martha jane

Is there any way to post a song here so that it will play?

I went to see a lawyer. I explained to him why I wanted the records. He asked was this going to be a lawsuit. I said no, the fall didn't cause his death, I just wanted to see if and how they reported it. He said he would call there and if that didn't work he would write a letter. He gave me an envelope to mail him 250 dollars. I hope that means he will get the records however it has to be done. Everything we owned was in mine and his name except his truck so there is no need for an executor. Everything goes to me as his next of kin. But the law in Ala says there must be an executor of estate. What next? Why do things have to be so difficult when I don't even feel like talking to anyone, every time I have to deal with something concerning his death it makes me cry. I still can't believe he is gone. It feels like someone is pouring cold water all over me when the realization hits me. I am beginning to feel afraid and anxious and I don't know why. My daughter left today after spending the weekend and my and my little cat are lonesome. She is curled up on Kenneth's end of the couch.

I intend to change doctors too. My doctor encouraged me to put Kenneth on hospice said he would be back or we could come to his office or call to help us make up our minds. Then the hospital doctor came and said he thought we should. He was such a kind man. When I started crying he took both of my hands and held them and talked to me. So he was put on hospice that night. My husband and I saw the same doctor. I would hear him on the floor and would think he would come in and see about Kenneth or see how I was doing. He never even stuck his head in the door the whole time. When I called him and told him we thought we had made a mistake calling in hospice, he had no sympathy for me. Just said I was wrong. A few days after Kenneth died his office called to remind him of an appointment. I told the lady that he had died and would she give his doctor a message for me. I told her I was very hurt that the doctor never looked in on us. I knew that he was no longer on the case but he could have had a heart and at least asked how we were doing. We were up there day and night. I thought he was fond of my husband the nurses all said how much he thought of him, said they talked golf and my husband had even gave him a book. It is so hard to find a doctor to trust these days. You ask one person and they say he is very good and then you mention him to someone else and they tell you a story about their dealings with him and you don't know who to believe. These were home health nurses who I was asking and they deal with a lot of doctors. Probably do just as good to stay home.

Today my daughter and I finally was able to go to my husband's grave and remove the dead flowers and collect the stands from the flowers. When the grave was dug they turned up a lot of rocks, some were kinda big. I took a rake and started pulling some of the larger ones away. All of a sudden I looked down and I had raked up a rock that was heart shaped. I was thinking to my self as I cleaned and raked that last year I would never have thought I would be spending this day close to Valentine's day doing what I was doing. And then I found the rock. I hope it was a message to me. I will post a picture soon. The flowers in the background are some my daughter and I fixed. The two round things are vines that my son rolled up into a wreath for his daughter and my grandaughter. They picked flowers off the grave and stuck them in the wreaths to have at home after the funeral. When we first started dating I wore some cologne that came from Avon. He was always asking what it was so that I would say," Here's My Heart." It was a cologne that Avon sold at that time. The red bracelet is one that I bought that says Suspect Sepsis, Save Lives. I got it from Sepsis.org. I don't know why so many copies uploaded and I can't get them to go away. You have to scroll down to see the full picture. that says. Suspect Sepsis, save lives.

Today I was cleaning in the living room and there was the box that we had found in his closet the other day that he had written on, Do not open. He had it written all around the box. I had never seen it before. I thought to myself would it be disrespectful to open it now? Curiousity got the the better of my daughter and me so we opened it. It contained letters written from his parents , his brother in service, his discharge and other things that I had not seen before. There was nothing he would not have wanted me to see so I quess he was just being silly. When I went to put it away, I saw his briefcase and two fireproof boxes that I had forgotten, I went through them and it was like a review of our lives together. I tortured myself by reading everyword of everything in it. Where we bought our first house ,where we sold it, where we bought another, things like that . He had 5 two dollar bills and a one dollar bill from 1957 that was a silver certificate. And then I found an old bilfold that he had carried at one time. It had pictures of me and our kids when they were small, a small official picture made when he joined the airforce and two poems that he had saved from high school days. I had seen them before but Oh today, they had such meaning. I am going to put them here so you will know what I mean. Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me, Here he lies where he long'd to be; Home is the sailor, Home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill. And the other one Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea. Such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless sea Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark: For, though from out Our bourne of time and place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. He carried these two poems from the time he was 17, moving them each time he bought a new bilfold. Now he has seen his Pilot face to face, but there is much moaning or rather mourning at the bar. To really understand the poems you can look them up and find the meanings.

