy" when we lost our mate and we just muddle through what life throws at us. I could always swing a bat and hit the ball a long way in the outfield, but as slow as I run could hardly make it to first base. Thus is life my sweet friend. I have to have some membrane pulled off my eardrum and he told me it was going to be painful. I have not been back, but I gotta go. I'm tired. I don't want anymore pain. But I sure don't like this roaring noise either. Oh well, at least it is not my other end.

My granddaughter has hypothyroid so bad, has had it since a wee little girl. If I kept the thermostat low enough for her I would have pneumonia. Yesterday I bought her a big black standing "quiet" fan. Because of the drugs her bio-mom took during pregnancy, she has a bad reflex to sounds. When a baby, she would flail her arms out and scream at loud noises. In fact, even later on, those self flushing commodes in the movie theaters would scare her. Anyhow, my hands shake so bad that it took two Xanax to put that fan together. I should have saved it for her, she loves putting things together. It serves its purpose. It is quiet and has its own little "channel changer" where she can put it at all different speeds and oscillates. She can take it and have it right beside her and her thyroid thermostat can be as cool or warm as she needs. I was thinking this morning (that is not good). Actually, I don't like this word, but sometimes we self flagellate our minds with "What If's" and sometimes you have to just say "That is enough, get back behind that door in my mind and lock that door." Statistically women live longer than men. (I'm sorry fellows, I know you hurt as bad as any of us), but I had been so sick the year before Billy left, I sometimes wonder, if I had given him a chance to complain, would I have noticed he was very ill? Men don't complain. I did, all the time. Billy had no chance to complain. I had 43 years of training in symptoms. Why couldn't I have thought his terrible bad breath was a symptom of something besides oral tobacco. Why couldn't I see the changes in his skin that showed he had a terrible illness. All I felt was my pain while he had to have had pain.

Gwen, I have told the story time and time again that Billy's family never said "I love you." I was hugged a lot and I knew my family all around me loved me because my Daddy Wise said I was as cute as a speckled pup. My mammaw said she just got "so hungry to see me" so I took all that love for granted. Billy saw it and he would not let us leave the house without telling him we loved him. Before cell phones I would get 10 miles down the road and turn around and come back because he actually got his feelings hurt. (Was so glad for cell phones). We never left going anywhere without "I love you" all the way around. Right before he left, talking to his sister in NM, I heard them both say "I love you." And it was totally criminal I was not holding him when he had to go. Okay, I will put that memory back in that little door and shut it. I tell him every day I love him still. It meant something to him. But, I was not going to let him leave.

So proud for you Kay. Takes such a big worry off. My snub rear end Ferris Yaris keeps me from backing into poles. That was a plus. My five feet were not meant for a truck.

George, it has been 3 years, 7 months since Billy left. I have a regimen I follow each night for those 1306 nights (give or take one night). I say my prayers to the cross at the foot of my bed, on the wall and talk to Billy and Jesus. I have two good friends that just entered this aloneness we all suffer from. I take my Xanax and the blood pressure pill that makes me sleepy. I read for a few minutes, I put the ear buds in and listen to "sleep" music on my Kindle. I am asleep before I can "think." Instead, last night memories of his dying minutes haunted me and the guilt consumed me again (I thought I had put that in the little room in my mind I don't open.) And I relived it. I cried. And, something I don't do, I took another Xanax and started all over again, closing that dreaded door. It overtakes us sometimes when we think we are doing lots better. Another friend wrote to the two newest widows (2nd time for my best friend), and said it had been seven years for her. We manage to sometimes close that curtain, but it does not block out our thoughts, and sometimes someone pulls it open and the scar tissue bleeds. There are times in between though. My first watching of "Grace and Frankie" was so outlandishly funny, I laughed all the way through. Laughter helps when you can find it. Sometimes it slips up on you and the first few times you feel guilty. I look at the moon, like last night, and I say "Hi Billy" and then I go inside. E-v-e-r-y-o-n-e handles things differently. Written words from death day 1 until day now, it made the shock come back in a dark, all consuming destructive feeling. I don't want to read my feelings from day 1, I still live them. Yet, some people are advised to write all these feelings down. Some people are helped. It rips all the scar tissue away and I bleed terribly. And, that is just me. We are all so different, except, we all hurt. .

