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TISMF

So. I called a couple of tree guys to get estimates for some trees that died (I think due to last year’s drought) and walking around the yard with him I really see what a disaster my yard has become and I got a bit weepy, telling him that I was doing the bare minimum this summer because of my husband being so sick and me being worried (except we really know that “this summer” means the past few years) and he told me not to worry and said that he was in prison for 7 months for tax evasion up until a few months ago and that I had to find the things in my life that I could be grateful for.

HOW FUCKING HARD WAS IT FOR ME TO NOT SAY…..

True! It would be worse if I were in prison!!!

Now I feel so much better. And I think I’m going to hire him. I actually liked him.

(I can do this)

My anxiety is through the roof.

Through

The 

Mother

Fucking 

Roof

I kind of feel like I should be medicated. Except we all know that medicated me would be unable to keep her eyes open, so NO MEDICATION FOR ME. I can do this. I can do this. ( I say on a loop in my head) I can do this. (Please believe yourself) I can do this (What choice is there anyways?) I can do this (Maybe the next person to run a stop sign will kill me) I can do this (I can't leave this messy house for the kids to deal with- just in case. I have to get on top of things) I can do this (I can't do this) I can do this (I don't want to do this) I can do this (0/10 Do Not Recommend) I can do this (I know I can. I don't want to, but I am going to come out the other end stronger just like I've been doing for the first 58 years) I can do this (Yup) I can do this (I can do this) 

But I don't want to! (I can do this) The husband can barely get of bed most days these days. He is also barely eating. He just loses time, like on Sunday, when I heard him using the bathroom just after noon and I convinced him to get up and eat something since he had not been out of bed since Friday afternoon when he went to bed early after a tiring day with two doctor appointments. He finally learned to ask me what day it is before taking his medications from the weekly thing-a-ma-jig because there are some medications he does not take every day. I told him it was Sunday because he never got out of bed on Saturday and he looked at me, tilted his head like a German Shepherd trying to figure something out and said REALLY? in this fucking condescending gas lighting tone, which, UH YES REALLY! I witnessed the lack of a body in the family room recliner while sitting in the family room wondering if you were going to get the fuck up all day on Saturday so I could wait on you hand and foot, Mr. Puppy Head. 

Living with a demented person is 24/7 gas lighting because even if they're having a moment where they seem completely lucid and normal it makes one wonder if sometimes they're faking it because they just don't want to interact or something. You (Okay, ME. It's ME who can not because I need consistency.) totally can not sit back and relax when the person who resembles the person I used to know shows up for a bit because I will not be caught with my guard down when he suddenly disappears once again. Fool me 87 times, shame on me! Right?  

Also I started following a bunch of hospice nurses on social media and I feel like shit is getting real here. The sleeping, the loss of appetite, weight loss, it's all looking like something is brewing. I can do this. (What choice do I have?)

But, on a lighter note, I am terrified of becoming like the husband, like seriously terrified. Early on in this journey he often thought he saw someone outside of our house. He pretty much stopped telling me that he saw someone outside of our house when I told the doctor that he was having these hallucinations. I don't know if he is still seeing things or not. He actually can't really see for real, so that might impact his ability to even know if he is seeing a hallucination.. Or something? I don't know if its related, but he doesn't tell me anymore, except on a rare occasion. And back to me, sometimes out of the corner of my eye I thought I was seeing something in the kitchen when I sitting on the far end of the family room. Finally one day, I was standing in the kitchen and a mouse ran right towards AND BUMPED INTO my shoe. I screamed, a shockingly child like sounding scream, jumped and did some kind of weird convulsive looking move while in the air because ... in reality I was so fucking happy to see that mouse was a real thing and not a hallucination. So, I put out some mouse traps, caught it, and set it on the stone wall as an offering to any of my carnivorous backyard friends. It took someone 3 days to grab it, but that mouse did leave this world with some purpose. Then I started seeing what I thought were smaller figments of my imagination and I was like OH MY GOD I REALLY AM GOING NUTS which is probably why I am worried about the mess I would leave for the kids to clean out, and then today I saw one of those creepy looking water bugs, with 100 crazy looking feet run out of the kitchen. Good news. 

I am convinced this house is haunted and can't wait to leave it. (That was crazy! No segue or anything!!) 

Goodnight! 

Two stories about my day that totally don’t belong in the same post.

