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That is very hard.  We laid my dad to rest on my sister Peggy's birthday...she didn't have a birthday that year.  I guess no matter when death comes, it's always hard for those left behind.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Three years ago today, Mark collapsed from what would turn out to be septic shock.  He had been anxious the night before over some physical issues that, in hindsight, were a warning, but I dismissed them because they were seemingly minor and anything like this had always turned out to be nothing.  I wasn't as patient with him as I wish I had been.  When he didn't come home by midafternoon, I started to wonder and worry, and he didn't answer his cell phone.  Finally he did manage to answer, but sounded groggy and far away and I heard someone in the background say, "We have to send you to the hospital.  You fell down and were out here for some time.  Something is wrong."  I gathered that they were sending him to a certain hospital.  My life and his just went sideways from there, and everything slid out from under us, tumbled headlong into an abyss I am still picking my way out of.

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Kieron, my heart goes out to you. Sepsis is among the things that killed my Ron. Even after all this time, I still have regrets of things left unsaid or undone. He was invincible(had been for over 40 years). He couldn't die, and then he did. Those things and others roll through my mind 24/7 like a bad movie. In our hearts, we have to know that they knew how much we loved them. I have made it out of the "rabbit hole", but cannot take that first step into the field.

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I was telling my pastor about George (IPraiseHim)' heart attack and how glad I was that he is okay, I told him we've gotten to know each other the last few years here...he puzzledly asked why he was still here on line and I thought, he just doesn't get it, does he.  This is forever, there is no end, we're all just trying to make our way through this.  It's not like we come here for a year and then we're good!  No, it's ongoing although some do just come here for a time.

Kieron, I'm sorry, these "anniversaries" bring it all back, with full force it seems.  

9 hours ago, KarenK said:

we have to know that they knew how much we loved them.

Yes, they do have to know.

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  • 2 months later...

Don't "they" say something about how the light gets into your eyes?  I'm noticing that the angle of the afternoon sunlight is approaching the same angle as it was toward the end of March, when I had come home from the hospital, afterward. in that daze we all know so well (the one we wish we didn't have to get acquainted with) where all you can do is just sit in a chair staring at the slanting square of light coming through a window.  It's almost the same at this time of year, while I don't notice it other times.

Funny how you notice such things in the midst of personal tragedy, as if Time has both taken a pause and taken flight, stretching out like the stars do, when the spaceship accelerates into hyperspace.

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I don’t remember much about outdoor light, his room was always dark and that bothered me.  I’d come home in some kind of daze.  I certainly wasn’t myself after witnessing him and leaving him to eat and rest.  It’s such a blur now which I think is my mind trying to protect itself from reliving that.  Even now I don’t want that memory enhanced.  I’m sorry it’s a trigger for you.  I do notice that I don’t pass the place he was in very often now and it used to be a backroad I used to avoid major traffic.  Now it stands out to me like it has a neon sign.

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9 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 I do notice that I don’t pass the place he was in very often now and it used to be a backroad I used to avoid major traffic.  Now it stands out to me like it has a neon sign.

Gwen:  Since 2015 I have made it a point not to drive past the hospital where my husband  died.  Unfortunately, my retina specialist is located on the same street about two blocks away from the hospital.  Now that I am unable to drive myself to the appointments, my driver who drives me does not know me well enough to know how or where my husband passed.  On those days I always have to turn my head away as we pass the entrance to the hospital and fight back tears for a few minutes as my brain reruns that horrible movie.  Those triggers still break my heart.  Dee 

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Is this a public service driver or just someone that volunteers, Dee?  I can see it may make it awkward if you don’t feel close enough to ask  they use different streets.  I turn out of habit and then realize I have to get by and notblook up to that window on the 2nd floor.  But even seeing the parking lot tears me up.  😥

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George died at Sacred Heart Hospital.  Now Riverbend has replaced it but the building is still there and it's used for other doctors and services...it's where my Dermatologist is.  About a year after he died a friend was in Sacred Heart and I went to visit him as his wife was my best friend.  Tears poured down my cheeks the whole time and I couldn't stop them.  I felt bad but couldn't do anything about it.  I told him I wanted to see him and I needed to do this sometimes.  It was the only hospital in Eugene back then although there was one in nearby Springfield.  Fortunately, most of my friends have used the ones in Springfield.  At least when I went to the Dermatologist it was through a different entrance and parking.

