sorting it all out

June 28, 2025 wordpress

Today I finished something that I have struggled with for 8 years . I moved from my home (my family home that I inherited and then lost because of stupid decisions and lack of self-control) in September of 2017. Michael died on November 23, 2017. I put all the things that didn’t fit into a  one-bedroom apartment  in storage that September and I have spent about $15 thousand dollars on it since.

 Grief has a cost, don’t let anyone tell you differently.

I started cleaning out my storage, which was a 10×20 in a complex about 20 minutes away from my current apartment, the day after my birthday April 25, 2025. I really shouldn’t say that I started because I have been going through it since spring of 2018. I did fairly well sorting things out and throwing things out for a while before winter. Then it was hit and miss – I went through everything once and kept to one side what I was going to save for another storage. I had about 16 boxes of books that I was not keeping. I worked on it in earnest again in 2021. I was working on it when my sister-in-law called me to tell me my brother was dying. He died on July 6, 2021. I did manage to sort out most of the pictures for the grandkids and sibs and give them to them, that was a good thing.  After that everything ground to a halt. I would go out from time to time and putz around, but I labored over what to do with the books and Mikes records and tapes etc.

I wanted it all to mean something to someone. You can probably see my faulty thinking there.

 I even got things together for Brenda to take back to the Adirondacks to give to my sister and for her to keep (she is now moving to Florida and has probably thrown out everything from golf clubs to whatever). She didn’t give my sister her things from when I moved in 2023 until this past spring. I actually moved things into the storage when I moved to Tonawanda -well Amanda moved things in there from the move. I am still missing my blue Dutch Oven. I think she took it. Amanda was going to have the larger room in the apartment and when she moved out last April I got the full use of the apartment. The stuff that didn’t come over right away  took up one side of the storage and then I had to go through all that shit again.

 You can’t work on it in the summer heat and the winter cold so you only have from April to the end of June and then from the middle of September to whenever the snow flies.

So now I have it piled in my living room. I finally made decision about things that I should have done years ago. I hate taking things to the good will but I swallowed my indignation and did so anyway out of convenience. I did give my old clothes away to Hearts for the Homeless group, about 16 garbage bags of clothes that were in the back of my closet in Amherst.   I also threw things out that I had deliberated on and I still have to sort things out.  Instead of moving things here in totes, I broke it down in bags (tops bags reusable ones ), I have a good friend who helped me overcome my inertia. In the fall I will be helping her overcome her inertia.

I decided that I need  to get back into the habit of writing and there have been some ups and downs since I started cleaning out the storage, but I feel genuinely good about it.

I took the last week off from work and I return to a full week  on Monday but I will be sorting and throwing out more. I have decided to use my PTO time and am taking long weekends every month.  I didn’t have to get another storage unit but I have too much bric-a-brac bullshit.  I also have too much – of everything. I am beginning to understand how everything weighs you down.

It has been excellent timing to get it cleaned out  because after a really rainy, cold spring the weather has become extremely hot and humid. I couldn’t really do much more in the heat.  

This whole experience has also led to some severe melancholy and grief and sadness. I think that sorting out all the bags will bring on more as I throw away the things that only meant something to me. I feel connected to Mike but further away – a lot of this is his shit too. I am hopeful that in sorting out this stuff of life I will also sort out my mental health.

Grief not only has monetary value, it takes a toll on your body and soul.

Peace from the weary empath.

Sort healthfully!

and another update and musings………

June 23, 2022 through June 26, 2022.

A brief catch up in this life – I am still working at hospice although I turned 65 this year –  not going to retire until 67 or so. If Michael was alive, I would have retired three years ago but he is dead so on I go (he died in 2017 and if feels like yesterday most days).

I live in Amherst and still enjoy living here – it’s close to everything and I like that (well except work and that is still in Niagara County). My health is definitely not good – I have some heart problems – common in my family and of course my back is getting worse. I use a walker when I go to the bookstore, library and to the park now because it definitely helps. Not in Niagara County however as I still want to work and that would put a definite shade on that if anyone saw me.

