Margm

I have framed photographs. We only see tornadoes in this part of the south.

Do you get to see the northern lights from there?

My cousins and I were writing to each other and one mentioned a letter I had written (email) after Billy's death, the day afterward. I save all our emails. I have all from my cousin who passed away a few years ago. I don't go back and read his, but for some reason I went back and read the letter I wrote that was so totally raw. People get help from writing their memories of each day that passes but that letter ripped any scar tissue away, and I won't do that again. I feel like I have something "heavy, heavy hanging over my head" and I had been doing fairly well. I cannot go backwards. I have to go straight ahead and do not listen to the footsteps, the words, the memories, cannot look backwards. Why would people cut themselves just to see it bleed? Sometimes we know what we can do and we do not need to test our emotions. Just straight ahead. Damn.

I'm sorry about your pet, Kevin. I know you have a lot going on and probably a lot of rehabilitation. I know your mind will be kept busy, as well as your body. I wish you the best and hope the snowing has stopped. I think you will be moving, (and I am known to get things mixed up), but will you be moving to a colder location? Be careful, you are a brave soul.

Karen, feel better soon. Don't like any kind of ache but am accumulating them at breakneck speed. Thinking of you.

Yeah, heard both sides. You know my genes run toward the Alzheimer's and the Parkinson's anyhow, so will just keep reading books instead of articles. Not much they can do with me anyhow. I'm okay.

Me either. Mama said she did not take calcium with me so my teeth were bad. Well, they were bad. From a child I kept those terrible tasting poultices (probably something you young'uns do not remember. and a hot water bottle against my jaw. By the time I was 15 I had most every tooth filled, front ones too. At 19 I had upper plate. Finally had both. Never looked back, but one of the oral surgeons left part of a tooth in and I had to have throat surgery from the infection. Twice the oral surgeons would not do anything unless I agreed to have implants which a total was $9,000. They would not even see me so I went to ENT. He removed the part of the tooth that had been left in probably 40 years before. Had to cut me at my throat. (I asked him to stitch it up extra tight), he didn't. I could not have the implants, they could not guarantee me they would work and taking all the antibiotics would just really kill me. I'm good. I think I grew up in the country, country docs and we just did not have a lot of the attention city folks had. That was okay, I could not get the implants. Did not want the pain. Had enough of that. Kevin, hope you are doing well from the surgery.

My mom and my daughter are the green thumb ones in the family. Scott bought me an air plant once that required no watering. It did not last. I was reading something about memory and have had to rethink my liking to blank my mind out. The article I read said if you don't "exercise" your mind you are setting yourself up for parkinsonism (which is a worry for me) and also Alzheimer's, which all Mama and her sisters had. They all lived into their late 80's and into their 90's though. I don't want to be a mindless person my kids have to take care of, prefer being in a NH, and since I don't want to study anything anymore, I have got to get back to my reading. That requires concentration. That requires thinking. Tom, I hope it blooms on, or close to the day.

