We've all heard the saying you never know what it is like until it happens to you. I was thinking about this the other day when I was thinking about something I said about that first sentence. Either you get it or you don't. If you ever lost someone close to you then when someone you know loses someone close to them you can identify with them. I have written about this before I am sure but when I was tearing this thought apart in my head I began to realize this concept is no different with chronic illness or any illness for that matter. I believe that is why when someone I love get ill it tears my heart apart. My loved ones are not suppose to be sick and suffer, that is my job, all mine. I am use to it by now, being sick. Watching Mike as he was so sick I felt like I was in his body. I've been there and it isn't a joy ride. I believe that is why it is easier to be the sick person than to be the people watching the sick person suffer. It seems the sick one has the control, the power if you will. They can be honest and say no I don't want to eat or no I don't want company just leave me alone. But when you are the one watching what happens is you want to fix and make it all better. It was no different as I watched Mike and the people who surrounded him all they all, we all, wanted to do was make him better. I knew he didn't have an appetite and he didn't want to eat but the first thing we do is try to shove food down a sick person pretending like it is a some magic pill that will make them better. I know food/nutrition is important when a person is ill but when you are the sick person thinking of food can make you even sicker. I saw it in Mike's face I have witnessed that look so many times as a Hospice volunteer. I think that is why I was so focused on research and making sure I absorbed every word the doctors told us because I knew at that time that is what really mattered. Although I believe I was guilty of the food push also as we tried to think of things to buy him that might taste good to him. How do you stop that? You can't it is human nature and a part of life. All of life revolves around food. Today I am thankful for my disease, very thankful. I can eat. I have an appetite. I don't have a diagnosis of six months to a year that was whittled down to only a month. There was no time for him to feel better enough to have the strength to enjoy even one day doing the things he loved and maybe having the chance to tell people goodbye. That makes me sad but it can't be changed. It rips my heart out that I wasn't more honest with Rich and his family when I knew the day before when I visited him that he was on his way out. I've seen the signs but how do you tell people something like that? Hey, you better go today because... My one regret that I didn't but I knew they were going the next day and I thought he had a week or so left, at least. I even came home the day before and told Rich something to the fact that I didn't like what I saw today. I wish I could stop the voice in my head of that regret of not telling them but for now it is what it is and I will deal with it. It was in the plan and I have to accept it and how it all ended. That's it.
When I started writing this blog I had no intentions of writing about Mike again but I guess I needed to. It could happen for a while and will not apologize for it. My intentions were and still are to get a point across about being ill. I'm not sure it will work but it helps me feel better about the little suffering I go through to share and hopefully get at least one person to understand, not me, but maybe someone they know who is ill.
I had to have one of my molars pulled out the other day. Big deal right? We all get teeth pulled at one time or another but let me tell you I have horrid teeth. Thankfully I have a wonderful dentist who takes really good care of me and you would never know how bad and expensive this mouth is. I often wonder if it is punishment for the all the shit that comes out of it. Possibly? Seven crowns with root canals and now a bridge to be put in. I like to tell myself it all has to go hand in hand with being ill or was it all the candy I use to eat as a kid and still love to eat? Who knows. Genes and crappy teeth it is what it is. Back to the tooth pulling. So, so much fun. I get reactions from the numbing shots as soon as he injects I begin to feel lightheaded and my heart pounds in my chest as it does when I take certain drugs. I have always blamed this on my thyroid problem for some reason because I know certain drugs along with thyroid problems can cause unwanted side effects. I made it through the injections and as I was sitting there waiting for my lower lip to fall to my chest and the droll to start coming out of the side of my mouth my eye began to droop. I could hardly hold it open. Pretty sure this doesn't happen to most people when they get a tooth pulled or any other extensive dental work. Next the fun part. Bruce came in, yes we are on a first name basis he is Rich's best friend (besides Mike) after all, and he began reefing. He warned me it is a tough one to get out so I was prepared. It didn't hurt but the worst part was the pulling of the jaw on the other side of my mouth that was absolutely excruciating. Wow I was not prepared for that. Finally it was out! Good! I came out feeling like I just had the wildest sex of my life but it was only a tooth pulling, dang it. I felt sick the rest of the day. I was so tired I could hardly do anything at all. I went to bed at eight or so that night and slept so well. It took everything I had to get through just having a tooth pulled. Pretty sure this doesn't happen to most people who have teeth pulled. If it does I would feel so much better knowing. It sure feels like I have a life that anything but, the dreaded word, normal.
The next adventure came yesterday when I was shopping with my mother in law. We were at the health food store for some ginger tea and decided to check out each isle. The sea salt captured my attention as that is all I use now. It is so tasty and better for you so they say. I bent down to grab the blue plastic container. My brain told my fingers to grip it and I did but as soon as I lifted the container you know it BAM it crashed to the floor as my hands decided they did not want to cooperate. There we were and I think it shocked me as much as my mother in law as we both looked at the floor and in some odd way continued to talk about the salt and the spices surrounding us. Then I thought what now? I picked up the half full container and danced around the four foot span of glistening sea salt and made my way to the register. "I accidently dropped some sea salt in isle four." Pretty sure I was fifty shades of red when I walked up there. Then the cashier did it, she grabbed the speaker, yes the speaker, and proceeded to say those words we love when we do something like drop a container of salt in isle four. "Clean up in isle four, we need a broom." Me and fifty shades of red that were probably now purple made our way back to the isle four and apologized and thanked the employee who had to sweep up after some stupid old lady in isle four dropped the salt. Funny now, mortifying at the time. A life that's anything but. Yup, that's me. I hate that when I want to use a certain part of my body and I can't or I get half way done as I did with picking up the salt and my body throws a fit. It sucks. It makes life hard and embarrassing at times. This is why it makes it so much easier to just stay home and clean up my spills in the privacy of my own idiotcy oh I mean home.
I must remember when I begin to beat myself up for all the things I am unable to do that in the midst of all I feel I can't do or do perfectly at least I can still do many things. I'm not dying. I'm alive and able to enjoy so many things that many who are to busy to realize how wonderful they are. Right now I am pushing myself to way much but I am living. I have no idea what tomorrow might bring so in this moment when things are okay I pick up my mother in law for a day away. I pick up my one year old grand daughter in hopes that I won't drop her and if I feel weak we sit and she climbs on me. I help Hunter and Addi plant a garden and love the joy it brings them as I am dizzy and want to barf. I rake the yard and feel like a rag doll afterward but I did it. It isn't about the illness at all it is about what really matters, the time. Living a life that is anything but is hard. You push yourself. There are so many times you don't want to do things but you must force yourself to do them or life slips away and you can't get that time back. I will enjoy what I have for as long as I have it and that is the one thing that makes a life that is anything but, just the way it is suppose to be lived!
God Bless!
Dianne
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