If your doctor knows and it is alright with him there must not be a problem then.

I would probably drink but I don't like the taste. I have taken xanax. It really works quick on a panic attack. But is it safe to take and drink also?

I finally went to buy groceries. It was that or eat cat food. It was upsetting because I saw all the things he liked to eat. He liked raisin bread but wouldn't buy it he said it cost too much. So when I started having to go by myself I would buy it for him. I would buy things for him that he liked to eat, I didn't care how much it cost. When I would bring them in he would be sitting on the couch waiting for me to get home. He would offer to help put them away, but I knew he couldn't stand long enough. Today, I stopped at the door to the den and looked at the couch. It was empty. No shoes in the floor, no foot rest raised up to prop his feet on. It was so lonely. It was dark and rainy outside which didn't help.I was driving a loaner car until they repair the automatic part of the sunroof. When I got to the car, I couldn't figure out how to open the trunk. I had to call my daughter in Montgomery because it was the same as the one she drives.She laughed at me but my food was getting wet. I went to the rehab place( oh how I hate that place) to sign for my husbands records. They are charging me for them. Then today I got a letter saying I had to have proof that i was excutor of the estate. I said what is that. I'm his wife and I have a death certificate. She said that won't do. I said do you know how hard this is? and started crying. The hospital didn't require anything but the certificate. I said what is it anyway? She said I could get it at the probate office. I called the probate office and they said they didn't do them I would have to get a lawyer. A LAWYER? I am so mad, I don't think they want me to have them because they let him fall out of the bed. That is exactly why I want them to see what the report of him falling says. So I am wondering how much I will have to pay a lawyer to draw me up the paper I need. I don't even know a lawyer. I am so tired of having to deal with people making sure everything is right. I have already made two trips down there and I told her that. But she still has to have that paper. I just want my husband back. They don't understand.

I am so sorry that you had such a bad time with your anniversary. I have not experienced an anniversary yet. On our 57th he was put on hospice. And after that he never spoke again.

I bought it for awhile but he got to where he didn't like it. He had a good appetite right up til the day he got sick. Had eggs for breakfast and a big ice cream cone later. I can't bring myself to eat one now. We both had one in the middle of the day or in the evening. He also like the icecream bars covered with chocolate on a stick.

I got out some video's that were made several years ago and there he was as good as new, talking and laughing. There were a lot from past Christmases. He seemed so happy and enthusiastic. The last two or three years he didn't pay much attention to Christmas. Every Christmas eve we would drive to my mama's and Daddy's house and meet up with my other bros and sisters and their kids and have wonderful times together. Then Daddy, Mama, and my sister Betty died and there was no where to go after that. Christmas was sad this year, all of my kids were here but not their daddy wasn't. My daughter will not sit on the couch where he always sat. It makes her feel as if we are forgetting him. I find myself grieving more for the man he used to be not the one who was so sick and weak and in the hospital. I got a picture of him when he was in the Air Force about age 20. I took it out to the nurse station and told them I want you to see the man you are taking care of. Not the sick and dying one. Everyone began to say how nice he looked and some of the male nurses told about being in the military. It was nice to be able to talk about him when he was young and happy to be serving his country. He loved the Air Force but he was only in for two years because his daddy broke his neck and he went home to help the family. I have gotten three rooms cleaned up. I have four to go. I am not going to worry about the upstairs. My daughter comes twice a month and no one else uses it. I need food badly but I don't want to go grocery shopping. It has been raining all day and tomorrow is supposed to be worse with some wind. I don't know anything to buy. I usually based my grocery list on things that Kenneth liked. Now I really don't like anything.