Faith spoken here: I am a poor example of my Christian faith. I am not trying to proselytize. I would not want anyone to be like me. I am at war with myself daily. You all know I have health issues, the problem with my "innards" and sometimes the talking in my stomach sounds like a ventriloquist heard somewhere else in the room. It cannot be corrected, but sitting in a quiet church, well, it might make someone think the sermon was too long and these were hunger noises. Nope, they are medically called hyperactive bowel sounds. So, I watch a pastor on Sunday mornings, in my home, on TV, and I still don't believe just because you stand in a garage, that makes you a car. I do get some peace from my Christian faith, even though it is at mustard seed dimensions. I listen to the pastor and the demon on one shoulder says "is that really true" and the Angel on the other says "you do not doubt." I saw my Christian father, who was a deacon for so long, he gave up his deacon title from arguing religion with my sister. She was in the throes of college enlightenment and she would argue faith/religion with him. He doubted himself at a time he needed his faith. I did go to a psychiatrist for more years than really needed. I needed forgiveness, and since have found that I only needed to forgive myself. Could have saved myself and my insurance company a lot of money. Really, it came down to my pastor, at that time, talking to me and said that "God is not a punishing God." That was not what I had been taught, but I punished myself more than man or God could have. The psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors are trained to lead you into an understanding of your road block to living. When all the world is blown away and we are left standing alone, we have to learn to forgive ourselves and learn to live with/or by ourselves. I did find my small bit of peace with my faith. It is not for everyone. Just like talking to a professional counselor of many titles, sometimes if you listen to that still small voice, the one you put up the wall against, tearing down that wall brick by brick, accepting who you are and who you are not, and listening to the Angel sitting on your shoulder, maybe some of us might be able to dust off that demon sitting on the other shoulder. You do sometimes have to accept you are the small speck in this world, but you are also the giant road block in your own life. I'm not there yet. Those bricks sometimes are hard for this ole gal to move. But I'm hoping I listen to the Angel in the end. A purpose? Peace? Maybe an answer? No, just trying to live what is left of a life. (And still, sometimes the answer to the fear is my dwindling supply of Xanax.)

I have not had a chance to test the theory yet. There is that saying though, "If boredom kills, then cultivating curiosity heals" Todd Kashdan. I just read what he wrote and honestly, I do not like to tax my brain at all. I do not want to remember. I try not to think a lot of times, but it seems that being bored all the time, not trying to learn new things, that just brings on Alzheimer's and parkinsonism. I do not need to have the Parkinson's disease, (suspect I have a form of neurological cousin) so I can only hope that my reading will stir my brain up and revive it. I have quit reading for awhile though and I am having to read paragraphs over and over, so I have got to get back into my reading so I won't die of boredom. (With my family, I don't think that is going to be a problem.).

Because they are real. I don't like "real." I prefer "left" and the other night I looked at the moon and said "well, it has been ??? time since we broke up." I don't like keeping up with time. But it was unusual and I noticed it, I "saw" the flowers and the trees budding out for spring. I even notice the fluorescent colors of the new leaves. This is our third spring to be apart and sometimes I still cannot believe it, sometimes I think I hear him moving in the house, sometimes I wake up and think he is beside me. One really new thing is I am having vivid dreams, nothing X-rated or anything like that and still cannot remember them but know when I am having them "hey, I am dreaming again" so the world changes, I change, and my knees are changing for the bad, and that is not good. I remember Mama's legs went first.

If I could pick the way I "go" it would be of boredom.

I love your posts dearly Kay. You are a wise woman. I have got to say this "voice recognition" took my beloved hobby job away from me. When voice recognition took a doctor's words of "parenthesis" and made "bull flatus" out of it, I knew it was time to quit. I wish I had had the nerve to leave it instead of doing my job and changing it. Memories stay in our head even without writing them down. Some do not need repeated. But for some people it is the saving grace that helps them. This is not to knock them though. Love ya.

I am afraid, suspect, mine is a form of parkinsonism. My grandfather died at 56 with this and his brother at the same time. I retired in 1997 (first time) and when I worked for neurology they said it was not Parkinson's disease, it was just plain congenital tremor. Well, my dad had it and my aunt also. Mine started at puberty. I remember the very day it started and I was in the 6th grade. Got up to give reading on a paper and I could not keep the paper still. It shook like a leaf blowing in a breeze. Never happened before. Sure has since. I begged off public speaking and one time I was left to give a talk in our district church meeting. The girl that was to give it, some friends came to get her. I was unprepared and started crying in the pulpit. My dad had it and led singing every time we had a service. His hands went up and down with the music so, it was hidden. I have his Bible and in his 60's his handwriting is so shaky. Xanax helps, but does not get rid of it. Anything too strong might bother my colon and we cannot mess that up. No pun intended. It was the year I retired that they discovered some reference to familial Parkinson's disease. I know all the symptoms though, and I don't have them. Just the shaking if I get angry, excited, or scared. No one cares really. I tell them before I sign anything and they are okay with it. Panic definitely plays a role.