George, on July 3rd, Billy and I would have been married 58 years. Instead, he made a fairly fast exit October 17, 2015. We had fought some illnesses and our attitude for all of them was "no, it is not time to go." We got through them. My head was on his hospital bed, he woke me up, we had been in the ER since daylight and it was after 4:00 am when we got to the room. My last retort to him was in anger because I was not going to let him go. He was trying to tell me he had to go. We only knew he was so sick for five weeks. If I even heard a wrong sound on his blood pressure monitoring I had him at the doctor.. We did not know his whole body was covered with cancer, mostly liver. We had five weeks of hell, but I kept his pain down with morphine and would not discuss it with him. He was not leaving me yet. It was not time. I was not going to let him. It was that morning that God let me know I was not the boss. It was the first time I demanded something of Billy that he didn't listen to me. In October it will be four years. But, he was me and I was him. I hear a door open and expect to see him for a nanosecond. I feel I have felt his presence and it actually scared me because Billy did not believe in anything supernatural. We do what we can. We handle the feelings by crying at insurance and dog commercials. I get choked up with just four words and cannot repeat them without crying. No certain words, just words. I get angry, I feel guilt, I feel lonesome although I have people around me 24/7. The other day I actually had some time alone. (I usually have to get in the car and drive to have time alone.) And sometimes I feel C.S. Lewis's quote: "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear" Talk to your wife all the time you want to. Sometimes when I say my prayers at night I wind up talking to Billy and I don't mind Jesus listening in. Billy just looks at Jesus and says "what can you do, its Marg" and neither minds. Keep reading. People on this forum help.

I still buy Billy cards for special occasions. I place them by his urn. I also sign his name on the cards that I give. He worked 38 years for the retirement so when I give something to a family member, so did he. I'm afraid it makes them cry but I'm not gonna quit. Makes him still part of my life. I talk to Billy still, often, anywhere I am. See something at Walmart, I remind him of happier times. Sometimes I don't feel he is gone, I just cannot see him. He is there.

How can any of us feel different? Those words said it all Ana.

I think that when Prozac came out they said it cured anxiety and a lot more physical disorders it didn't really cover (for me). Someone wrote a book about it. It was thought of as some wonder drug that for me caused more shaking and diarrhea, yet Brianna's nurse said it cured her anxiety and she would not live without it. My first antidepressant came after a total psychotic break and after one pill I felt I was cured. It does not work that way and for all the notoriety that Prozac got, it didn't do, for me, the wonder drug qualities. The lowly imipramine served me as a miracle drug, but I was at the point if I had been given a sugar pill and told what it could do, it would have done it. I did take Xanax for seven years once before, had enough saved up that when my psychiatrist fired me (because I would not be admitted), I had enough to coast off easily. That was from various doses, high to low. I did not have the mental dependence I had on the biphetamines, which cold turkey coming off nearly killed physically me and Billy. I was so out of control. When she fired me, I had nothing to stand on, but I did/was able to slowly get off them. Make no mistake, I do not plan on getting off them at all now, unless I am unable physically to go get them. There is a blood pressure med that is supposed to help my shaking, but it causes depression. The Xanax does not stop it completely, but enough that it is medically necessary. I know there is a higher dose than I take. So far I can function on this. The shaking is something I have to learn to live with. The anxiety is something I won't live with. I understand. Oh, one side effect when coming off the antidepressants (heard called Paxil flu) is something I call "quickening". I know of no other word to describe it.

Gwen, I'm allowed two a day of the 1 mg. I have taken two a day before, and at worse 3-4 a day (so, I have to do without them some days, and that is okay), but not nights. The more I take, the less good they do me. Not preaching, just Rx history. If I go with one at night, I'm okay. But, I'm not in the "fix" you are in right now. I'm just saying, the more you take, the less they do and you need more and more. My insurance won't let me have but 60 a month and I have to go to my old clinic where I moved from. They won't give them to me in Louisiana like that. People hear Xanax and they think "oh horrors" and it is "oh horrors" if a person drinks with them, it is Russian roulette. I don't know how many shells a pistol holds, but five might get clicks and that 6th will do you in. I also know, after being addicted to prescription biphetamines, if you get off "cold turkey" you go psychotic. I know that. I look at my little towns I had all around me growing up and they were so clean and no crime. Now, probably at least one on each block cooks the meth (does a person cook meth?). You watch and the ones that have people visit them all the times and our little tiny clean towns are ghost towns, if we grew those tumbleweeds, they would be blowing through the streets (or someone would find a way to add them to the cooking meth). You can see I don't know much about that. But I know addiction. Xanax is one you can coast off of, if you had to, and there would be no physical addiction missing it. I once picked my son's "stash" (can that be pills?), we flushed black capsules down the commode and one stuck to the side. Only I saw it. I went and picked it back up and was so astonished at how low I had sunk that I flushed it too. My grandson is lost in the drug fields of California, we cannot get him in rehab. My son has been there to get him and it did not help. He hides if my son tries to find him. Cross country 3-4 times and still cannot get him. And I think of my dad suffering with cancer pain from prostate cancer and was afraid he would get hooked on pain pills. But, if you back off one day of as much Xanax, the next day it will do better. Easy for me to say, huh. Just the more you take, the less good it does. I'm not afraid of Xanax, but those kids on that crack and meth, they are in for a rough time. We fought it out with my son, he conquered it, but it damaged his liver bad. So, I worry with my sister's COPD, my daughter's tumors next to her spinal cord, my son, with his health, my granddaughter's ability to overcome her fears of the world and hope I can live long enough to help them. My thoughts are with you Gwen, my heart, and whether you think it helps or not (or whether I have enough faith to reach higher than the ceiling), you have my prayers too. I love you my friend and wish you were closer. I do have Friday free.

