If You're Going Through Hell

[kayc]

Terri, your dryer is vented and shouldn't need the cover to operate it, it's more for keeping critters out whether operating or not.

I'm glad you have someone going with you to the tire place tomorrow.  I seriously doubt I could get a tire off by myself anymore with the air tools they cinch them down with!

I'd put a rug down on the ground, lay on it, and take a look underneath your car with a flashlight to see if there is a spare there.  My spare is in the trunk, concealed by the carpet.  There's a velcro closure to get under it.

You can also have a gas station attendant check the pressure on your tires (is Oregon the only state that still has attendants?)

[kayc]

3 hours ago, brat#2 said:

Hey, I didn't even notice that you put AA and not AAA

I just figured if Triple A didn't show up she'd need Alcoholics Anonymous!

[kayc]

22 hours ago, Marg M said:

It's over.  The little stubborn woman is gone.

Marg,

I'm sorry, I know it's hard no matter how they were or how long they live.  I could relate to so much of what you went through with your mom.  Cry if you feel like it, throw something, or have a good stiff...not sure if you can drink or what you can eat.  You'll find something.  (((hugs)))

[Margm]

15 minutes ago, kayc said:

not sure if you can drink or what you can eat.

I can eat a whole half gallon of salted caramel ice cream, and I did.  My tummy won't take alcohol anymore.  My head neither, probably.  But, sometimes when I am feeling mean or cowardly, I could drink a half gallon of Margarita's.  Might be my last though, but what a way to go, except for the throwing up.  I'm fine.  Actually, sad she had to go, but Mama was not there anymore and doubt she could have gone through another harvest season if she could not get in the dirt.    I hate Alzheimer's as bad as cancer.

[kayc]

I know, Marg, it's pretty tough to watch.  At first they seem to know something's wrong, once they cross that point, it seems a blessing.  It's us that realize how much they've forgotten and of course there's the falls that goes with it.  I felt a myriad of emotions when my mom went...sorrow, relief, missing her, everything mixed in at once.

I can't have the alcohol or the sugar/ice cream or who knows what I'd try!

[Margm]

My mom was a beauty and for some reason that picture enters my mind.  Her sitting at her triple mirror and putting on her red lipstick.  RED, something redheads could not wear very good, but my mama looked gorgeous in red.  She would smile at herself with her teeth showing and she had beautiful teeth.  That is what I remember, that is what I will remember.

 

I had a picture of a ghost hug, but could not make it stick.  Will look elsewhere for it.  Thank you everybody.  

 

[Margm]

Okay, this is for everyone.

[iPraiseHim]

Marg,

Sending hugs, and prayers your way.  - Shalom George

[Margm]

Thanks George, much needed.  Both.

[kayc]

50 minutes ago, Marg M said:

Okay, this is for everyone.

Sending you one back, Marg!

[Margm]

I got a utility cart at Walmart to haul my clothes from here to washateria.  Not far.  It said it took 30 minutes to put together.  Mainly the big bar at the bottom that holds the big wheels and it has 6 washers.  I lost one washer about the size of a dime with a hole in it in a box with a million pieces of stuff in it.  That sucker is gone.  So I still have five.  Those little straight stick things that go into the four holes in the big stick (axle) kept falling out.  Okay your supposed to bend them with pliers which I have to find.  I do this, but I was supposed to put on the springs first.  Wait, I cannot find but one spring, there were two of them.  Now I have to unhook those straight pins and straighten them out.  To hell with it all.  I am going to bed.  This 30 minute job has taken three hours and I've lost two parts already.  Another day tomorrow.  No, I have to run my daughter to doctor and my granddaughter to school.  

I will never forget my mom looking at me and saying "It's hard" talking about Billy's dying.  I cried, it was my mom again, but then she looked at Marcy's Marvel Heroes Tee shirt and asked her were they her children.  But just for one instant, just for one second, it was my mom.  I have known cancer, cancer has visited me, my grandmother, my sister, my dad, and killed them all but me and my sis.  My grandma outlived one, but another got her.  My mom did not hurt till right at the end.  Cancer hurts, cancer kills.  Alzheimer's steals a person's mind and leaves a useless body and it just won't leave till it takes every dignity you ever remembered.

My friend, mine and Billy's age, his wife has a neurological disorder from riding the tractor while her dad sprayed poison on his fruit trees.  Killed her father and brother.  It left her with something like Alzheimer's, but not quite the same.  Outcome and symptoms are the same.  He gets her up each day.  They come and bathe her and fix her up and sit her in a chair or bed.  The beautician comes .and fixes her hair and makeup.  She was once one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.  She is not there anymore but her husband still treats her like she is the same.  He has gotten mean.  I think most long-term caretakers might get mean, tired out.  Cancer kills, cancer hurts terribly, but eventually death is imminent.  So it is with Alzheimer's.  Sometimes it just takes longer and it is a terrible thief.  

My heart goes out to each of you who have had to put up with ALS, cancer, strokes, paralysis, or any of the neurological diseases. With any death where we lose our loved ones, my heart is with each of you.  We treat our animals better than we treat our humans.    