So many things to do to try to help yourself and that is the chief wording, trying to help yourself. It is not selfish to want peace. We all want peace. They tell you to journal your feelings and this is something that helps many people. I have lost the use of my fingers to write much. I can type, unless I am in an anxious state. If I am angry, my fingers shake too bad to write or type, if I am anxious they do the same. I have made grocery lists I could not read. I honestly could not read them from my shaking fingers. I have tried journaling, and what I could read back cut into me like a knife. Somewhere is mentioned "widows brain" and I am not afraid of dementia, or Alzheimer's. I do not tax my brain with trying to remember something if it is reluctant to come to mind. The grief seminar that helps so many people, I would come away from it crying. Not for myself. I was crying for the women who had lost children, young children and grown children. My grief was terrible, but trying to add their grief to my own was unthinkable. Just like visiting the cancer survivors groups, I went one time and could not go back. We all handle things differently. I saw the flowers and trees each of the last three growing seasons, but this year there was a small amount of appreciation for their beauty. I do have my family, which sometimes can be a blessing and sometimes.......well, maybe not a blessing........but certainly a distraction. I miss Billy so terribly much. I still cry. I still cannot listen to some music. I cry at happy shows on TV, I cry at sad shows (and try to avoid them), I cry at commercials. Not boo-hoo crying, but silent tears that I still keep a roll of paper towels close at hand. But, a lot of this comes with aging, I think, because Billy had tears at the animated movie "Wreck It Ralph." As we get older, sometimes tears just come. I have no answers. We all have to face this stuff in our own time, in our own way. I could use more Xanax, and I use it to keep the shaking down. I shake from anger, anxiety, and TMI, but also shake from having to take the Miralax every night. I have cried to where I could not breathe, and that scared me and was a dangerous relief for me too. I still have people who depend on me and I have to help them. How could I enjoy anything if those I loved had to do without it. I do so want to buy Billy's and my memorial and hopefully I can do that before I go, but none of us are promised tomorrow. Not to be dreary. I feel the pain. I cry from frustration, but no matter how much I cry, he is not going to talk to me and he is not coming back to me. My grandmother lived well over 20 years after my grandfather passed, missing him terribly every day, thinking of him constantly (I have her memoirs). We exist until we leave, and perhaps there might be something during that time that takes our mind off our loss for a moment. I'm waiting....... There really is no solace. I have lost half of myself. We all have. There is no right way, no wrong way. There is only our own way, whatever that happens to be. I leave with this. Billy said that I was him and he was me. We still are. I miss him terribly, but I do not miss him enough to substitute him. That is just me. After 54 years, really nearly 57, I am still him, he is still me. It would be very hard to be with anyone else, it would not be fair to them or fair to me and the guilt I felt would be my undoing. I would have liked to have him forever, he is still my forever. No answers, really no questions. It is what it is................but then again, this is my own coping. They were right, one size does not fit all.

Kay, what a gorgeous, handsome, happy baby. This is my smile for today. Thank you.

I watch the Academy Awards every year. I have done this since they had them on my 17 inch black and white when I was a tween. Tonight Eva Marie Saint awarded an Oscar. Mind you, she is 93-years-old, had a long speech, did not falter, and had time to pay tribute to her husband of 65 years that she lost December 26, 2016. I read an interview with her after she lost him. She had read Joan Didion's book "The Year of Magical Thinking." (I did too). I just think it remarkable that her mind is so sharp, and sad that her mind has to feel the loss we all feel. We all grieve tremendously no matter how long, how many milestones we pass, for the moments we remember, for the moments we did not get to share, for the things we did not get to experience, and for the plans we all still had, even at 93, or even 75. My heart was with her. We all feel the pain of loss of half our life. They used to get up and read the paper together. Billy would get the coffee ready and I would turn it on because I always got up first. I introduced him to honey in his coffee. We were never selfish people with our children but that was one thing they did not touch, our coffee honey. I would carry him coffee to bed. I still drink coffee but it is not the same.........of course not.