Autumn I will be thinking about you tomorrow. I hope you can find comfort in the fact that you had 50+ years with him.

I had good intentions yesterday. I would clean up at least one room. I brought a filing cabinet into the den and started going through papers I had scattered everywhere. I found the reports from BC/BS about my husbands treatments while in the hospital. Then I got his records out that I had gotten from the hospital and decided to read them over again. All the words I didn't understand I looked them up. It seems like the treatments mostly centered around his lab work. If you don't understand what everything means it's hard to know what was going on. It seems since everything is electronic now the doctor doesn't put much of his words in the records. When he returned to the hospital after falling out of the bed at rehab there is nothing about him having internal bleeding or receiving two transfusions. There is one little line saying he has c diff. The nurses began suiting up to come in the room but they did not tell us to take precautions. The main argument the doctor used to get us to agree to hospice is because he was too weak to withstand the tests they would need to do to find the bleeding. He had a feeding tube and they said the food was not being digested just laying atop blood. None of this is mentioned in his records. But who do you ask? The doctors just brush you off like the one who did when I said we had made a mistake putting him on hospice. My daughter and I felt he was being starved to death. We just both went to pieces but everyone said we are doing the right thing. Maybe if we had put it off he would have been able to talk to us. If he was so weak how was he able to live 14 days with no food or water? Why am I torturing myself like this. I know he was very sick and his mind would probably have been bad and agitated even if his body recovered. I was dark outside before I finished the records and I knew no more than I did then. Everything pointed to an infection. I guess the UTI caused sepsis. Now I would be afraid to go to the hospital and have an IV line placed. Most hospital infections start there. I have got to quit playing doctor and accept that it is over, Even if I found mistakes they made he would still be gone and I would be unbelieveably angry. Now I am just sad and feeling lonely and alone along with some guilt because I wasn't very kind to him sometimes. Do you think when I say I am sorry that he knows?

How many of you are sitting on the couch, knowing you have so much to do but instead you sit and read all the sad stories on here and cry for them all?

I feel not loved anymore too. I guess because as soon as he went into the hospital he was fighting so that he had no time to say anything to me. As his mind got worse he was combative with everyone. I was trying to do something for him, can't remember what but he shoved me away. He also did the same to our daughter and it hurt her very badly. She went and sat down and said, I was just trying to help you. But he was beyond help from us. He left us before he died. All we could do was stand by his bed and see it happen. Everyday I feel different but today I felt that he didn't love me anymore. I have read that when someone is dying they start pulling away from people. It must be a lonesome time for them, still in the world but no longer a part of it. I don't know how much my husband knew through the process. They said he could still hear. I played music that he liked. But I never saw a reaction to it. When he left the house in the ambulance I never dreamed he wouldn't come back. He always did before. He showed no signs of being sick except pain in his stomach and a slight fever. It happened very quickly. By the time I got to the hospital he was already getting delirious. They admitted him and at midnight they called and said they were putting him in ICU. I still thought he would be okay. They released him to rehab and i thought he would soon be home. But after four days he was back in the hospital and I began to realize this was not like the other times he was there. And he never came home. He is buried in a church yard right across from the house. He is buried near my mother, daddy, little brother and my oldest sister. I could believe that they were gone as they each passed away but not Kenneth. Not Kenneth!