[TerriL]

My heart also goes out to everyone with everything they've had to deal with. I read all the posts and my heart breaks for all because there never is a "good" way to lose anyone you love. I also agree with Marg that we are more humane to animals than to human beings. That's due to government and religious people fighting against laws that would support assisted suicide (in the veterinary world, "euthanasia"). If your loved one is begging, crying for you to help end their constant pain, you could help them, but then be arrested and possibly jailed for murder. So, not only would you be grieving, you'd be grieving while maybe doing time for the first time ever in your life. That's "humanity" in this society. Paul once said to me that if he ever ended up in a vegetative state in a wheelchair or unable to take care of himself, he wanted me to shoot him. First of all, I could never do anything to harm him, plus, I'm not sure I'm THAT great a shot, so it might end up a total fiasco. Also, there's that little issue with my arrest afterward. At the other end of it, you can euthanize a suffering animal, but animal abuse laws and penalties are far too lax in this society. Sometimes, this whole world just feels as if it's running backwards really fast. 

[Froggie4635]

Dear Terri,

I think we all had that conversation with our spouses at one time or another.  After Mark's dad passed away in hospice, he talked about how he felt about that.  He talked about how he hoped he would go...and I hate to say, but he got his wish...to die quickly and instantly.  I am sure he wasn't thinking it was going to be at 53. Letting people linger in a state that is painful and scary has always been wrong in my eyes.  I remember when my mom got diagnosed with cancer, and was dead 11 days later.  It was some sort of miracle that the cancer affected the part of her brain where the pain was generated, because she never appeared to be suffering.  She just slept a lot. There is NO good way to lose a loved one.  

[Gwenivere]

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?  

[Margm]

16 hours ago, Marg M said:

 We treat our animals better than we treat our humans.    

I am going to quote myself and say this.  There is no way, even with my mom, that I can really say I could tell someone to "end the patient's life."  I could not do it.  Not even if Dr. Kevorkian was standing right beside me (which would unnerve me) because I think he has gone on to his own rewards, good or bad.  

[TerriL]

I was talking about that with the woman who notarized some papers for me this morning. She lost her father a while ago and I told her about my husband. She's now caring, along with her sister, for her elderly mom who has Parkinsons. We were saying that whether you know the end is coming ro whether it's sudden and unexpected, there's no way that is easy to take. You do have the added shock of a passing that just "happens" out of the blue, but it's never easy.

The air isn holding up in the tire, so I worked up my courage to drive to get my papers taken care of so I can send them in to the pension office. Of course, there was roadwork being done on the street I was going to take, so I had to take a detour. No problem. It's good practice for me to handle little disruptions so I can prove to myself I can handle it. I am now doing a load of wash. The dryer seems to be working and I pulled the box away from the wall outside, holding it there with a bucket. I don't think an iguana would try to get in there righty now, but I will go check on it. It could be done going around and I don't want to chance it. But, the clothes do seem dry, so that's a good thing. I also may have found a place, recommended to me by the notary today who uses them, right nearby who can take a look at my tire to make sure it's okay and who also do auto repair work if I need any sort of maintenance on my car. A lot of the businesses where I went this morning are still family owned and operated types of small businesses, many of whom have been there for decades. So, if I can find places like that, I definitely prefer it. They get to know you, like the old days of doing business with people, and I like that atmosphere. It was a relief to at least have some positive experiences today.

[kayc]

Marg,

I love the way you write...it all comes out so real, so human, so much like life and how it is.  I can picture me attempting to put something like that together, I'd have to start drinking and I'm not supposed to!  And your memory of your mom, there for just a moment, oh how I know and understand how real that moment was...before it burst back into dementia...been there!  She was your mom and every once in a while it'd emerge as if for just one moment she was herself again.

When I took care of my MIL who was bedridden with cancer for nearly three years, it was the hardest thing in the world to see it making it's way through her body, consuming more and more of her, leaving her ravaged with loss and pain, and that is the only time in my whole life I've felt tempted to help someone end their suffering.  It's awfully damned hard to watch someone suffer to death, bit by bit, someone you love more than anything and to helplessly stand by and do nothing.  We do more for our dogs.  But that's the only time I felt that way, and fortunately she never asked me to help her die a bit sooner than the torment allowed her to.  But it's given me a human feeling, a feeling of real compassion, a realization that nothing is black and white or simple, I can feel no judgment for those who choose to take that way out, I am not qualified to judge.  I know all of the churches think it's a sin and horrible...have any of them been in those shoes, had to watch someone they loved more than life itself suffer to death bit by bit?  If they did I think it would silence them.  It's not my "belief" either but sometimes when we're challenged to the hilt we find less "belief" and more compassion.  That's how it felt in my case anyway.  Sometimes I just have no answers.  And for once I was glad no one asked me any questions...