I have left the Catholic faith or maybe it left me……..still Christian – Episcopalian more to my beliefs. During the Covid I started watching Canterbury Cathedral and the Dean for morning prayer and I am planning on conversion when I feel like things are a little more settled.

I am work for hospice as a social worker been there since 2004 – September. It is very rewarding work and very tiring and difficult and sad at times but then again, most things worth your wile are.

I struggle with depression and at times anxiety and sometimes think that I don’t belong here on this planet. I often don’t think like other people think – probably a result of several accidental head injuries.

Since my last posting my brother died, Henry – 68 years old from nutritional marasmus which means that he was basically and alcoholic for most of his life and it finally took its toll. I also struggle to not do that, but I am addicted to food. This “addiction” combined with my lack of ability to exercise has left me overweight and not exactly healthy.

There are probably other catch-ups but I can’t remember right now but will do so later as I remember.

This is going to be confusing going back and forth like a novel (poorly written at best) From June 23rd to June 26^th.

from writing in the park to finally finishing at home on the 26^th – so here goes –

Writing in the park – June 23rd – how cool is that? I thought that I would bring my home computer over to the Amherst Veterans Canal Park in Amherst  this am to chill by the water and get away from my cat who keeps dogging me for food. I’m taking the next five days off from work , Thursday, Friday and Monday, for no particular reason except that I am all caregivered out. Sometimes when I get a number of really selfish caregivers who leave their dying – mother, father, sister, brother , aunt, uncle or spouse alone to die, I get sad and can’t find the satisfaction I usually find in my work. Work that I have been doing for 18 years. Hospice social work. I had a patient that went to hospice house last weekend end staging when he had two children and their spouses to help provide care at home and they all were “too busy” or it was “too difficult”. He died at Hospice House with no family present, and they did not even go in when they were called that he died. So freaking sad.

Getting back to my cat – I haven’t figured it out yet but I’m trying – is it boredom, hunger or does it substitute for love. All are possible but how the hell would you even figure it out? Anyway, I got out of dodge so to speak. I took a picture of her the other day just sitting by the freaking door staring at me to feed her more. I have to parcel out her food because she wolfs it down then freaking barfs. She barfs to the point where I need to clean the carpet, but I don’t want to because it will only get more puke on it. It’s not a stomach issue it is a hair freaking ball issue because I can absolutely not get her to take any of the anti-hairball medication or treats. As a matter of fact, the dry food that is supposed to be indoor food to help break down hair balls makes her puke a dark rich shade of rust color. Right now, I’m working on this on Sunday the 26^th at home and she is dogging me for food. After she has eaten a whole can of tuna and 2/3 of a can of moist cat food. Cat food that is getting more difficult to get by the way because of covid and stupid Chinese containers.

At the park, on the 23rd I am listening to my cousin do her notes, which is only fair as a friend of mine must listen to me do my notes all the time, so I get it. Anxiety is a bitch and I wish I had the kind that spurred me on instead of shutting me down. People who have the kind that spurs you on probably don’t have underlying pain, I guess. Although I have been told that this is incorrect, people who have pain and still manage to motivate do so despite the pain. Apparently countless numbers of people who have pain choose to work beyond it instead of having a great big pity party. (Whine, whine, whine). As usual I am wrong on this account as well. Anyway, on the phone coaching from 9am to 5pm and my first day off and I didn’t get to listen to audio book or read just crochet and coach. Whatever – I hope it was worth it to her but as of today she is not taking a check up call from me and yesterday either because she has not kept up the progress she made, or she feels that I am now on my sister’s level of intrusion into her life. I can do that too…. Whatever! I am now not taking any calls from anyone. I’m done with all the life coach bullshit – where are you when I need you? Exactly my point.