My husband will have been gone two months on Feb 13th. He also had sepsis. I think they discharged him from the hospital too soon. Sepsis was the primary diagnosis along with UTI, acute pancreatitis, thrombocytopenia, encephalopathy circulatory collapse, acute on chronic diastolic heart failure. It was all supposed to be cured when they sent him to rehab. Yet his death certificate reads heart failure and sepsis. It really upsets me to think they let him leave the hospital. But he's gone and nothing will bring him back. I guess it was just his time to go. I just wish we hadn't put him on hospice so soon, but the doctor thought we should. Maybe he could have talked to us but I know he would have been afraid. Before he got so confused he told us that he knew we wouldn't believe him but he was going to die. We reassured him that he wasn't. I reminded him of our anniversary and told him he had to get well and buy me a present. He began singing one day and he sang How great thou art and draw me nearer Blessed Lord. He lived for 14 days on hospice with no water or food. I think he starved to death. It was a terrible terrible time that my kids and I went through seeing him. He lay with his mouth wide open and eyes closed and never moved again. I would not wish this experience on my worst enemy. It feels like he deserted me because he never spoke to me again.

Yesterday I went to veterans affairs to apply for a memorial for my husband's grave. As soon as I pulled his death certificate from the envelope for the man to see, I burst into tears. I hate doing that. It makes the other person uncomfortable. I asked him to turn it face down, I couldn't stand to look at it. Then I went down to the nursing home where my husband was sent for rehap. Why they sent him I don't know. He couldn't even stand up. When the man came to take him to rehab he was afraid of him and would not go. His mind wasn't working right. Why they sent him out of the hospital I don't know. After four days they let him fall out of bed. They found him in the floor and sent him back to the hospital. I want to get his records from there to see exactly what went on while he was there. I know he was neglected, I witnessed it myself and got very angry and upset. Today I just sat. I didn't want to do anything, it is too hard. My daughter called and wanted me to go outside, the weather is nice and warm. I tried my best to keep her from knowing I had been crying but I finally had to tell her I was having a hard day and I began crying. I don't want to upset her. She is struggling with her daddy's death also. I just can't believe he is gone forever. I was thinking about something I wanted to tell him when he got back. Each day gets worse instead of better. I went to lunch with some friends but I just wanted to come home. I have nothing to talk about except his death and after awhile nobody wants to hear about it, they want to have a nice happy lunchtime together. I am a drag when I go. I feel so tired and lonely. Everywhere I look I see things he did. He had a drawer where he kept things like his pocket knives and old keys. I placed the washcloths that I had put in his hands to keep him from tightning up his fists in the drawer and the pillow case that he slept on the last time before he went into the hospital. I did not wash it. It still smells like him. I had bought him a lot of new undershirts and today I found some of his old ragged ones. I will put them in the drawer too. I have his word search book that he was working on when he began hurting still open to the page. Will I ever be able to move about this house and not see his handiwork. His fingerprints are on some of the door facings where he would pull himself up or balance himself. I called the bank today and started crying when they asked me a question and I couldn't think. I don't call anyone for fear I won't be able to talk. I found a letter that he wrote me after we had been married a year or so. I had gone shopping and he was home so he wrote me a letter and mailed it to me. In it he said he hoped when we got old I could say that he had kept the vows we made when we married. And he did. I did not appreciate what I had enough and now I can never express my appreciation for the wonderful life he made for me. I hope I am not repeating myself, I don't remember things very well anymore. I start to go somewhere and find I have to keep going back inside the house because I have forgotten some papers I need or get a list I made. I put them right where I can get them but I forget to pick them up. I have important papers all over the couch but I can't seem to put them together like they need to be. I don't feed the outside cat until the middle of the day and I don't bother to get the eggs my chicken lay and don't clean their coop like I should. It just doesn't matter much anymore.

