If You're Going Through Hell

[Gin]

Kay,

Glad your surgery is behind you.  Now I hope you heal really fast!

My daughter came over today and worked really hard in the basement.   Got about 3/4 finished.  I will work on the rest and my other daughter said she can Friday and finish.  Tooth pain getting better.  Rain, rain stay away.

[MartyT]

 

1 hour ago, Gin said:

Tooth pain getting better.  Rain, rain stay away.

 

We're pulling for you, Gin! ♥

[KarenK]

Gin,

So glad your daughters have stepped up to help you with the cleanup. I can't imagine trying to do it alone, much less while you are in pain.

Teeth are not my friends right now either. I took a regimen of antibiotics for my infection, and got to the dentist last week so he could replace the temp fillings. Mouth was sore, but all was better until Friday when pain started again. I guess infection had gone into hiding because today it has moved to the left sinus area. Face is all swelled up. So will call tomorrow for a different antibiotic.  Grrr! I'm so sick of this. Would love to get a small health break.

Kay, glad your surgery went well and that your neighbor is being helpful.

[MartyT]

Dear Karen,

[kayc]

Thank you.  It wasn't my neighbor that helped, it was Jim.  My neighbor gave me a ride to my surgery two years ago, didn't stay with me, just dropped me off and left.  I didn't even know if I could get up by myself!  Jim was wonderful, he helped me down the stairs, opened doors, brought food, etc.  It mostly just felt good to be cared about.  My son didn't call until I called him, and my daughter...still not responding.

I'm going to try to work today.  Oh and my internet is out of data...long story, still working on the situation.

[Margm]

This is in regard to the post Marty gave about there being hope.  I moved it from the post it was on.  Marty gives the best advice.  I read books written by widows, I get them on my  Kindle all the time.  Not to suffer more, but to see if some of this suffering is just me  or other people.  We all know my word salads and sometimes they don't make sense, but in Marty's post she mentions the word "hope" and somehow that is one four letter word I want to try to center on.

I wish I could take advice and use it.  Honestly, sometimes I can and sometimes my grief, anxiety, fear, phobia, and a lot of times like batsh__t crazy, so many moods, it is like a giant bug that runs into a windshield, splat everywhere.  I honestly do not look forward to dying anymore.  The only fear I have of it is leaving before I leave things my family has to take care of.  Quoting Billy again "if you die your worries and pain will be over with and it will be placed on those that are left."  I don't want to leave anything to clean up for my family.  That is one fear I have no control over unless I finish the goals I have in place.  But, Billy had goals too.  I do not think I am going crazy.  I like other words for crazy.  My favorite is eccentric, and I have always been that.  Billy really hated my worrying.  I never gave that up.  Still have not.  But that damn green folder with all his death certificates, there is a force that pulls me away from it.  Like the nugget I searched for, it was right in front of me and I could not see it.  

Marty, you give excellent advice, you even give advice that has hope in it.  It is up to us to take and run with it.  You, well, you are the expert and sometimes I am just that damn bug splattered all over the windshield.  There is one word you give though, "hope," that may not be seen yet, certainly not by the bug splat, but I ain't dead yet.

Autumn, I am a lot older, sometimes it seems like life is not worth living, but that little four letter word "hope" keeps popping up.  I know a lot of four letter words.  Love is one of them and so is hurt, but it is nice to know there is still hope, even if we cannot see it yet.   

  

[kayc]

Dr. Phil literally shudders at the usage of "crazy", he doesn't like that term at all for people.  People have conditions, but labeling them as crazy is unkind.  I've been guilty of that I'm sure with reference to my mom or first husband, but I'm trying to be more conscious of my use of the word now.  I can think of alternate descriptions but they probably aren't any more kind.    I like the word eccentric but it doesn't apply to my mom and ex. 

18 hours ago, Marg M said:

sometimes I am just that damn bug splattered all over the windshield.

 

 

Hope is kind of like faith, believing in possibility, having something to reach for.