I have been reading  a great deal/listening to audible and crochet. I bought a Norton’s anthology of American Literature set and have set out to explore the classics. I’m also in a book club where we are reading contemporary works and some of them are pretty good and some just freaking awful like the one for the month of July ugh- its low on content but high on soft porn – which I don’t mind as long as there is some literary content, and it does not. In the classics  I’m reading the ones I missed and rereading the ones I loved.  Another world………

 I have managed to crochet several sweaters and a multitude of shawls which has my hamper full as I cannot sell them – nobody wants them or to pay for them. I am going to start to give them away. Not the cardigans though, those I will keep and wear. The thought of that makes me smile. I meet with my yarney people at least every week. Out for coffee and some crochet and I must admit I have more in common with my yarney people than I have with the rest of the world. It’s all about the “fiber”.  

The reality is that I push myself to find things to help me stay here. Yarn, books, talking to someone all day so that they can move through their anxiety, sitting on the phone with someone who quite frankly repulses me because I don’t want to hurt his feelings totally, getting late night calls so that people can vent to me about their unhinging at the mercy of people who don’t do anything for them, and the list goes on and on.

I’m not sure who’s feed I am still on or whether anyone keeps track anymore regarding the weary empath, but I guess I don’t care either, its therapy and cheap therapy at that because I have to get it out there and out of my head. I have been struggling with relationships lately feeling that I give a whole lot more than I get back. I guess it’s my fault, I don’t ask for much, but I am rather difficult to get along with I’m sure. I fracture relationships at times when they become too much for me to sustain as well as don’t really share anything but cryptic messages about how I struggle.  I guess everyone needs to be needed but I am so beyond it right now. I am drowning and nobody sees it. I can’t function properly, it’s like I’m stuck in mud and can’t find bottom to push myself back up and I don’t have anyone to throw a lifeline to and I wouldn’t anyway because the last thing I want is to burden others. Burdon others that is laughable – when I do try to tell people how I feel I either get them telling me what to do about what I feel according to their life or what they would do according to their life that is quite frankly no more stable than mine, or silence because they can’t deal with my being real about where I am, or getting in a “this sucks, life sucks” competition and all I need is validation to feel the way I freaking feel.

Stop making it a competition for shits sake.

We all hurt – I get it but I listen to you and don’t tell you what to do unless you ask and even then I hesitate because I know you probably already know but I listen and listen and listen and listen and listen.

Ughhhhhhhh

I miss Michael so much that at times I cannot breathe. Patty’s brother Tom makes it hurt worse and he is an ass but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He is everything Michael was not – he is pompous, boring and self-absorbed. I want him to return to Maryland but that looks like it is not going to happen.  It is toxic for me but as I said I don’t want to hurt his feelings – oh hell he probably doesn’t even have any anyway otherwise he would be able to tell that I disassociate whenever I talk to him.

Like I said, I’m not taking any calls today unless it’s……… never mind. Since I decided not to clutter my life with tom the care bears are going off more. I think that Mike approves, I know he does.  

The frightening thing about him is that he actually tells people his IQ and all his certificates and awards. He doesn’t listen and he has no money and has to ask his family for help. I think he was trying to put the bite into me but I didn’t even nibble at all. I tried to let him off but now he calls every day as long as there is no pressure to go out.

By the way what is it with all the mommy issues??????? one can’t get over being blamed for breaking the cake dish, the other is in counseling and yet another talks endlessly about how their mother was toxic, another feels that mommy’s expectations were too rigid and demanding -grow the hell up people – you are all adults in your 50s 60s and 70s when do you stop with mommy issues?

Anyway, I think it’s cool enough to open the apartment  up now. It’s been unmercifully hot this weekend and all I have been doing is watering cemeteries and sitting at the park. I have left my adulting to tomorrow which is going to either happen or not – probably not. I’m tired but won’t be tired enough to sleep – I’m sure.

Not much social work context here but maybe there is……. You decide.

