To my babies on starting the school year

Always look forward, never backward, every day you get the privilege of going and are able to learn. There are so many that cannot and want to. If you are open and honest you will find something good every day, and if you are ready to learn there will aways be someone ready to teach you. If it is hard work, so be it. Hard work is nothing; we can do that. Not for accolades or rewards do you work hard, but rather to grow inside as a person of good character. If you will do this one simple thing, the world will open its arms to welcome you and your success will be immeasurable.

Love and Peace

A first

This is why the Man needs a private room. Lots of little doctors and nurses.

Well, I finally made myself stay home today and not go to see the Man.  As you may know, the Man is in a rehab center.  He really has improved greatly, but the pain is still just crazy.  I really was sick today, but in the back of my mind was the realization that he is tougher when I am not there.  He doesn’t let others see his pain and works harder for them when I am not there.  I guess it’s like a kid that is not suffering as much until they see their mother.  Anyway, it was hard to do, and we had to talk twice on the telephone, but he also learned to use the phone.  This was his parting remark (before the I love you part), “Maybe I should just come home to see about you.”

I am hoping that one more week along with some proper equipment at home and we can make it at home for a while longer.  I am tired of sleeping alone.

Being unsure is the worst thing

Well, to the hospital we went after another fall; have finished there and now at a rehab center.  Physical therapist are a tough breed, but they swear they can help him so we are working at it.  The one thing that a rehab center does not want is the spouse hanging around all the time, and he does do better at the therapy when I am not there.  He knows I’m a sucker for his pain.  They don’t even have a chair in the room, but of course that doesn’t prevent our rowdy crew of 10 from descending all at once.  Where the Man goes, we go.

I cried crocodile tears to leave him at night the first time.  I’ve never slept in our bed alone.  I know they are all sick of us/me already, but I don’t care.  It’s our life, and we are sworn to live it in the way we wish.  They are hopeful that he will get strong enough to come home and get around.  They have given me hope, where I had none.

It’s a strange feeling when you feel alone, but you are not.  You don’t want to talk to others because you only want to talk about Him, yet when you talk about Him it is so emotional.  Then, they worry about you which you don’t want.  You have lost your closest confident because He is sick and you don’t want to worry him any more than he is already.  Sometimes, I can’t help but cry like when he told me that I could just crawl up in his bed at the hospital and stay there and when I told him that I didn’t think we would both fit he said there was always room in his bed for me and always had been.

I fear his mind is slipping.

A new route

 

 

 

We finally got our courage up and changed doctors.  Why is there such guilt associated with this particular move?  As the Man said, “But, I like Dr. XX so much.  I really hate to hurt his feelings.”  We just finally had to realize that it doesn’t matter if we really, really, really like him.  That’s not the point.  I really, really, really like my three-year old granddaughters, but I don’t think I want them treating us for illnesses (although sometimes their presence is more medicine that the doctor prescribes).

I am sick of doctors that are allergic to old people.  I have never understood the fixation with chronological age.  That must be obvious since the Man is 30 years older than I am; however, his blood pressure today was 120/60 while mine probably couldn’t be charted!  Age is a relative thing.  It’s all in the health.  I have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, have had a light stroke, migraines, etc.  The Man has none of these things.  The only thing wrong with him is his bones have served their time with hard work – way harder than most of us could even imagine.

His previous doctor said he had congestive heart failure.  I asked how he knew that – was it a blood test or could he detect it with the stethoscope?  No, he just said that most people at “his age” have some heart failure.  That went into his medical file.  How scientific was that, and now it follows him to every surgeon he will see.

The new doctor said she saw no signs of any heart failure and although many elderly do have some, it’s not a done deal.  And she also noted that there was no treatment going on for it in his chart.

No more bitching today.  It’s been too good a day.

By the way.  The new doctor is a woman.  Go girls!!

The Old People’s Olympics

I had to laugh.  My mom and I were having a discussion about all the things we could not do anymore.  It led to talking about what we did well.  With that in mind I would like to enter the Old People’s Olympics.  Here are a few of the events:

How many times you can pee during the night.

How fast can you get your cell phone out and get it answered.

An agility course for the various kinds of walkers.

These were just three that I thought of quickly.  Can you add to my list?

 

 

I heard children play today

The Man was asleep after a long battle to get him down and still.  I sat in the porch swing and listened to the sound of far off thunder wishing that rain would come on through.  I heard the faint sound of children laughing.

We sat on the front porch on many such evenings, the Man and I while the kids played in the front.  Too little to be running the roads or having friends other than each other, they were content to catch a ball or climb a tree or push a toy truck through the dirt around the large oak tree.  We always hurried through our supper on those days to get outside and enjoy the remaining hour or so of the day while the breeze blew away the summer heat and the locust sang their mighty song.  The sounds of nature were startling with no engines or air conditioners or mechanical toys to drown them out.  I always wanted to sit close enough to the Man to be able to touch him, put my feet in his lap, or reach and steal an occassional kiss.  Our kids were happy and laughter filled the end of the day and washed away all the worries about money and weather and crops.  They had no idea we were monetarily poor.   They were so rich in all other ways.