Kevin, you live in another whole country from my swamps. One thing I have seen about you, if it can be done, you can do it. Proud of you.

I'm sorry Kay. She needs in touch with the one person who could understand. Sometimes, we prefer to be by ourselves in times of grief. She knows she can reach out to you, she knows you would understand. Please just let her know once again. I know she is a private person, some of us understand that too. We all handle things differently. After so many years with her husband, she needs time, that I know you give her. I wish she would reach out. Her most sympathetic friend right now would be you.

The girl that was in the room with me at M.D. Anderson, through both radiation ordeals, she had not begun to live. She was barely out of her teens. Her grandmother also had had her kind of cancer, as mine had. Marty, I am sorry something that horrible happened to you as a teenager. This girl's dad was a doctor also. He and her mother were right with her. The husband went back to KY. I met him and she will be good if she is rid of him. Her parents were so kind. She was a pretty debutante type, probably was, and I was almost 40. I felt I had to be brave for her and besides, neither of us had a choice. We kept in touch a couple of years, but after my other friend passed away two years later, we kind of lost touch. My sister had the cancer, had a hysterectomy, and nothing ever mentioned again. They handled her radiation in the hospital up here just at short intervals in the day and she drove herself to and from treatments. I'll bet they do not treat your scoliosis the same way now either. I had a hematologist that had a heart. He was Billy's doctor for awhile, a short while, too short. But I didn't want him to suffer.

I have to put this. I have been through treatment, often inhuman treatment for cancer. I cannot describe the fear of having internal canisters of radiation placed up inside me for 72 hours each time, being asked not to move, something given to make you not go to the bathroom for 3 days, plus a catheter and you get to see no family because your treatment is so dangerous only hazmat uniforms can administer aid to you. This was just bottom of the list. The girl in the room with me was a surgeon's daughter from large town KY. Newly married. No children. At least I had 20+ years of marriage and two kids. Her husband went MIA. Doubt they lasted. Other things done necessary to save my life. It did. Skip ahead 32 years and results of that radiation, all a body could take, happens. That hospital saved my life, I should be thankful. Can you picture a half a butchered cow lying on a table with lights all over it? Interventional radiology had me stripped naked, a side of beef with people coming in and out the door. No paper sack to cover me. I had to have a tube placed in a very private place, not even a drape over my naked body. All I could do was have silent tears and think "not any of you would put your mother in this kind of indignity." There could have been a drape or something. I am alive because of them but the nightmare of this humiliating affront lives with me still. And as we have all attested to, it still is not as bad as watching our loved ones leave us, waking up and they were gone. Marty, is it okay to make a copy of the above (the note that you sent) and send it to a few doctors I know?

Kay, this isn't just a "throw" but like a humongously big heating pad. Any aches are covered. She puts a throw underneath the electric "throw" and sometimes one on top. Our doctors now are dominated by Big Pharma. I worked privately for three family practice doctors for many years (along with my regular hospital job). In the hospital the pharmacy representatives would throw big parties, would finance trips, and we had a closet full of medicines. I angered one pharmacy representative when I questioned him about the new pain drug. I asked if it would be given to our cancer patients that got free care. One was a friend of mine, the boss's sister. He would ask nothing to help her from his lofty height of being admired for such a wonderful person he was. She was terminal and hurting. The pharmacy rep was taken back by my question. A very expensive medicine, no it would not be given for free. I remember a moment stamped on my brain forever. My friend stood in front of her brother's desk and told him "________, I hope I live long enough to see you in this much pain" because he would not help her. She didn't. This was for all intents and purposes a charity hospital. In fact, a long ago governor set up this series of hospitals that trained the doctors that went out into private practice, and back then the name was "Charity Hospital." That name got lost in the translation somewhere. Then it was called the top college's name in the state. We did good. We made money because people came to this hospital for stranger illnesses than mainstream hospitals handled and they had money and insurance, and that gave the hospital enough currency to buy new equipment, etc., until the state got in financial trouble and since this was a state institution, they took the excess money that would have provided more equipment and education. Mama was right, sometimes you can't fight city hall. But, I definitely think you need to ask questions. You need to be a partner in your own care. You don't like something they are doing, then you get a second opinion, or you question them. But, don't be surprised if you hurriedly are dismissed because each session is timed for 15 minutes. More patients seen, more money. That is how it works now. Marty's dad was a doctor, from the time they remembered their oath, the ones we see now are assembly line doc's.