Gin, this is your grief. If anyone gives you advice tell them to try ambulating on one leg without support. We have lost part of us, some of us have lost the best of us. I know I did.

Good vibes from here also. Once saw a movie about a doc that got the same treatment he gave his patients. None of us like to wait and they always make us wait. I'm sorry Kay, it is scary to get news of any sort about our health and to have to wait for results is more terrifying than the procedure. They had to get my son's doc off the golf course when he had emergency surgery when his gallbladder had grown into his liver. Thank goodness he came on fast. My best of wishes and prayers for you. With your family's history, it is good you caught it fast.

Kay, will they do a colonoscopy with no one with you to drive you home? My sister went "to the big city" and kept her appointment, but one of the written rules was that she had to have someone drive her home. Of course, that was when she had a car, and I am pretty sure she read that on the instructions.

I think I will just get rid of the "word salad" I just put out. Sorry. Some days I feel like this.

And, again different people. Buspar made me nauseated to such an extent, I could not take it and tried about three different times. The Prozac gave my granddaughter's nurse relief from her anxiety, it gave me the shakes worse than I already have. Different physical body types. I think it is most times like shooting an arrow with a blindfold on. My poor daughter has been on every kind they make at least once, and yes, one did give her diabetes. It's a jungle out here in la-la land.

Cookie, my granddaughter's nurse takes Prozac, and she takes it for anxiety. (See how different we all are. It did make me shake worse.) She says it cured her anxiety. You are going to have some symptoms from any antidepressant, and if they are not too bad, you give them time to work. If you cannot tolerate the symptoms, you have to quit them. It took me a while to learn some pills are not magic. A long time I thought all pills were magic. The depression we are all going through is a natural depression from loss. "I am you, you are me" and suddenly 1/2 of that is gone. The 17th was 3-1/2 years Billy has been gone. Yesterday I thought, well, if it hurts so much just pretend he left you for another woman and get angry at him. After all, C.S. Lewis said "someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again" so I will make up my own. If you feel the depression is so bad that you want "to leave" then you might try another one. I went into antidepressants with the attitude they would help, but like I said, I was so far gone a sugar pill would have helped if the doc had told me of the miracles it performed. Do you know they used Tofranil to stop bed wetting. That was what it was used for first, antidepressant effect was noticed later on. (I will say I never wet the bed while on it.) Not all antidepressants have the same side effects, if you try another, don't read the side effects unless you start having something you cannot put up with. Did you know one side effect of penicillin is a black hairy tongue. After 43 years of typing all these symptoms and side effects, at the very last I typed a patient with that symptom. Another word salad. Just don't give up on things and suffer more than we already do.. 💘 goes out to you. Let us hear from you.

Tom, my Billy's mind was wired with numbers, mine with words. I will not even attempt next year. Will take directly to H&R Block. I am not wired for numbers, but I will tell you one thing, numbers sure get me wired.