Visiting that place we saw them when they were dying is really tough.

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The local hospital sits across the street from the library I visit frequently. I have spent many sad and frustrating hours there. Although Ron died at home, it was the place that helped start his demise. My father died there. They caused my son to go into convulsions and end up falling on the floor in the ER. Kept me waiting forever when my BP was over 240. Never did send a doctor. I walked out that time and others. I've screamed a lot of nasty words at staff. It's the closest place in an emergency, but may be better to drive further. The only good thing about it....My son was born there.

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I retired from the hospital that kept Billy waiting in the ER until he had no way out but to leave physically his body behind.  I have spent four years planning on writing them a letter.  They allowed me to give him his morphine pills.  So much I should have done.  That very hospital, the year before, had saved my life from a very complicated and deadly illness.  I had gratitude for them then.  Billy was leaving me and I was in total and complete denial.  I was stronger than God.  I was not going to let him leave.  God showed me who was boss and I have been a whimpering pile of goo ever since Billy left me.  I had lost my grandparents, I had lost my dad, my mom was alive in body but not mind, and that left the next year.  Total denial would not accept Billy was leaving me.  I do not go back to that city.  I have not written my letter to the CEO, that might have helped some people.  How many times can you say "If I had only did this" and you can fill in what you want to fill in.  Like a rapist, bad things will happen to other people if you do not report it.  The ER was the rapist and I did not report it.  I hope things have changed, but if they have not then more people will die, either sooner or later.  Billy's course had only one ending, and I would not accept it.  Not sure I have accepted it yet.  

My mom had to wait five hours in the ER in this little town.  My sister took her home without being seen.  I knew someone who knew the CEO.  I called him.  I wrote a letter also.  You can walk into this ER and you are immediately seen, put into a cubicle and checked on by a variety of clinicians, all tests are done as soon as you are seen, and never a wait.  I did hear one woman going to sue them because they did not give her the opiates she came in for.  

I do not like to send death certificates, do not like to look at pictures, do not like to open boxes.  I do, however, have a corner of the room dedicated to the things he loved, his hats hung up along with the wooden sign I found, a big one in plain writing, black and white, "A TRUE LOVE STORY NEVER ENDS" along with his "toys" and his beautiful wooden urn with one of his notes stuck to the side "Love you, be back by noon" and I think he must have gone fishing then.  I also have a small fiberoptic Christmas tree, small, and a beautiful wooden, glass covered cabinet lined with red velvet, holding all his calls (quail, duck, varmint, crow) and they are all polished wood, that he collected.  Of course I sleep with his clothes stuffed king size pillow sham.  This is all I can do, for now.  

But I do avoid, avoid, and avoid some more.

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13 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Is this a public service driver or just someone that volunteers, Dee?  I can see it may make it awkward if you don’t feel close enough to ask  they use different streets.   

But even seeing the parking lot tears me up.  😥

Gwen:  This is someone I hire to drive me, not a volunteer.  I sometimes feel like even though she is dependable and friendly she has that personality we often discuss here, "unless you have been through it, you don't get it"'.  So, I have not shared because she just wouldn't get it and I don't want to be disappointed.  Yes, the parking lot that became such a part of my life for that horrible time.  If there is any relief to my grief feelings, my husband's  cancer diagnosis, surgery, and back to hospital due to an infection, lasted from September 2014 until April 2015.   And during that brief time, like Marg said,  "I was in complete denial".  He was going to get through this.   I often wonder how so many of you here had to endure years of watching and worrying.  Don't know if I could have endured years, worrying and watching my big, strong husband suffer for so long. 

The night before he was to come home from that hospital after recovering from the  infection, he passed a blood clot, had a heart attack.  I had stayed home with my daughter that evening cause we had been dealing with a major plumbing issue at home all day, I was exhausted.  The next morning I had a doctor's appointment  and was going to bring him home right after my appointment.  My dear son had to watch his Dad being resuscitated while my daughter and I drove the 20 minutes to the hospital praying he would survive.  He couldn't leave us, we needed him too much and to this day, soon to be 5 years, we still need him here with us. 