I am a widow. I have to check that box now. My husband died on Dec 13, 2016. He entered the hospital on Nov 1st, my son's birthday. He was put on hospice on Nov 28th , our 57th anniversary. He never spoke to me again. He never told me bye. His was delirous from sespis and c diff. I did not know that going on hospice would make him like he was in a coma, eyes closed, not moving. No food or water for 14 days. He lay with his head back as far as it would go and his mouth wide open. His tongue became coated with stuff and there were traces of blood inside. The aides tried to keep it clean but was afraid he would choke if a piece went down his throat. At that point it wouldn't have mattered. On the 14th day his breathing changed and my two daughters and I stayed beside his bed, one daughter held her hand over his heart until it stopped. I held his hands which were closed into fists, we had put washcloths in his hands to try to keep them open. My other daughter was knelling in the floor whimpering like a wounded animal. My son's plane was just landing in San Francisco, he had to go back for work. The day he died was on the anniversary of someone I lost many years ago that I loved. I am sitting here at home, the dishes are all dirty, the Christmas tree and decorations are still up. I am eating whatever I can find that is easy to prepare. Cookies and tea and chips. Oranges. I feel as if I am being kicked in the stomach every few minutes. He is gone. He is not sitting beside me on the couch. He is not calling for me to watch Wheel of Fortune with him. He is not asking if I want some ice cream, hinting that he did and needing me to get it for him because he has Parkinson's and it is hard for him to stand or walk. I get irritated with him. He wets in the floor instead of the bedside commode. He forgets to flush the bathroom commode, it is unpleasant. I have to change his diapers, sometimes they don't absorb well all the time and he wets the pads and the top sheet and his undershirt. I complain because I have to wash the bedding over and over. I get hateful sometimes . He begs me not to get upset even when he does things that really upsets me. I say, I am just supposed to let you act any way and not say anything? I replay all of this in my mind over and over and I feel like I deserve being left alone. I feel like I was really a bitch to him sometimes. He does not deserve the way I treat him at times. I was aggravated at him the day he said he was hurting across his stomach. He lay on the bed and I didn't see about him until I went in the room and he was half off the bed. I had to get him back on and after taking his blood pressure and temperature I called an ambulance. They didn't act as if they thought he needed the hospital. They said what do you want us to do? I said, well I can't take him to the hospital, he is not able to walk so take him to the hospital. For once I did the right thing, he was diagnosed with a UTI , pancreasitis and later sepsis. Everything went downhill from there. They finally released him to rehab (too soon) While there for four days he was neglected and was found in the floor one morning. How he got out of bed I don't know. I keep thinking, How long was he in the floor, was he calling for me to help him? Was he cold? He was delirious so they sent him to the ER. When I got there he was beside himself, talking out of his head, they had to put mitts on his hands that he tired desperately to get off. He pulled his cover off, he had a catherer inserted. They inserted a feeding tube. He begged for food and water, the last thing he asked for was some watermelon. They discovered that he was bleeding internally. He had something called C Diff that causes diarrhea 10 or more times a day. It destroys the good bacteria in your stomach and the bad takes over and spreads all over your body. They had to remove the feeding tube because the liquid food was just staying in his stomach. The doctor recommended we place him on hospice since he wasn't strong enough to withstand tests to see why he was bleeding. At 84 years old any of the things he had gone through could have killed him. We agreed and that is when he left me. He never called my name or spoke to me or my daughters again. We went to pieces because we felt that we were starving him to death. Everyone told us we were doing the right thing. I don't know. He was receiving morphine and ativan for his delirium. At least he wasn't aware that he was dying. Now I look at the picture taken when we got married and his happiness is shining in his face. He loved me with all his heart and soul, more than I did him. But he is gone and I have nothing left but loneliness, guilt and the pain of missing him more than I could have ever dreamed possible. We had many happy years together, he was so good to me and to his three children, he never drank, never cursed, never looked at another woman, worked hard, sometimes out of town for weeks at a time. Most of the time we moved with him. We lived in Fla, Colorado, Indiana and many other towns and enjoyed every minute of it. My kids learned to get along with all kind of kids and became more broadminded than if we had stayed in Ala. They have said how glad they were that we moved around like we did. We had a sailboat in Fla and spent many hours on the ocean. We hiked and camped and traveled to all the places close to where ever we were living at the time. He worked until he was 75 as a construction supt. Then we moved back home bought an old farmhouse and got two cows and planted a garden. And then he got Parkinson's and our life changed drastically. Many times I felt resentful that his sickness had put a stop to all the things we enjoyed. I did everything I could for him, bought anything that I felt would make his life easier. He was doing very well, no shaking just weakness in his legs so that he had to use a walker and couldn't do much around the house. I had no idea that something so simple as a UTI would cause his death. I don't know what to do anymore. I have two chickens that I am neglecting, I am neglecting my house, I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to be around people because I can't talk without crying. It is embarrassing. I had a security system installed and I sit locked inside my house with a gun under my pillow. I have never lived alone before. For 57 years I had him to protect me and see that I was okay. He cared what I talked about. He liked when I dressed up. Now I just don't care. I just don't care.