Did I tell you I bought a cane too. It is a folding one and I don't remember where I put it. I have plans. God always laughs at me when I have plans. 💗💖💖

Yes, they charge a fee but another Xanax and I would still be asleep. The fee was less than usual. In fact, TurboTax charges a three number fee if you ask to talk to a real person. At the point I was distressed to, I would have given them the whole refund. My family has offered to do it for me, but I will just take it to them every time. People were talking about Trump's making us get less, but he actually made me get more. I'm sorry, do not want to talk about politics and lunatics and I fit the latter. I was just so glad to get rid of it. Numbers actually make me physically angry. I'm satisfied. Probably could have got it cheaper somewhere else, but maybe every time you use them it gets cheaper cause it was this time. I tried putting a savings back, but by the end of the month one of the people needs it. This is going to help me move to the W/D apartment. My sister already needs it for the plumbing in her house, but I am going to be selfish.

I lied. By 4:00 pm I was so confused I took it to H&R Block who has done it every year and were through with it in 15-20 minutes. I'm not even going to try.

I am fooling around trying to keep from doing my taxes myself, but I'm going to do it, even with arithmophobia. I have a real hate/fear of numbers. If I take it to H&R Block they will take half my refund. I have many people in my family that are needy, me being one of them, but I've got to do it. I have TurboTax, nothing really to take off, it is just n-u-m-b-e-r-s 🤬 😈🤢. I came across a talk, transcript, (while I am procrastinating), and I listened to her. She is young. What she is saying does not apply to me and it made me angry that she could be so blase about it, but she has walked through the fire, and I will not judge if her bare feet are still on the coals. She is making jokes. I did not listen. I read some of the transcript and I know Marty probably knows her, maybe has recommended her to some, but maybe facing the IRS and comedy routine (not a bad routine), just angered me. Enough to go back to the taxes. For you young people, reading or listening to Nora McInerny might be helpful. Guess you have to have an open mind, feel like you are part of what she is talking about, or just plain something. I don't usually get perturbed with people trying to help, and honestly, maybe the reason it bothers me is I am so damn old. I like being flippant, joking, but she is doing this from walking through the flames, finding a new life totally, and I'm not a part of what she is discussing. But some of you might really be, it might help some of you. Not me. My mind is like that old tree that once had a part of it stripped away but is growing back, even with the open chasm still there.

Cookie, I have the diagnosis of "chronic depression" and I thought I might have made my kids inherit bipolar from me. I used to study this mental stuff trying to understand bipolar, knew it was what my dad had, so I guess I did pass it down to them. Both are brilliant and talented, but there is something that gets in the way, guess it is just the difference between the manic phase and the depressive phase. I remember my dad looking at the sky and saying the color some days was blue and other days just a dull gray. At the time I did not understand, but my son, who he was talking to, he understood. My chronic depression was covered pretty easily by an antidepressant Prozac, which I took for probably 15 years. One time during a dream I bit Billy on the back. Yes, it sounds funny in the telling, shocked the heck out of him. I remember the vivid dream I was having and was losing a fight so I bit that person on the leg only to wake up with "Marg, what are you doing???" Scared me too. But it was still funny and is a comic legend in our family. My doc cut me down on the Prozac as she thought it might have had something to do with this. Now, my long time psychiatrist was a true bipolar person also, so I felt very safe taking her advice. I had no ill effects from the Prozac for so long except a complete lack of feelings of happiness, sadness, enjoyment, I was just a robot that did not cry. I'm sure I took it too long. We tried other ones, but it was the best for me. They have come out with some better ones, I understand, I hope. The blunted feelings I hated. But, that was not depression, or was it? They do not make everyone feel the same. I cannot take anything but the Xanax now, because of the radiation destroyed tissue on my inside of my body (won't hold a stitch or glue), cannot be removed since the colon rupture. At least I don't have to go for any more colonoscopies or GYN exams. Some good things happened for a bad thing that would only be made worse. My schedule runs like this: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, take granddaughter to school. She is still afraid to even attempt to drive, so Wednesday we go to the big city to her counselor. Then I have Friday free, if I have taken care of the business things I have to take my sister to, groceries, cigarettes, the essentials. A widow who lives in the apartments asked if I had ever felt Billy's presence. I have before, but I think I sent it away because it scared me. Billy was never superstitious and would not want to scare me. I am not strong mentally or physically. I hurt in too many places to complain about. They cannot fix me anyhow. When I sit down for any period of time, I have to just stand still for a minute or two. I'm okay once I get over the hurting initially, then if I can keep going. Doc wanted to check my blood work. Why? I cannot take any more pills. I will keep running until that white light comes on showing I'm out of gasoline. Then someone else will have to do what I do. I don't think I will worry by then. Word salads are sometimes what mental patients do with words, lots of words, sometimes makes no sense whatsoever, but I get "carried away."