[Margm]

I grew up in a time when the two words "politically correct" were not put together.  I have a granddaughter that corrects me when I even say retarded.  In my little sawmill/papermill town we had many things that were just wrong.  At the time I did not understand how wrong.  We grew up with separate bathrooms, closet doors that were kept shut, black schools and white schools.  My sister teaches at a predominantly black college.  It is a historic college called Grambling.  Those are her children, she hears their stories, she sees how many were brought up.  The funny thing is, the older blacks are just as prejudice against whites as the whites were against the blacks in my growing up period.  One of the little towns, on the outskirts of town, had a sign that they (blacks) better not be out after sunset.  This is true.  My son came home from first grade with a new best friend, a little black boy and to two people who did not go to integrated schools, it was a shock. (Actually, Billy and I both liked this acceptance by our son). That was an Air Force town and I guess they moved on.  My son quit the Mason's after being accepted because in the small AR town the rules and regulations did not include the blacks.  My granddaughter has a bio mother that is white and a bio father from Thailand.  Not a prejudice bone in her body.  The words I use sometimes, she corrects.  Billy used to love to tease her by using words she would jump on him about.  He did it just to get a rise out of her.  

I've learned to clean up my language over the years.  I did let the "N" word slip the other day and should have said "Jerry-rig" about my laundry buggy fixing.  There are so many words now that are not politically correct and crazy and retarded are two of them.  It is possible to teach an old dog new tricks easier than it is to break him/her from their old tricks.  I actually think they do use the word "bats__t" in language now, but I think they use the product in explosives or something like that.  I like the word eccentric, I am eccentric, but if a medical classification needed to be given for BS crazy, I guess it would be politically correct to call it chronic depression, but somehow medical words get lost in the translation.  

We have had to learn to accept people that when we (Billy and me) were growing up, we could point out a couple on the street.  One in one town and another in this town.  Knew them by name.  Just two.  Then, our world exploded and we had to learn to accept very close relatives that had swung open the closet doors and that was hard on me and Billy both.  It took brave people to break down those closet doors. But accept them we did.  You love your relatives and you do not want them to undergo the trials and tribulations they face every day.  You might not approve, and they know this, but you do accept it and you love these relatives and their friends.  You do not admonish them that you believe they are going to hell, because your interpretation of the Bible says this, but just like being politically correct, you try to learn to evolve.

We live in a "crazy" world, or should I say "bats__t crazy" world?  Dr. Phil is a character who makes lots of money from his opinions.  Oprah gave him his chance.  

I had two grandma's until I was in my 40's.  One was so loving and precious, I wanted to be just like her.  My other grandma, she had to spread her love to a lot more people than my dad's mama.  I'm afraid I have some of her coldness, but I sure wish I could be more like my sweet grandma.  My granddaughter keeps my heart from being frozen, but in some ways it is still frozen.  My sweet grandma's husband (my grandfather), no one seemed to mourn his passing.  My kinda cold grandmother, we and she always mourned my mother's father's passing.  Billy will always be mourned, but I think I will probably  slide on out without much notice.   

[Gwenivere]

I dunno, crazy is definitely part of my vocabulary.  Usually in reference to me.  

[Margm]

41 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

crazy is definitely part of my vocabulary

Gwen, I certainly am certifiable, but I have been for a long time.  Sometimes it helps.  People don't expect as much from me.

 

[Gin]

My daughter came today to help cleanup from the flood.  Al had a lot of boxes that he brought over when we got married 16 yrs ago.  I do not think that he even looked in them for all those years.  She suggested that I go thru a few of them.  He had brought many pots and pans, that I do not need.  They are very nice and good quality.  She kept admiring them, so I gave her most of them.   Then, later I felt bad that I gave them away.  Crazy?  (Me, too).  I guess I just hate giving anymore of Al away.

Marg,. Just started watching Grace and Frankie, as you recommended.  

[Margm]

We don't all have the same sense of humor Gin.  My friend Wanda would probably not speak to me again if I told her to watch it.  Also, women and men from the Vietnam time had/has a grudge against Jane Fonda.  But those two women came to me at a time I thought I would never laugh again and it sure felt good to laugh.  And, I can see myself as the hippie one with her mantras, waving around the burning sage and wait till you get to the peyo-tea (peyote).  

In one scene Grace tells her husband "I wish you had died."  It made me think, oh heck, it would have been a surprise, but I would rather Billy had lived, even if it wasn't with me.