I had to go to the bigger town from where I live and I went the only main road that was traveled the most back when I lived at home. The first house I passed was where one of his best friends lived. It is empty and boarded up. Then I passed the street that you turned into where he lived with his parents and brothers and sisters. Then I passed the Magic Grill where we met. It is closed and in really bad shape. I passed closed up Sombero where we loved the salads. I passed Melody Lane where we used to go. I passed the shut down laundry and torn down grocery store where we washed our clothes and bought groceries. I passed the carpenters union hall, the furniture store where we bought our first furniture which is now a Mexican church. and the street where you turned to go to our first apartment, where he laughingly carried me across the threshold. Passed the shut down telephone company where I worked. On and On until I came to the hospital where our daughters were born and he died. It was a very painful trip. But I had the radio on and a song that was played at his funeral came on. The same thing happened when I went to a car dealer to buy a better car. Two songs played over their sound system that we used at his funeral. My daughter and I just looked at each other and I asked Have they got my CD? I know that I am boring every one who reads this but I have to share these feelings with someone. I try not to say to much to my kids because they live away and feel bad that they can't be with me. My daughter in Vermont wants me to come visit her but I don't want to right now. My son in San Fransisco wants me to visit. I love SF but I don't want to go right now. My daughter in Montgomery is on her way to my house and I thank God that she is coming to spend the weekend and go pick up the car I bought. This house is so lonely, just me and my cat. Will I ever survive this and come out on the other side before I myself die?

I am sitting here thinking of what I have to do today and it just goes around and around in my head. I am trying to complete my list of thank you notes but I don't have addresses. I have a strange feeling that I can't really describe. It seems as in my mind I am swimming in shallow water and I am okay. Then it is like I plunge down deeper and that is when it hits me that my husband of 57 years is gone forever. For 58 years he has always been just a phone call away, whether he was working out of state or in Montgomery where we lived when he retired. MY HUSBAND'S LIFE IS OVER. He was once a newborn baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager and then a grown man in the Air Force. He received a hardship discharge before his time was up because his daddy broke his neck and he returned home to help his mother and siblings. I met him five years later when I was dating his younger brother in 1957. In 1958 I moved and worked in Birmingham, Al and lost touch with his brother and him and his other brother. The brother I dated had gotten married. One night my two friends and I came to my parents home for the weekend. We were passing a favorite hangout and I said I wish I could find Kenneth and Arlon. One of my girlfriends who knew them also said I saw a red chevrolet back at the Magic Grill, you know how they liked chevys. The girl driving whipped the car around and we drove up and there they were. The only car in the parking lot. We got in the car with them and we rode around all night long. They were so funny we laughed and laughed and laughed. These two boys/men were so respectful of us. They never drank, cursed or told dirty jokes. They were just nice, well behaved funny, happy guys. I am saying this because they divided their time working at home and then working in Miami. They just went whenever the mood struck them. So I found them in just a small window of time. If my friend hadn't seen the car and my other friend turned around I would probably never have run into them again and my life story would be different. They asked us out the next night and I happened to wind up sitting with Kenneth. And that was the beginning. He would drive to Birmingham and pick my up and take me home. One night a bunch of us went to downtown Birmingham to see the elaborate Christmas displays in two big department stores. It was very cold and I had already seen the displays so I stayed in the car. And then I thought I should get out just to be polite. I walked up beside Kenneth and put my arm through his. He told me later that when I did that he looked down and thought I love this little girl. This was a man who had never been serious about another girl and like me he was as pure as fresh fallen snow. We met in Nov. A year later in Nov we were married. After 5 years we had three children along the way and they were all born in Nov. . Once I said to him everything good that has happened to us was in Nov. But on Nov 1st 2016 he became sick and went to the hospital. On Nov 28th which was our wedding anniversary he was placed on hospice and died on Dec 13th. After Nov 28 he never spoke to me or our children again. Everything bad that has happened to us began in Nov. And I can't believe that his life as ended. My house is so quiet. No sound of a cane tapping on the floor, No voice to talk to me. No one to put in the car and go out to eat or just riding somewhere. No one to take to the river and push along a long concrete walking trail and see the blue birds or hear the lap of the water against the shore. A river that we rode up and down in our boat , camped beside. fished from Had fun with my mama and daddy and relatives when we all camped together. I could go on and on and you all know what I am talking about and how I feel. And I am so sorry for all of us.