George, she has had it since not more than a baby. She is rebelling against red meat and trying to be vegan, but I want her to study it herself before she tries to make any changes. Doc's could not find anything wrong with GI tract, said she needs braces (teeth are perfect, but might need orthodontics anyhow), no cavities, but still not well. Could be the thyroid. Will get her to read up on this. Thanks. I have typed too many things associated with thyroid and personally am afraid to recommend stopping it. I know iodine and selenium are sometimes used, but I do not want to tamper with it until the time she wants to. They have run tests on her and can find nothing else wrong and tell her it is anxiety and want to give her psychopharmaceuticals and go to a therapist. She is old enough now to make up her mind about those medications, has tried some from some doctors and does not like the way they make her feel. So, I will have her talk to her PCP about this. I think the thyroid is causing different symptoms, but as long as we keep the levels even, until she is old enough to understand all this, will go with the levothyroxine and I am so proud of her for turning down all the new psychopharmaceuticals. My daughter took the psycho drugs and she has diabetes from one of them. Yes, that is one side effect of some of the new drugs. You are wise being your own doctor. With a little study on it, maybe she will be too. I don't force anything. Not even heavily suggest. I do believe we have to help our doctors along, if they don't understand us, make them or leave them.

Kay, my granddaughter has hypothyroidism. Her temperature regulator is turned off. She takes the thyroid replacement, and she has her levels checked, but there is still that regulator that won't work. I will be freezing and she is sweating and needs the ceiling fan on.. Sometimes she needs a sweatshirt in the summer time. I wear a long sleeved overshirt if the ceiling fan is on in winter.. When I am sweating, she will be ice cold and teeth chattering. I went to Amazon and got her an electric "throw" blanket. Like they have the throw blankets at Walmart. Now, she just throws it off when she gets warm enough. Ought to cover those five places. They banned me from anything but Tylenol. I asked him about the liver damage it does. He said I would have to take over 11 a day for that to bother my liver. I still don't trust that many of them. I prefer aspirin, but of course it will thin the blood and with my Factor IX, I cannot take it. I do sometimes at night slip in a couple of baby aspirins if I have had a blood pressure headache. My blood pressure medicine took my heart rate down to the low 60's, so they dismissed the 2nd one. We can blame all this on age, but my granddaughter is 18. Mama, in her 80's, became hypothyroid, but Brianna is adopted and must have inherited this young age hypothyroidism from her bio-kinfolks.

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.” ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream Well, I'm not looking up eglantine or oxlips. Growing up on the road I lived on in North Louisiana, I had all Grandaddy's fields and pasture to roam around in. Crawfish pond. Plum thickets, too many to mention. I wonder if all plum thickets have their little fairy room's because these two thickets had room size spaces in the middle of them. One spring, the one closest to Mammaw's house had a "room" that was a purple carpet of violets and I lay in them, just soaking up the beauty, never thinking of ticks or snakes. Rode up through a small country community, (not a town, but used to have a school,) today. You know, not to get sad on you, but this is actually my third spring not to have my photographer with me. The last two springs I did not appreciate the flowers, or even really see them. Today, they were beautiful, would have been prettier with my photographer. But, I saw them.