As they sat outside a week ago, much older, and talked and laughed, they fell right back into their rhythms of constant one-liners and laughter.  Now, their children played with the same ease as if they had known each other all their life.

If only there was freeze frame that we could step back in to when we needed the strength.  Oh yeah, they call those memoies.

Looks like a stork thru up here

Two in the kitchen

This was one of the better lines of the day.  What a wonderful day.  Pure chaos.  The Man oblivious to most of it, or so I thought, until he whispered to me, “Do I have a nerve pill I can take.”  One of those, “The Best of Times.”  We had a blast.  We had a great cook, good food, great company, and a lot of laughter.

When the kids were running in and out and all over everywhere and I said, “What happened here?  I swear I only had three kids.” That was when the number one son came out with the line that it looks like a stork thru up here.

A list of highlights of the day:

The anticipation of the arrival of the kids and their families for the first time in six years.

Two brothers hug.

A three-year old telling us that she has new friends!

The arrival and emotional reunion of a grandmother and great-grandmother.

The magic show. (you’d have to be there)

The make-over. (bless you Bay)

The four-wheeler tow truck.

The basketball.

The 1976 truck ride.

The desserts.

The hugs.

The songs accompanied by Jake one guitar.

My brother the electrician and plumber.

Make believe hospital.

I’m sure there are many more memories that will come to my mind as days go on, but these alone will make for conversation for many months to come.

Beauties

Papa’s hands can fix anything – even tired grandbabies

Feeling Complete

What a lovely afternoon.  Sitting with the number one son and his family.  The familiar feeling, getting comfortable again.  Seeing the number one grandson sleep on our couch.  How can that alone be so satisfying?  Talking to the first-born granddaughter and realizing that she is a young lady now, not the little girl who left here six years ago.  I could spend a lifetime talking with her, learning from her, sharing with her.  And the younger boy, how sweet he is to tolerate our attention at an age that he really would prefer to be left alone to grow up without attention.  And how many times I have wished to have the daughter in law here to ask her about painting, decorating, choices of details…  Well, they are out with a friend for the night, but tomorrow I get to savor another day of a complete family.  The Man was weak but happy, but he rallied well for the important occasion.  He is sleeping so peacefully beside me tonight that I must ask myself, “Is there really anything more?”  I can’t imagine that there is anything worth more.

Hey Lucky Dog

Fifteen years ago, a friend of mine had some mini wiener dogs for sale.  At the time, my grandmother had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and research was showing that having a pet would lower blood pressure.  I bought the dog; he was five weeks old and just nothing is cuter than a mini dachshund puppy.  The man and I drove to the city to my mom’s house where she and my grandmother (the Golden Girls) lived.  He was wrapped in a towel not more than 3 pounds when I handed him to my Mama Lou, but I should have known things would not go exactly as I thought.  I told her it was her Christmas present, and I never told her that I paid anything for him.  She was too tight for that.  Now Mama Lou loved Lucky, but the real dog lover in the family is my mom, and before long Lucky was sleeping with her at night because Mama Lou was just too fanatically clean to have a dog in her bed.  But not Mom.  Every night he would bury himself either under her covers down to her feet or under a pillow near her head.  He was so cold natured.  It was winter, and we thought it would be good to put a sweater on him when he went outside to keep him from shivering in the cold.  We squeezed him in to a too small sock.  He looked like a stuffed wiener, and by the time we got the dang thing off of him that idea was thrown out the window.

Lucky lived a long and enviable life with two grannies, but last week he died in my mom’s arms.

We will miss you Lucky.  You will not be able to be replaced (you ole philanderer).

It’s such a prick

 

After several days in the hospital, the Man’s 40 plus weight loss issues were finally discovered with a scope that gave the most gruesome pictures of a large ulcer on the top of his stomach.  The thing was huge.  The doctor said it was the largest he had ever seen, but he probably says that to everyone just so they can brag.  The blood loss has stopped, and I was encouraged by his clarity of mind after he began to hold food down again.  I decided the unnerving loss of his mental capacity slowly day by day had been due to the massive blood loss and so it seemed.  But alas, after a couple of days of an almost back to normal existence, I walked in and asked him about breakfast and could tell when he looked at me I knew it wasn’t the blood loss.  When he asked me if it was bedtime at 7:00 am I was devastated,  beaten, scared, and resigned to our fate once again.  What a prick tease to let us have that week of normality (however weak he might be), then jerk the chair out from under us.  To be grateful for the time-any time- is becoming such a gift, like a newborn baby to be nurtured and loved and cherished.  We are in this together, just like he told me the first time I met him.