If You're Going Through Hell

[KarenK]

I do too,even though his moods can be exasperating. He is like my 3rd child as my son has been a single parent since his son was an infant, except for one horrid girl he married for a couple of years. Even then, she was a witch, not a mother. In a way, he probably thinks of me as his mother and grandmother. To him, Ron was the grandfather that took him fishing and liked to do things with him. I have mentioned before that he has an anxiety disorder that does not allow him to leave the house except to visit his dad. I wish he would seek help, but does not believe he can be helped.(Sigh)

[Margm]

Karen, I understand.  I deleted the majority of this note because it was not really pertaining  to our losses.  You got my private message.  All we can do is everything possible to help our grandchildren and both of us happy they are giving us reason to be alive at this moment in time.  

[kayc]

When I go my kids will take the walls down and run a bulldozer through and load it up into containers to take to the dump.    I don't kid myself that they'll get sentimental on me!

[iPraiseHim]

Not having any children, I don't want to leave a mess when I expire. My sister and/or my Dad would be left to clean up.  I have lots to clean up, give/sell but need the time and energy to do it.  I tend to save too much thinking I will get to it later.  I would really like to get everything squared away before its time to be called home.  I have tried several times to connect with my niece and nephew but their lives are so busy that I am not even on their radar.  So I will continue to plan to get this cleanup work done eventually while I still have the strength to do it.  - Shalom

 

[Margm]

George, sometimes I feel so tired and old that I think I will just leave the nearly 17 boxes packed and not bother with them.  Scott got me out of the house today.  He was worried because for the past year I really have not done any exercising (mine is just walking) and I am stiff.  There is a a park close that actually used to be a ball park and Billy played baseball and softball for years there.  We were there at least twice a week and they kidded that Scott would be born in the stadium.  So today, we went there.  The stadium is gone and it is made into just a park.  Over at the end of the park is a historic cemetery.  It has the historic marker in it.  I went inside it and some of the stones have been replaced with newer ones.  The names sounded familiar.  So, I came back to t he apartment, went into our place on Ancestry.com and found out one of them is my great-great-great grandfather.  Founders of this old home town I moved to.  Sleeping a few blocks from me are my ancient relatives.  He was born in 1805.  I have come home.  Billy is not here physically, but I am him and he is me.  

As an addendum, you would be surprised how helpful those boxes are to hold TV's, bedside tables, coffee table in living room.  Maybe not designer chic, but they are my kind of decorating.  

[Gwenivere]

I don't have boxes, Marg, but we have an executor named and will be paid quite nicely to dispose of belongings.  With no kids or close family I foresee donations of big things like appliances and maybe clothes and books.  The rest don't matter.  I de cluttered what I felt was necessary the first year.  I'm done.  I don't even want to think about digging thru drawers and such.  Steves will has been executed.  Mine will be my drawings and special jewelry to a friend I grew up with.  The rest just doesn't matter to anyone.

[Margm]

Gwen, I doubt I have anything any family member would want.  I have never been into fine furniture or any thing else.  Actually, boxes suit me fine.  As for inheritance.  They get it every day.  

[kevin]

That reminds me, I need to make out a New Will..............after all the legal problems with Angela's family I would die all over again if they would benefit from my unplanned demise......I have four kids, split it up four ways........extra 5% to executor........sweet and simple 

[kayc]

13 hours ago, iPraiseHim said:

So I will continue to plan to get this cleanup work done eventually while I still have the strength to do it.

George, when my son moved, he wanted to surprise his wife and have it all done, ready for them to sleep in the new home on her birthday.  He hired some strapping teenage boys from their church to help him.  He even planned a surprise birthday party for her that evening at their new home!

I don't have teen boys at my church to hire, but maybe someday...  I just thought it might be a suggestion for you if you want to get some stuff done.  

[Gin]

My neighbor is very nice, but has no idea what life is like without your soulmate.  She complains that she has TOO much company.. She lives with her husband  and her daughter.  Another daughter and 2 granddaughters live 5 minutes away.  Her sister lives about a mile away.  Her family is over 4-5 times a week.  Weekends are very busy.  I tell her that I would love to have company even once a week that I could look forward to.  I told her that I wish we could average things out.  Her less, me more.  She is so fortunate, and does not realize it.

[kayc]

I feel as you do.  Today my little sister was telling me she was going to decorate for Fall this weekend.  I remember how I've always done that but the last 2-3 years no one comes here so it's just for me or forget it.  It'd be nice to have someone interested that you're alive!