I thank all of you for your kind words and encouragement. I saw c diff and sepsis mentioned several times. I did not know that it was so common. I have managed to do a little house cleaning and am trying to keep my bed made and things straight in there. When I would take time to make the bed he would comment on how pretty everything looked. It was just a lot of trouble to put the comforter on and them roll it to the foot of the bed each night. I was afraid that he would wet it and I has to be dry cleaned. My niece's x husband had Parkinson's and when he fell and went to the hospital he couldn't go back to assisted living. He did not want to go in a nursing home so she quit her job and took him home with her. He died last night, she got up to see about him and he was gone. He followed the same path as my husband. He stopped moving and food that he had the night before was still in his mouth the next day. She called hospice and they came and took over. They said he probably had a UTI and had a temp of 104. It hurt for anyone to touch him. After the morpine was started he never responded again. I am thankful that he didn't last as long as my husband especially since he wasn't in the hospital and she was alone with him most of the time. I don't know if PD causes things like this to happen. He was only 70. I would have thought he might could have fought it off better than my husband. Now my niece is a widow. I do have a purpose now. I will help her and I will understand exactly how she feels although she had stopped loving him I know she is grieving for the early years they spent together and raised their two daughters. She is a very good person to do what she did. She deserves extra stars in her crown when she gets to heaven. Last night I was sitting on the couch and there was a small noise on the end where he always sat. When I looked just for a second I thought I saw him sitting there. There is a calendar there where he kept up with his doses of laxitives that he had to take. On Oct 31 there is an entry in his shaky handwriting with a big black dot that he used to mark the day. It is blank starting on Nov 1st and it will never be marked in again. His life is over and that is so hard for me to accept and understand.