[Margm]

Kay, she did not know me at all the last few weeks.  I did not get my feelings hurt.  It was just the death face I saw for the last two weeks.  My mom passed away a long time ago.  But, she left this dependent creature that in real life she would not have wanted.  And, somehow, someway, I have to fix it where my kids do not have to see this from me.  I remember animals sometimes wanted to go off by themselves and die.  If we let them, if we did not totally domesticate them, I think they still would.  I'm sorry, other than the fact that I would have been taking my own life, it was not a scary thought going off in the woods, way away from civilization.  I think sometimes we still  have that remnant of animal in us.  

I thought about Billy today (like I don't think about him every waking hour), but you have to have known my mama.  Daddy used to try to watch TV and my mama would not hush.  That woman could talk (as much and more than I write).  Constantly.  When I was a teenager (now don't think bad of me), but I prayed "please God, just make her shut up, don't make her sick, but please just take away her voice for ten minutes).  Well, it has been gone now for awhile.  I wonder, if in Heaven her voice is restored.  If it is, my daddy and Billy have gone fishing.   

 

[kayc]

  My mom talked incessantly too.  I wish sometimes I could hear her but then if I did I might wonder what I'd been thinking!  Going fishing, that's funny!

[Clematis]

On August 10, 2016 at 4:11 PM, Marg M said:

I can eat a whole half gallon of salted caramel ice cream, and I did.  My tummy won't take alcohol anymore.  My head neither, probably.  But, sometimes when I am feeling mean or cowardly, I could drink a half gallon of Margarita's.  Might be my last though, but what a way to go, except for the throwing up.  I'm fine.  Actually, sad she had to go, but Mama was not there anymore and doubt she could have gone through another harvest season if she could not get in the dirt.    I hate Alzheimer's as bad as cancer.

Salted caramel ice cream and Margaritas - I can relate to that. I had been successfully losing weight when my dad died and suddenly all I could think of eating was ice-cream, macaroni & cheese and Lucky Charms for breakfast. I have been consuming a ton of steamed veggies as well, but that other stuff...well maybe that's just what people do with a loss. I keep trying to stop eating Lucky Charms, but it's hard because knowing they're in the kitchen is enough to get me out of bed in the morning. Then I stop eating them and there is another calamity. I went back to the Lucky Charms when my aunt died, after the car accident, during the moving crush, and when I found out I lost my job. I suppose there are worse things one could be doing... but salted caramel ice cream--dang that sounds good!

[Margm]

I have found when I have an addiction to food (which I do) that if I eat just enough of it to make me nauseated I will lose the craving.  For awhile it was the hard twisted Cheetos and I would often stop at the $ store on the way to Mount Ida from Minden.  Finally, I ate too many.  Now that is off my list.  I don't crave the ice cream anymore, not after I finished off the half gallon by myself.  I can be pretty hoggish.  Nothing healthy on my low residue diet. 

[iPraiseHim]

6 hours ago, Marg M said:

I have found when I have an addiction to food (which I do) that if I eat just enough of it to make me nauseated I will lose the craving.  For awhile it was the hard twisted Cheetos and I would often stop at the $ store on the way to Mount Ida from Minden.  Finally, I ate too many.  Now that is off my list.  I don't crave the ice cream anymore, not after I finished off the half gallon by myself.  I can be pretty hoggish.  Nothing healthy on my low residue diet. 

My MIL was that way about foods she craved.  My problem is I don't want to overeat it so much that I NEVER want it again.. It is an interesting mindset though.  I just like to eat food.  lol

[Clematis]

I haven't found that this strategy works...it's more like if I like it, I like it and there is no much thing as too much. I tend to not get tired of things. I could eat the same thing day after day after day and it could take months - or longer - to get sick of it.

[Margm]

5 hours ago, iPraiseHim said:

My problem is I don't want to overeat it so much that I NEVER want it again.

George, I don't know if this is a myth or not, have not looked it up.  I think my mom told me if you let a mule into a field of clover and do not take it out, he will "founder" himself.  Now, you know me, and you know I claim to be country redneck, well, for sure I am country, but I think I am also part mule.  If I like something sometimes I will eat too much of it.  So, having a colon rupture on you kinda teaches you how the mules feel before they die.  For some reason, I now only select foods that I can eat.  I remember (as a child)  rolling on the floor from eating too much, I was hurting so bad.  See, part mule

I had to go back and correct that so you all would not think I was still rolling on the floor from eating too much.  I am not sure I could get back up if I rolled on the floor now..

You know, my mom had a way with words.  I remember her saying "flounder" but the word is actually "founder."  Bless her heart, after Daddy passed away an old acquaintance wanted to date her.  (I feel so sorry for him).  She would not date him because he wanted to put her up on a "pretzel."  I will never quit mentioning my mom and her special language.  She might have crossed over that fine line between genius and insanity sometimes, but she will be remembered. 

[scba]

Hell is coming. My birthday is approaching and I'm feeling blue about it. After two years people expect me to be fine and celebrate. Last year nobody mentioned the subject, but this time I'm being asked about. I feel so sad, I cannot focus and be thankful about the fact that some people actually want to organize a meeting. I just want everybody forget it. I don't know how to tell my parents that I don't want a cake with a candle, nor reunions nor seeing people.

Sometimes I wonder what hasn't been touched by grief.