Gwenivere

Karen, this is the most appropriate place, IMO, to talk about anything that is affecting us or comes up in the grief. The having no one left to talk to is the hardest. Yes, we do talk to some people about some things, but that foundation of knowing there is someone you can talk to about anything at any time is a true test of sanity. i go to bed about 4:30am. My neighbors are used to goings on in the wee hours. I've never watered, but I have gone shopping in my garage or taken the trash to the street. Actually I kinda like wandering around in my nightgown. I drag thru the day even tho I get my sleep til noon because I seem to be more comfortable when the world is asleep since I don't really fit anymore. I want to, but not to be at this time. It was also the hours Steve and I lived for years so very much habit. It's rare to find another extreme night owl. Never got into that 'let's do lunch' thing. Days were for shopping and taking the dogs to the park. Things I don't do now because of physical limitations and not needing much food to chase the sales which was my fun game. Now days are medical issues and apts. and after years of that with Steve, the last thing I want to be doing. I miss us just having the day pass easily and the real interactions begin late evening. Often he would stay up longer than me to work on his music which is a sound I miss terribly. My, I do babble.

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat, Kay. It's the part of being pet parents we always forget about. Or, tho we have been thru it before, it never gets any easier. If she is not exhibiting pain, it is best to let them handle it themselves. Turning away food and isolating are the common signs. I have an almost 12 year old lab mix that is my last tie to the family I had with Steve. She is fine, but it crosses my mind how her loss will change everything. The new dog knew nothing of that time. Hugs to you.

I'm trying to figure out the need people feel to tell us to make new friends. I hear it a lot too. Is there a store we can get them from because from my experience it pretty much just happens. Getting involved in groups raises the odds, but as many have said, who has the energy and desire? Plus friendships take work. I never know how I will feel day to day so am unreliable for plans. I volunteer several times a week and consider some people 'friends', but we don't hang out outside of the nursing home. It's a time I can get outside myself for a bit and leave when I want. I see one woman on the weekend for about an hour so our dogs can play. I know people with a bevy of friends yet for us, we would still come home alone. Tch friend that mattered most is gone. Even if Amazon had ones to order, they wouldn't fill that void. Plus the boxes would be really big! . Also in his state of grief, I have a lot of baggage not really conducive for fun times.

That fetal position sounds good right now, Mitch. I've never allowed myself that indulgence fearing I might never get out of it. Kind like people afraid to cry because they think it won't end. But it does. Darned thing just keeps coming back!

Anniversarys suck. I'm so sorry they get etched in our brain. The loss is enough. Take care, George.

I don't know if this helps, Maryann, but I feel exactly the same way. I have read and been told and encouraged to beleive this is normal, but if you have never felt it before, it's hard to beleive. In every other experience in my life, things that went bad got better. The process started at the bottom and improved as time went by. This defies that course so it makes me question myself and my sanity. Thier death was catastrophic! How could it get any worse? But this loss is unlike any other. It's not a toothache a professional can fix, it's not a fight you kiss and make up from, it's not a dented fender bender that a new bumper will replace. Every time we turn around there is another ripple. Since we don't understand the first one, how do we navigate all the aftershocks? I, too, have felt I've aged dramatically. My body has betrayed me from the stress. The loneliness has compromised my rational thinking. And to top it off, no one gets it that is in my life. They are the ones with the charts wondering when I will fit some mystical pattern that doesn't exist. I give myself permission too, but when one has no experience to compare it to, it's hard knowing if it is right or wrong. And it's neither. It just is. I wish I could get lost in something beside this. I did for awhile, but it's not working anymore. When I'm out I want to go home, when I am home I want to escape the memories around me. So I fit nowhere right now. That takes a huge toll. I wonder too about the next level. I keep being told to hang in there because this will change. I so desperately want to look back and see it has. It won't be perfect but it has to be better than this, right? If not, I don't even want to think about how I'll survive it.

Kay, I'll have to wait til my doc looks at the X-rays. Hopefully by tomorrow.

I sure can relate to what you said, Joyce. I miss being the energetic go getter I was. I don't know who this person I am is anymore. Well, I kinda do, but I don't like it. I looked forward to doing all I did around here to keep our house pretty pristine, Which was always helped by Steve doing his thing of leaving evidence of his shiny object syndrome and things abandoned. It created a purpose in our balance. Now I look around as see things don't change. I even miss teasing him about the work he crested for me. He always made me feel good about it too. Saying he wanted for nothing as he never ran out if anything and things were always back in their place. I try and keep up the routine, but it feels so empty. It's wierd knowing I can skip something now, or it takes so little time and gives little reward. Days were just full living together. Now, they drag by.

I'm still not %100. Still lose my breath easily. Supposed to get X-rays tomorrow to make sure things haven't gotten worse. Ya know, I need things to do to stay occupied, but medical stuff is never on my list. . Thanks for asking, Gin.