I'm the only one in my family likes to know what happens in a show or book before it happens.  i used to get so involved in a book and had to put it down so I would read the last chapter.  If it was a good book I would go back and finish it, even knowing the ending.  My mama used to do the same thing.  

[iPraiseHim]

2 hours ago, Marg M said:

...  Also, women and men from the Vietnam time had/has a grudge against Jane Fonda. ...

I don't have a grudge against Jane Fonda. Her protest against the Vietnam war on top of an enemy tank that planned to kill American troops is what I am opposed to.

I have watch her in many movies and she is a good actress...  And yes, My Father was in the military and I was a Vietnam war veteran, but did not serve in combat.  - Shalom

[Margm]

I lived through it too George.  Also, my son is a Navy veteran of the submarines.  She is a good actress, and I don't approve of the things she did during the Vietnam war.  But, I do like to laugh and the series is funny, to me.  I also read her autobiography.  Yet, I am not a fan of hers.  I do like the series though.  

There were Vietnam veterans living in the hills around the RV camp we ran while the family was gone.  One came down from the hills, he "borrowed" a bar of soap.  I had a new box of a soap that was not opened.  He was so honest he brought the soap back to me.  Our boys were not treated right.  One of my dad's and for my growing up years, one of our neighbor's son's died last month.  His brother was listed as missing in Vietnam.  Billy tried to join but was 4F, or whatever they call it.  My son spent months on a submarine that went inside Russia's waters.  But, the show was funny.  I needed funny.  I was able to accept her as the character, not Hanoi Jane.  

[kayc]

15 hours ago, Gin said:

Then, later I felt bad that I gave them away.

It's to your daughter so it doesn't count as giving it away, it's still in the family.  You can go visit them any time!

[Margm]

I still have not found the folder.  I don't know if you all do this, but for these past months if anything comes in the mail that I don't owe, anything that pertains to the medicine Billy had to take, what the insurance paid, etc., well it is all paid for, has been for months, but still I will get something showing how much the chemotherapy helping unit paid, showing I owe nothing.  Do I throw it away.  Do I keep it.  Something else comes in.  Not able to face it right now.  Really not important, but today I am having to sift through all this.  And, I did have to take a Xanax.  How many times can they die?  How many waves wash against you, even small ones knock you off your feet.  Gotta get the taxes paid.  Gotta make sure I have all the papers.  Sometimes you can numb yourself, hey your doing good, then wham, off your feet again and the older I get the harder it gets to get up.  I did find one piece, I will definitely have a DNR.  I had them do things to Billy just so the kids could say goodbye.  I hope he forgives me.  I know he did.  If anything passes through his mind, where ever he is, I know he is not worried and know he does not want to return.  I don't blame him.

[Margm]

Kay, we had state group insurance.  I noticed the circumcision was $5.  Now without insurance it is between $800 and $3000.  

[Margm]

Okay, the saga of the missing green folder has been solved.  It has all Billy's information in it that I have to have.  I was really beginning to think I just did not want to find it.  I have lost sleep worrying about it.  A strange thing I have found I can do though, I can be trying to go to sleep and I can quit thinking about the bad thing and begin thinking about something worse.  A new trick I have learned.

My mama would lose something and my daddy would make her sit down and retrace her steps to where she was to begin with.  I always marveled how she could do this.  My mind is like one of those old Minnesota treadle sewing machines.  It does not have a reverse.  (I have my great grandmother's sewing machine that won't back up).  

It was in the last box I looked in that did not have clothes in it and no, I have no recollection of how it got there.  And to top it all off, that light green plastic expanding folder was a true blue, no rubber bands holding it together either.  That must be my image of my brain, light green see through plastic with rubber bands holding it together.

Plastic word salad.  I am high as the sky because I found it and lower than low because I know what all I have to go through looking at it now.  Almost think I lost it on purpose, only now my tax return will help my sister save the house.  We just have to keep living, "promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep" RF. 

[Gwenivere]

6 hours ago, Marg M said:

if anything comes in the mail that I don't owe, anything that pertains to the medicine Billy had to take, what the insurance paid, etc., well it is all paid for, has been for months, but still I will get something showing how much the chemotherapy helping unit paid, showing I owe nothing.  Do I throw it away.  Do I keep it.  Something else comes in.  Not able to face it right now.  Really not important, but today I am having to sift through all this.  And, I did have to take a Xanax.  How many times can they die?  How many waves wash against you, even small ones knock you off your feet.  

