Saturday, March 2, 2019

Noodle's self confidence is not misplaced. She definitely has charisma.

She was a wonderful dog. A favorite from many outstanding and delightful pets that gifted me with their presence and love over the years.

Part of aging is confronting the aging process in your loved ones. My dear, dear Auntie, whom I am named after, is in the hospital with congestive heart failure. She has had many such hospital stays, but I have more foreboding about this one.The plan is to move her to rehabilitative care once she is strong enough to leave the hospital. This has never happened before.I don't know if she'll even agree. My uncle died a year ago, and my aunt repeatedly says, I want to be with Kenny. My heart wonders if she has made up her mind to do just that.

My sil is fighting stage IV ovarian cancer. She did a hellish chemo series, with the reward of cancer receding. The plan was to then let her get stronger, and surgically remove tumors. Instead she became septic, and was hospitalized. Surgery is no longer an option, the fear is any insicion would never heal. She is moving to rehabilitative care today, but my heart wonders if she will ever get to go home again? There was initially so much hope for a remission when she responded so well to the chemo. Plans for Christmas in April, since she was so sick in December. I feel the hope ebbing away, as we move through the stages of grief, bargaining right now, just let her get well enough for one more family trip to Sanibel....

My Mom just finished her chemo for a reoccurance of lung cancer. The tumor has not metastasized. She went to her radiation treatment, they were going to do cyber knife, but now the tumor is too small. Which is good, but they have to wait for it to grow. She can't have surgery for a variety of reasons. So more waiting, and praying that while it's growing big enough to zap, it doesn't metastasize. Too many details to go into, but I have always thought her care was inadequate, and every year I offered to take a few days off, and go to the Mayo clinic , right here in Minnesota, to get a full work up and second opinion, but she would demur. She is perfectly capable of making her own decisions, so I have to be at peace with the treatment path she's chosen, and I did what I could. Sigh.

Today is a sad day. This is our reality, people we love get older and sick, or sometimes, not even so old, just sick. I will sit with these feelings for awhile, and then I will get on with the business of living (whi*****ludes doing what I can for these 3 right now.) Thanks for giving me such a safe place to vent.

Go gently in peace today. Hugs

Diamond D, sounds like you are going through a lot. Sorry for ill family members. It is indeed a fact of life that our favorite people become ill and leave us. No way around it but through it. I used to wonder why old people seemed so fixated on illness and funerals. Now I get it. Wishing the best for your mother and aunt and SIL. Enjoy these dear ones. Diane S

Ah, death and dying ....

Below are some unsolicited thoughts I currently have about these subjects, with no guarantee I'll not change my mind in the future ...

Like many of us, I now read newspaper obituaries more fully and frequently than I used to and am seeing many people my age (73) and younger dying in great numbers. After all, the current life expectancy is 78 for American men and 82 for American women. And I'll be 82 in only nine years.

Likewise, my current feelings about fighting-fighting-fighting cancer (depending on the specific cancer diagnosis) are quite different than they were before my husband was diagnosed four and a half years ago with non-Hodgkins large-cell lymphoma. For three and a half years, he underwent radiation twice and chemo three times. I know that my husband fought hard to live because he wanted to be with me.

But at my age and without a mate I adore to live for, I can't see the point of fighting-fighting-fighting every kind of cancer. After all, for many kinds of cancer it's a very hard fight, and for elderly cancer patients the return for the effort invested comes with multiple high costs.

Likewise, my motivation to live a long life, i.e., into my nineties, has also changed. For me, the point to life is no longer dying older than everyone else, but being as present as I can possibly be TODAY.

Our culture doesn't encourage us much to accept that life is precious and brief.

I agree on the age notion, Ann. In our house we often comfort each other when someone dies after a prolonged decline by saying, "they weren't having fun anymore." And isn't that what we all want? To stick around so long as we are enjoying being here and if it's never "fun" anymore and we're suffering, it's time to go. Leaving on a high note so to speak... It's too bad we don't have more control over that here.

My Grandma was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when she was 86. She declined all treatment except palliative care. Her hospice room was as welcoming and charming to me as any place she had lived. She was 250 miles away, but I was able to visit almost weekly for two months. We chatted, she gave me more recipes (she doted on my husband, and always wanted to make sure I was taking good care of him), we told stories, we said everything, and never pretended she wasn't leaving. She, my Mom, my daughter and me, the 4 generations, passed a beautiful afternoon together shortly before she died, sad, but also cherishing the continuity: 4 generations, all together! She shooed us out of the room when the church ladies came to plan the funeral luncheon, saying she wanted to plan the last act of hospitality she could offer, and she wrote the check to pay for it. I watched her say goodbye to people who would not be able to return before she died, with love and resolve. Such grace. She assigned jobs to my uncle's, wisely giving them a task to complete after she died, because" Mom asked me to. " The night she died, my Mom, my girl cousins and I sat vigil. My Dad was in the nursing home, but said he whenever he entered the room, he felt something spiritual going on, and he felt out of place. I thought about the quote, women bring life into the world, and escort life out when it's time. The whole journey with Grandma (who was 40 when I was born, and really was another mother), is the most sacred thing I have ever done. Even in the midst of her own death, she was teaching, guiding. When I am faced with my own death, whenever it might be, I hope I can emmulate her. And as you note Ann, life is precious and fleeting.

How beautiful. Your grandmother was so fortunate. We all need to think ahead about treatments and do advanced directives. My father did not do one and we had to make decisions while he declined in the hospital for 8 weeks.

And remember to take care of ourselves during such times. Its easy to eat junk from hospital food sources and vending machines or otherwise stress eat.

My brother was at Mayo Clinic Arizona some years ago and I went with him and was his advocate etc during a difficult thoracic surgery. They brought the most gross unhealthy food - mystery meat swimming in gravy and the dietician brought me lunches of the same thinking he was being kind. The cafeteria did have salads but the soups and hot dishes were all swimming in grease and cheese. Really??

I digress but self care must be practiced during these rough times. Hope you will do so DD.

Wow! What a dame your Grandma was! What a class act!

How lucky you are to have had such a wonderful role model in life. Wow!