I am a widow. I have to check that box now. My husband died on Dec 13, 2016. He entered the hospital on Nov 1st, my son's birthday. He was put on hospice on Nov 28th , our 57th anniversary. He never spoke to me again. He never told me bye. His was delirous from sespis and c diff. I did not know that going on hospice would make him like he was in a coma, eyes closed, not moving. No food or water for 14 days. He lay with his head back as far as it would go and his mouth wide open. His tongue became coated with stuff and there were traces of blood inside. The aides tried to keep it clean but was afraid he would choke if a piece went down his throat. At that point it wouldn't have mattered. On the 14th day his breathing changed and my two daughters and I stayed beside his bed, one daughter held her hand over his heart until it stopped. I held his hands which were closed into fists, we had put washcloths in his hands to try to keep them open. My other daughter was knelling in the floor whimpering like a wounded animal. My son's plane was just landing in San Francisco, he had to go back for work. The day he died was on the anniversary of someone I lost many years ago that I loved. I am sitting here at home, the dishes are all dirty, the Christmas tree and decorations are still up. I am eating whatever I can find that is easy to prepare. Cookies and tea and chips. Oranges. I feel as if I am being kicked in the stomach every few minutes. He is gone. He is not sitting beside me on the couch. He is not calling for me to watch Wheel of Fortune with him. He is not asking if I want some ice cream, hinting that he did and needing me to get it for him because he has Parkinson's and it is hard for him to stand or walk. I get irritated with him. He wets in the floor instead of the bedside commode. He forgets to flush the bathroom commode, it is unpleasant. I have to change his diapers, sometimes they don't absorb well all the time and he wets the pads and the top sheet and his undershirt. I complain because I have to wash the bedding over and over. I get hateful sometimes . He begs me not to get upset even when he does things that really upsets me. I say, I am just supposed to let you act any way and not say anything? I replay all of this in my mind over and over and I feel like I deserve being left alone. I feel like I was really a bitch to him sometimes. He does not deserve the way I treat him at times. I was aggravated at him the day he said he was hurting across his stomach. He lay on the bed and I didn't see about him until I went in the room and he was half off the bed. I had to get him back on and after taking his blood pressure and temperature I called an ambulance. They didn't act as if they thought he needed the hospital. They said what do you want us to do? I said, well I can't take him to the hospital, he is not able to walk so take him to the hospital. For once I did the right thing, he was diagnosed with a UTI , pancreasitis and later sepsis. Everything went downhill from there. They finally released him to rehab (too soon) While there for four days he was neglected and was found in the floor one morning. How he got out of bed I don't know. I keep thinking, How long was he in the floor, was he calling for me to help him? Was he cold? He was delirious so they sent him to the ER. When I got there he was beside himself, talking out of his head, they had to put mitts on his hands that he tired desperately to get off. He pulled his cover off, he had a catherer inserted. They inserted a feeding tube. He begged for food and water, the last thing he asked for was some watermelon. They discovered that he was bleeding internally. He had something called C Diff that causes diarrhea 10 or more times a day. It destroys the good bacteria in your stomach and the bad takes over and spreads all over your body. They had to remove the feeding tube because the liquid food was just staying in his stomach. The doctor recommended we place him on hospice since he wasn't strong enough to withstand tests to see why he was bleeding. At 84 years old any of the things he had gone through could have killed him. We agreed and that is when he left me. He never called my name or spoke to me or my daughters again. We went to pieces because we felt that we were starving him to death. Everyone told us we were doing the right thing. I don't know. He was receiving morphine and ativan for his delirium. At least he wasn't aware that he was dying. Now I look at the picture taken when we got married and his happiness is shining in his face. He loved me with all his heart and soul, more than I did him. But he is gone and I have nothing left but loneliness, guilt and the pain of missing him more than I could have ever dreamed possible. We had many happy years together, he was so good to me and to his three children, he never drank, never cursed, never looked at another woman, worked hard, sometimes out of town for weeks at a time. Most of the time we moved with him. We lived in Fla, Colorado, Indiana and many other towns and enjoyed every minute of it. My kids learned to get along with all kind of kids and became more broadminded than if we had stayed in Ala. They have said how glad they were that we moved around like we did. We had a sailboat in Fla and spent many hours on the ocean. We hiked and camped and traveled to all the places close to where ever we were living at the time. He worked until he was 75 as a construction supt. Then we moved back home bought an old farmhouse and got two cows and planted a garden. And then he got Parkinson's and our life changed drastically. Many times I felt resentful that his sickness had put a stop to all the things we enjoyed. I did everything I could for him, bought anything that I felt would make his life easier. He was doing very well, no shaking just weakness in his legs so that he had to use a walker and couldn't do much around the house. I had no idea that something so simple as a UTI would cause his death. I don't know what to do anymore. I have two chickens that I am neglecting, I am neglecting my house, I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to be around people because I can't talk without crying. It is embarrassing. I had a security system installed and I sit locked inside my house with a gun under my pillow. I have never lived alone before. For 57 years I had him to protect me and see that I was okay. He cared what I talked about. He liked when I dressed up. Now I just don't care. I just don't care.