[Margm]

They had tried a trial of chemo they do for bone cancer to get rid of the dermoid tumors in Kelli's brain.  Did not work.  There are two doctors from here that are going to fly with her to the Cleveland Clinic to let her undergo the gamma knife removal of these.  It is a radiation procedure.  I hate for her to be alone, no family, but she has developed two in her kidneys.  I don't know why they have started up again.  She had her ovaries removed in her very early 20's because of these.  She has had them in her breasts.  I do not know what causes them.  People usually have them on their kidneys and have to have kidney transplants.  Possibly could be the cause of her bizarre behavior.  She has always been somewhat of a hypochondriac so we never knew when to take it serious.  Well, this is serious.  I just wonder, are there some people who actually get jealous of other people for having life threatening illnesses?  Her partner had double breast cancer and our daughter just got more and more bizarre in her anger and outbursts.  She goes to a shrink.  There will be two doctors from home with her, they are learning the technique.  She will just have to know her daddy is with her.  I don't think anyone else is allowed to go.

[Gin]

Marge,

my daughter had them in her ovaries about 10 years ago.  Obviously Kelli has a lot more and worse.  It is good the 2 docs are going with her.  Is that what they call a cyber knife?  I have heard of it.  A nurse I know told me her dad was having that done.  Cleveland Clinic is a great place.  I know you would like to be with her, but I am sure she is in good hands.

Gin

[Margm]

Gin, I used to type all the surgeries and used to be up on everything but when it involves my family, my mind shuts down.  Supposedly the female doctor that does this either invented it or made it her own.  I have not read up on it.  Used to I knew those books in our medical library and how to find things without the card catalog.  Remember in the old days before computers how we had to look up stuff.  LSU had a wonderful library.  I spent time during breaks lunch, always late coming back, researching my kind of cancer.  When I got into the part of them dissecting a rabbit's female parts, well then I decided I was in way too deep and like my doctor asked me to do, I quit researching.  I have not looked on Google about these tumors.  I do know they are called cysts also and are made up of bony parts inside the tumor/cyst, very strange.  I decided I needed to quit reading.  She has been very ill.  But, she has been such a hypochondriac all her life that we just never knew.  Hypochondria is a mental illness also.  It makes it where you don't know when to believe them or not.  Well, this time she definitely is ill.  I wonder sometimes if this is what she wanted.  I know how bad that sounds but sick people get attention, and bless her heart she has tried to get attention for so long.  One time supposedly she was in the ER from a suicide attempt.  It never happened.  I am definitely worried about her.  I lived with a mother with mental illness and my dad I am sure was bipolar.  Both kids have been diagnosed as bipolar and that is why I went into such extensive psychotherapy for myself.  I felt guilty like I had given them this mental illness.  Instead, I am a boring chronic depressive, not even anything interesting.  So, since the tendency to have bipolar is inherited and Billy was OCD, the bipolar must have come from my dad.  

I kinda liked it like they had it in the old days and kept the different one in the back room.  (My mom and dad would never have let me see the light of day).  If I sound flippant, I am not.  I am very worried and I want to be with her.  They are going on a small airplane belonging to the big hospital.  

 

[KarenK]

Marg,

I'm so sorry this is happening to Kelli, but glad their appears to be a team willing to help and so glad that these are benign. Gamma Knife appears to be used for the head and neck area only, while CyberKnife is whole body. Both are non-invasive. When is she having the procedure?

I so understand your wanting to be with her during this difficult time. We always want to be there for our children. There are so many things that we can not kiss and make better. It sounds like she is in very capable hands.

Thinking of you....

[Margm]

Her dad always took her to her psychiatric appointments at the big hospital.  Her dad was always with her coming out of surgery.  It was always her dad.  He was a wonderful father.  He was so much better a mother than I was.  I told her that he is going to be with her this time and she seems to know that.  Sometimes maybe her little mind can accept her dad being with her more than mine can.  My son and daughter both feel him with them.  I try to.  I talk to him constantly.  Somehow, I feel he will be with her.  They are going to take care of the two in her kidneys also.  She is a former nurse so she and the doctors will get along great.  Billy used to wince when they would look for her veins.  She slept over here all day and just went home.  Her partner will be with her this week end into the week next week and we will know something probably Monday.  The doctors are going to learn the procedure.  

Our LSUMC Hospital used to be one of the best teaching schools around. Now it stays in lawsuits with the place that was supposed to be partnering with it.  The Governor Jindal ruined the medical and educational system in Louisiana.  I don't know if Louisiana will ever recover from his plans to be president.  I'm just glad Kelli did not fall through the wide cracks in our medical system.  

[kayc]

Marg,

I am so sorry your daughter is going through this.  I know that you'd be there for her if you could, but it sounds like she is in good hands, as Gin says, and you have been on overload for so long you probably wouldn't know what a decent day looked like.  It's not your fault she has these, whether she inherited it or not, we get our genes, none of us have control over that.  We usually pass them on well before we learn how bad they are.  I'm glad her partner will be with her.