Marg, I throw anything away that has been paid for for the very reason you stated.....how many more times do I need reminding Steve died.  I depend on Xanax to get me thru the day.  I don't get much in the mail anymore regarding Steve's treatment, but I do get mail and catalogs that he got on lists for because if purchases.  Right into the recycle.  I love him and his name but can't stand it on mail.  Still get calls occasionally from places he donated to.   I don't even let them continue when they ask for him and just say he died.  One asked if there was a better time to call back!  None of this is done maliciously, but takes a huge toll when having to deal with it.  Just shows the many ways they were a part of our lives when we had one together.   Plus, I don't need any more help getting knocked of my feet.  I do a heck of a job on my own.

[Margm]

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

Plus, I don't need any more help getting knocked of my feet.  I do a heck of a job on my own.

I get you Gwen.  I am only allowed 2 a day and honestly, after I take them for awhile I sure could use more.  Have not been helping at night as much and sometimes I won't take one in the daytime, unless like today and will take 1-1/2 at night.  Have not been sleeping that good lately.  We have bad days and sometimes really bad days.  Sometimes it feels like we are only living so we can die.  That is why the doc gave me an antidepressant because I don't want to undergo any more tests when they cannot do anything.  She thought I was just being depressed.  The woman was not listening to me.  They have called the house twice and last time they called I told them what had happened with the antidepressant that I told her I could not take.  I told the nurse I did not want to go to a doctor that did not listen to me.  The #1 side effect was constipation and she is going to give that to someone that has already told her I have to take Miralax every night.. I'm sorry, but they take an oath to "first do no harm."  

Guess I am a little off my game tonight, that damn folder I had to find.  I was getting afraid I did not want to face finding it.  Well, it is a high and a low.  What's new?

[Gwenivere]

2 hours ago, Marg M said:

 We have bad days and sometimes really bad days.  

Now THAT is something that should be patented and I wish outsiders could understand.  I don't think there should be a limit on how many 'reallys' we can use.  

[Margm]

One thing I did that probably helped.  When I moved I have a new area code and new phone number.  In my name.  No calls for Billy.  Our son's name is Billy Scott, so when something comes for Billy, I know it is for him, so those reminders do not haunt me.  

[Gin]

It was 18 years ago today that I first had contact with Al.  We met on the Internet in a pen pal site.  We were both widowed and he lived close to where I worked.  I had been married for 31 years and then divorced.   Met someone at a church group afterward and married much too quickly.  He took his own life after about a year.  Needless to say, I was gun shy.  I corresponded with Al about 5 years later.  We were absolutely perfect for each other and were so fortunate to share the next 16 years together.  I sure do miss him.

[kayc]

Gin,

You have been through a lot...I'm glad you had Al in your life.  I was married four times, I prefer to forget the first and fourth one, horrible memories, both should have been annulled.  The second one was my kids' dad, 23 years.  We were good together in ways but not good in other ways...we raised good kids together but I never felt loved by him.  He was judgmental and controlling.  It was so opposite with George, he adored me and it showed.  I could have had one eye and four rows of teeth and he would have loved me!  That was the best time of my life and it carries me even now as I live out my life alone.  I didn't get a long time with him, but I believe with all my heart that had we been married another 40 years, we still would have been gazing at each other with stars in our eyes.  It's how we were with each other.  Probably made some people want to puke!  

[Margm]

Well girls, I was married one time for 54 years.  But, I cannot tell you how many men that one man was.  The little mama's boy I married, the mental abusive (could not have handled physical) person, my children's father, the ladies man, and then finally the forgiver and my best friend.  We had any number of reasons to quit, I sure was not perfect, but finally after about 30 years we got it right.  We are just lucky we didn't kill each other during those first 30 years.  But, if I had to do it over again, well at my age now I couldn't handle him or myself those first 30 years.  I think we finally just decided we could not get rid of the other one and settled into a comfortable existence.  Too comfortable.  I miss him terribly, but somehow, I think he is in a safe place and would not come back if he could.  That kinda hurts, but thinking that helps me some too..  For sure, the reason I came back "home" was to feel him here as a young man.  He is not here.  I am.