Hugs to all of us.  Dee

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On 2/28/2020 at 10:17 AM, Kieron said:

 

Funny how you notice such things in the midst of personal tragedy, as if Time has both taken a pause and taken flight, stretching out like the stars do, when the spaceship accelerates into hyperspace.

This is very beautiful said and written, and also very true. Time is rewritten in the face of tragedy.

(In between, Star Wars came to my mind)

 

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Marg, I think it's just a sign of the times. As prices rise on everything, quality is deteriorating including healthcare. 40 years ago, ours was a good hospital. It changed hands, became part of a conglomerate and has been steadily declining. I was quite happy with the care I received in Debbie's small town hospital in Kentucky, but the locals didn't like it. It's all relative, I guess.

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14 hours ago, scba said:

Time is rewritten in the face of tragedy.

So true.

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Oh, wow.  That is so prophetic and words I could have never found to describe that goodbye.  I wish I could find a way to copy it to send to  those that still probably wouldn’t get it but it might give them an idea of it.  Does anyone know how to do that?  Just figured it out.

thanks for posting that, Kieron.

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Right click on it, "save image as" to your computer, then you can send it to anyone as a jpeg.

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I do most of my stuff on my iPad so it’s always tricky.  They say Apple is easier than Windows and mostly it is.  But withou a mouse I get stumped  at times.  In Windows it saves things but often I cannot find them again or easily.   This is why I am avoiding a smart phone.  It’s another different system.  Would be nice to access the net, but they are so big!

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I have a Kindle I bought before my surgery five years ago so I could read books easier while recuperating.  But it's operating system is so different, I haven't even turned it on in a couple of years!  Just ran across it the other day.  I used to use it when traveling but found it hard to get on here with it.  So I lug my big laptop with me instead.  I've heard that about Apple too but it's only easy if you know how to work it!  I have a friend big on Apple.  Me, I know Windows.  ;)

 

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I can use this Kindle that Robert got me for just about everything I do on the computer. Makes me even lazier than I was before. 😊

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6 hours ago, kayc said:

I used to use it when traveling but found it hard to get on here with it. 

I have problems with my shaking hands and the little "keyboard."  I actually bought a 10 incher with an added keyboard, like a smaller laptop.  (I cannot use a laptop).  My fingers shake on this keyboard of the PC, cannot handle the others.  Might get double, triple letters.  But, I use my Kindle like I would an I-pad.  I have all the apps and enjoy it very much.  The 10 inch one made all the difference.  Billy "stole" Brianna's smaller Kindles to read his book.  He would hang on to them too.  Brianna thought it was cute.  Then she took over my 10 inch, so I got another one.  I have all Billy's Kindles by his urn., retired naturally.  That 10 inch screen helps my eyes.  I get on anything I get on this PC with, just cannot type correctly with my trembling fingers.  

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Gwen, it is an inherited thing in my family.  Believe it or not, mine started at puberty.  Only slight tremor, but enough of one if I slow danced with a boy he thought he had me "excited" so I quit the slow dancing.  Managed to keep from getting up in front of a crowd, but being a deacon's daughter, only one in three deacons, it came on me to give "parts" at local churches in our Missionary Baptist group.  One time I palmed it off on someone and they had to leave in the middle of the services, handed me the paper, I got in the pulpit, read shakily a few lines and then just broke down crying.  Of course no one understood, but my dad.  He had the shaking too and he believed the only way to get out of it was to keep doing it.  I managed to evade this.  As I have gotten older it has gotten worse..  Especially after the tummy rupture..  Now my chin will shake sometimes.  I hate that.  Can you believe I worked for the neurology department a number of years.  They just said it was inherited, don't worry about it.  OoooohKaaay.  The Xanax helps if I have to write something.  There is one drug that helps, it is propranolol, but it also causes depression.  I don't need that.  They have something new that they use sound waves for.  Sometimes I think I will look into it, other times I think "just drive this old vehicle until the wheels fall off" and that is probably what I will do.  I drop things with my left hand more than my right.  I cannot hear those footsteps behind me as loud today as I can sometimes.  

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