We all have things in our past we regret or ashamed of. Cocaine is ours. Seduced into that world in the 80's. But I can't change that and it is done and over. I'm grateful I was young enough to physically survive times that would be a death wish now. It often created friction with Steve even tho he was doing it too. I was more hard core. Karen, you have been honest in how you handled things and while they may haunt you, I hope it brings some relief to at least speak of them. We can carry guilt forever if we choose to. I think about what you went thru losing your whole family and can understand the need for an escape for those ghosts that linger. All of us here are missing one person, you have the weight of 2 of the hardest. Reality is indeed so hard now for us all. I hate coming home in the evening knowing the long hours ahead and that I get to do it all over again tomorrow. Some days I just want to run off to some fantasy place and leave all the memories behind and forgotten. It gets so bad that I would leave my dogs because they are reminders. Talk about feeling guilt as they love and need me. Sometimes reality just weighs too damned much. As our bodies fail, too, the struggle gets harder as we face that alone. I saw an older couple walk by the housectoday and got angry. Not at them, at life. About the impermanence of it and it plays by its own rules. We're just collateral damage in the big picture and it doesn't care. Well, there's a flow off words. Inthink I am learning from you, Marg, to just let them flow. See where they lead. Out in he world I have to act sane. What a chore!

They could be in a box in the back. Chicks don't take up much room til they grow up.

Let's not forget Pintos. Because I was 16 and go to drive alone, I would pretend it was some really cool muscle car!

Thanks everyone. I am just SO glad to home and not admitted. When they talked about that I broke down crying. In all the time spent at hospitals with Steve and now by myself, I can't imagine being a prisoner there. Keeping my fingers crossed I don't get any complications that send me back because they will admit me. I'm hoping a mystical force will say.....give the kid a break!

Amy, how can it be selfish to want more time? He was so young. Still so much life ahead for him.

Absolutely Kay! Unless I have no choice, I run everything by my primary care doc as he knows the whole me. Thanks for the suggestion, George. And for your caring thoughts.

Thank you, Gin and Ana. I finally got thier attention and am waiting for the discharge papers. I have a small pneumothorax in my lung. Had one last year. They want me to meet with a thoracic surgeon for a procedure that might prevent this again. My primary care doc says these happen often with my lung condition and is much more conservative, so I will talk with him next month at our apt. When I had this last year I was scheduled to have the thing drained of air, but it had been so small and healed that the doc sent me home. I respect docs, but specialists are sometimes quick to want more treatment than you may need.

The name of this topic seems most appropriate today. I am in the ER for the 2nd time in a month. I can't even count how many times I've been here since Steve died because my body has just gone haywire since he died. Before that I was a regular with him for years. Definitely preferred not being the patient. Waiting on results on something they found. Just want to go home. I have been talking to my counsellor about how all her wisdom of handling grief is so compromised when you still have to battle physical obstacles. Especially alone. Seems everyone else here has a friend or family member with them. I had to step outside because I started to have an anxiety attack and the hospital frowns on that so here I sit waiting and no staff has come since I called I was back. Guess I was a bad kid for going out.

Thanks Kay and Joyce. I hope you are right, Kay. That this, too, shall pass. I know I have been carrying it a long time. And just when I thought that was the focus, I came home tonight missing him so much and wishing I could talk to him. I'm so tired of not having someone to share the day with. So another meltdown while I cleaned the shower. ANYTHING to avoid sitting when I can't get a perspective. I don't know how we get used to this silence. I'm sure I'll be back to blaming him as the night drags on. Seems a cruel thing to do but it was his departure that started this. Anger or pain. Yet I know it was not his intention. I just imagine he would feel the same. What a helpless place that puts him as it would have me. Poor guy can't even defend himself.

So true. Fast or slow, expected or unexpected.......there is no good way. How can there ever be a good way to lose someone we love?

My thoughts are with you today as always, Joyce.

This thread got me thinking about resentment and how it affects me. It was so easy in the beginning to his death to blame the cancer. Things shifted a lot as time passed, even to resentment to Steve. While he suffered, he was set free. Now I am alone trying to process how to live life alone. It's taboo to say some things anywhere but here, but right now I feel I cannot forgive him for leaving (this, of course is totally irrational as he didn't want to). I look at what this has done to living now and have to work thru it. My love for him is not at all diminished, probably stronger. Yet, I feel he has hurt me in the worst way possible and we certainly had our share of that just being a couple. It's my focus in counseling right now. Anger needs a target. I am surrounded by him in this house so he is always on my mind and reminders of how his leaving changed every aspect of life, only some I am slowly getting back. Even they are hard to hold onto sometimes because they are not solidified yet. Yup, I'm mad at him big time. But he knew me and would expect nothing less. What a 'discussion' it would be if he was here. I truly want to forgive him and the whole situation so I don't feel so strangled by it. I have yet to figure that out.

Ok, ladies, time to stop thinking there is something wrong with us because we don't know how old our tires are. That is why I keep receipts in the car. Not exactly priority info I keep in my brain. Plus, when buying a new one, who cares? As for going into rooms and forgetting why, been doing that for decades. Steve called those brain farts.

Is anyone else here getting tired of the words 'new normal'? I was reading another forum and can't find who said it and where but I am sooooo tired of hearing that. I liked thier idea.....this is not unusual. More precise. More to the point as there is nothing normal about this I have felt. It's the kind of words a counselor uses. I want to hear what I feel us not unusual. I think we need that validation more than the (sometimes) pressure to build a normal can stir up. Semantics, I know, but sometimes they make a big difference.

As Karen said, I know this was a tough road for you. I truly don't know what else to say being in a place we are so tired of hearing the cliched lines. My heart goes out to you.

George, you don't know how many times I have gone to do something and found I already did it. I truly have no recollection I did. I was looking for a spoon I needed to make dinner tonight and found I had put it away with a pan in the cabinet. These things bother me but more so the feeling of unease that accompanies me no matter what. The fog makes me hyper alert because I know I can disassociate easily. Not good for driving. Thing is, I can't turn it off when I get home. I forget ho it feels to relax.