So, this evening I’m sitting in the family room with husband and he’s watching something on TV but I’m scrolling around social media on my phone when he turns to me and asks if the World Trade Center was still standing. I don’t think anything about the World Trade Center was just on the television. I hear commercials. I look at him for a long second trying to push down the panic I feel at this question and I solemnly say NO. His eyes widen and he in the most shocked affect I’ve ever seen on him asks “Both of them?” I nod slowly and say “They both fell on 9/11.” Astonished he asks “Both?”

He turned his face back towards the TV and I just sat there frozen. I’m so afraid he is going to have to relive that realization over and over. I’m praying that this is not something he will be actively thinking about.

Oh. My. God.

INSERT AWKWARD SEGUE…..I put on make up today for the first time in 3 years (and yes if you’re wondering, it’s all prepandemic makeup. I like to live on the wild side) to go eat lunch outdoors with my high school reunion committee friends and I’m so shocked every time I look in the mirror because it’s been three years since I put on make up. I look so weird! Also not helped by the fact that I got zero sun this summer and i look super pale and sickly to myself. That being said, I realized that I think I kind of made myself look like Endora from Bewitched. Hahaha. I was thinking I knew how to do some good eyeliner after all the tutorials I’ve watched and I made myself look like a snarky spunky fictional witch grandmother from the 1970’s. I’ll take it!!

Wearing

The husband has been sleeping A LOT and it concerns me. Yesterday I woke him up to see if he would get up for dinner. He was very cooperating saying “yeah, I’m hungry I was thinking of getting out of bed” and it struck me how comforting it must be to know that whenever he feels like eating he can just roll out of bed and saunter into the family room where I’ll deliver a home cooked meal right to his lap.

The one and only time in my life that anyone ever took care of me like this was when I was 10 and my folks went off on a vacation and I woke up the very next day with pneumonia. Thank god they left my grandmother in charge of us for that trip because she took the best care of me. I didn’t want my mom to come back because by the time she did return I was 99% better and I knew the tender loving care was going to leave with grandma. It did. To this day I am appalled that my mom didn’t come back as soon as she heard how sick I was. I was very sick.

Speaking of pneumonia, I was thinking about that time I had it 20 years ago and was lying in bed with 105+ degree temperature seeing double and the husband stood at the foot of the bed shouting at me and demanding to know who was going to take care of the kids (aged 2,6 and 10 at the time) because he “couldn’t be my plan B”. It’s humiliating to know that I didn’t get better and immediately file for divorce. Now I’m waiting on him hand and foot.

Life is not fair. Why does life need to remind me of this at every single turn? It’s wearing on me.

TISMF How is this my life?

Here’s a funny (in the way that could potentially bring me to tears) story from today. I ran into The store for dinner stuff and saw this cashier that I’m friendly with and haven’t seen all summer. We are catching up and she asks me how my summer was. Heh heh heh. So I told her I had an awful summer because first Husband was falling for a month and then he broke himself, followed by hospital/rehab for another month.

But, I did point out the good news that we discovered what was making him fall. Grrrr to the nutritional supplement! Then she said something about it could be worse. This is dangerous waters to enter when I’m involved! I can almost always top a story. How am I still sane?

“At least you weren’t swarmed by bees” and I started to laugh and said “As a matter of fact…..” and I told her I ended up in the ER getting IV antibiotics after I was swarmed by bees and my arm got infected from my pit to past my elbow and I held up my arm to gesture and forgot that I have all these angry red/brown spots on the inside my forearm from where I splatter burned myself a few days ago, and her eyes got big looking at my burn spots (they don’t look great) and I waved it off saying “That’s not from the bees that’s my burn from a few days ago…” and then I realized. And then I saw the expression of shock on the face of the lady who was behind me. And I just hysterical laughed my way out to the parking lot because REALLY??? This is my life?? HOW IS THIS MY LIFE??

TISMF who is also coming perilously close the end of her wick on this slow caregiver burn.

I would just like to acknowledge that I am actually feeling really great right now that I have had a long walk and a warm shower but as I’m getting out of the shower and I’m gathering some clothes to go in the laundry machine and calculating the time for the dryer switch and I’m thinking about what I’m gonna make for dinner and I’m so preoccupied that I keep forgetting to put on my pajama pants and finally I sat down to put on my pajama pants and I just exhaled a big breath and I thought “Man, I would really like to have someone come in here and just take care of me for a week.”