My MIL was a chronic hypochondriac.  She complained about stuff so much that everyone got immune to it and turned a deaf ear.  When she got cancer no one went with her, I still feel bad about that to this day, but though she talked and talked, we had no idea, she'd talked and talked all her life and nothing had ever showed up!  She had a double mastectomy, they treated it  pretty aggressively in those days.  When she hit the five year mark with nothing back, we all celebrated!  Too soon.  A few months later she was diagnosed with cancer in her bones and liver.  She went for chemo for a while but by that time there was no saving her life.  She lived nearly three years after that, bed ridden and in pain, all I could do was make her comfortable and take care of her.

Oddly enough, once she got cancer she never complained again.  It's like she wanted something to complain about, wanted attention.  She finally had something and took it stoically.  

[Margm]

Kay, she is taking it stoically.  Sometimes people are not happy until they really have something bad.  But then again, if Billy had complained more maybe we could have done more.  My son's partner can feel it when her proteins, and any part of her lab work hurts.  It is impossible to feel these things, but you cannot tell her that.  For Gosh sakes don't mention any illness around her, "my aunt, my cousin, my mother, her mother, and I have all those symptoms."  You think this is an exaggeration, it is a simplification of how she acts.  My son turns a deaf ear.  We all just change the subject, or try to.  Do not mention medical or medicine around her.  She can feel pain in her capillaries.  I am not exaggerating this at all.  A true mental illness and a sad one because the doctor's quit listening.  Then this tremendous thing does happen.  I do not understand people at all.  I mean no-one.

[Gin]

A year ago Al was in the hospital.  I have been re-living those last 2 weeks.  This day he seemed to rally, this day was really bad, etc.. I am seeing it all in excruciating detail.  I try to stop the thinking, but it just comes back.  Lately I have been obsessing about the last hour.  I could see his artery thumping in his neck.  Then it stopped.  I did not understand why the nurses did not come in.  He was monitored.  Evidently there were still pulses because he had a pacemaker/defibrillator.  We spoke to the chaplain and I said goodbye and then we left.  The pacemaker company was going to come to disable the device.  Now I think I should have stayed until they did that.  It just never ends.

[iPraiseHim]

Gin, I remember well, the moment I found my wife dead.  I was not home when she died.  I have had a few times where the flashbacks are so real and vivid that it takes my breath away. The intensity is there but it doesn't last as long as it did those first few weeks. 

Yes, it is extremely painful and emotionally draining. In my experience, I'm sensing it is a teaching moment for me.I know physically and mentally my wife is dead.  But my heart and emotions are another thing. 

I think everyone of us deals with the grief differently.  I don't like pain or grief and I won't rather just skip this pain part of grief  yet I know it is in this pain that I learn more about myself and my character.  So I just feel the feelings and keep pressing forward. Today is a real down day ( i don't know why) but I have hope that tomorrow will be a new day with new grace and hope. My prayers and heart is with you as you deal with your grief.  Please know that you are never alone. Us fellow grievers are with you. - Shalom 

[Gin]

Thanks, George.  This is such a hard road for all of us.  Peace to you, also.  Sometimes you just cannot identify the trigger.

[KarenK]

Gin,

In time, I hope those last few hours will fade from our memories. They have yet to fade from mine, even years later. My husband's last few hours were quiet. My daughter's were not. Hers were the most painful thing I have ever witnessed. Ron's device was disabled in the hospital before the ambulance brought him home. I cannot remember if it was returned to me, but the home monitoring device was one of the first things I got rid of. It seemed so alien sitting there in my kitchen.

For no particular reason, last night was one of those where it felt like someone had poured an extra helping of lonely over me, Those are still frequent and very unwelcome. I managed to watch John Wayne's "Big Jake" with only the hint of a tear. I know all those movies so well, I could quote the script. I told Ron that this one was for him.

Hugs to you.

[Margm]

This is my bad time of the year also Gin.  I try not to think, but it invades my mind anyhow.  Again, from one of the books I read, and I do know how crazy this sounds, but this woman author, when her husband died she got rid of all of her own clothes instead of his.  Gave me some solace, that is the first thing I did, I got rid of my clothes and replaced them.  I have no idea why.  Christmas came and went, his birthday, my birthday, our anniversary, none hurt like reliving those last few moments..  One step at a time.  Gotta try to numb down.  I can do it.

[Gin]

Karen,. Al was cremated and they asked if they should remove it and donate it somewhere for teaching purposes.  I agreed.  It must have been horrible to see your daughter in so much pain.   I have been so lonely lately.  I count the hours until I can go somewhere.  Right now it is 2 hours 30 minutes to meet my friend for dinner.  She knew I was a little crazy and said she could meet me.

[kayc]

Gin, I am sorry that today you are reminded of that time a year ago.  

It seems we never quite get past the end, do we?  My prayer is that it comes to haunt us less and less.