Boundaries, limitations, counsel, “self care” ( although I hate those words). Expectations- relations, and supportive counsel. Loss, grief and coping, aw hell I guess there is some social work context here. Please take it personally and sit with it for a while and see if it fits.

Peace from the Weary Empath

That was harder than I thought it would be

So after a long absence again almost another year I find myself needing to reach out and comment and connect. I’m working off of my phone because I haven’t secured a new computer yet. And I must admit this isn’t easy. 1st of all it was really hard to get back in my blog site because I couldn’t remember what my password was. That being accomplished I think, I am back in business and I will write my password down somewhere where I can remember , well remember where it is. So here we all are hunkered down in our houses Terrified of going out and the Corona virus lurking.

 

I’m still working doing home care social work for hospice. I made 13 visits last week while everyone else was making telephone calls. Right now I figure that it’s not a matter of whether I contract the virus but when I contract it. I’m actually hoping that I don’t because I do have some underlying health conditions.

So what’s happened between last year and this year well not a lot except for that I rekindled my love for crochet and yarn, binge watched a lot of Netflix. Joined two book clubs and two yarn groups to propel myself out of the house. When Michael was alive going to his art shows and doing things with him was my extro version. I realized that if I didn’t do more to pull myself out of the house I would simply go to work and go home. I watch a lot of you tube tutorials!

 

Work in and of itself is no different than what it always says been,  Except for the fact that it tires me more emotionally, and the lack of good management where I work is exhausting.

This  Year has been strange. I’ve lost more mobility in my back and legs and I have to go to the chiropractor once week otherwise I wouldn’t be able to walk and sometimes the pain from my back being so badd is more than I can bear at the end of the day. I can’t walk for long distances so I have to use my handicap tag for my car which embarasses me sometimes . My heart is doing OK generally speaking when I don’t get upset. My kidney seem to be functioning and I get enough sleep a couple of times a week.

 

I’ve made some new friends, rekindled my relationship with some folks that I had lost touch with And lost some friends that I miss dearly but that’s on them not on me.

 

Once I start with a new computer I’ll probably be writing more.Not just to this blog but in general and Maybe audit some classes on writing or literature. I haven’t made up my mind. I turned 63 this year, had Michael Ben alive I would have retired last year. But with him not here I will continue to work for as long as I can.

 

So that’s all for now I have to finish cleaning up the kitchen and getting my soup off the stove. It’s funny but staying at home all weekend isn’t really something different for me. It feels so odd that everyone else is hunkered down and I’m just thinking this is normal.

 

Stay healthy keep your 6′ distance, wear your mask and wash your hands. Know that this too shall pass.

Peace from the weary empath.

 

 

It’s been a long time coming – or going- I’m not sure which… alternate title OMG

OMG
That’s about it after all this time. It’s been a full year and almost a half since I wrote in the blog that Michael had died and that I was pledging to get started again on the writing thing, but I have not. There are a myriad of reasons why not and none of them particularly good. So what prompts me now – well it’s better than being arrested for punching people out. I bet that got your attention! There are certain situations where I have reached the OMG limit. I have reached a breaking point and have zero tolerance in that I find myself really struggling with the day to day reality of life, finding it hard to maintain my unconditional positive regard.

“Unconditional positive regard” is social work talk for I’m supposed to find value in everyone unconditionally. Which is not a realistic goal I must admit, because we are all human and I’m just not that evolved anymore. I’ve devolved I guess. If the truth be told I am not sure that I ever was more evolved but there were times where I was closer to it than now and of course I want to be better in certain regards but alas I am not. I’m not sure what better is anymore anyway.
It’s hard to wrap your mind about it when you really consider it- does the essence of “evolved” mean that you rise above the daily ignorance and selfishness of others to the point where you consider yourself better than others when they act in an ignorant or selfish manner, totally oblivious to the needs and concerns of the rest of the inhabitants of the planet and you let it go without comment or judgement? Is the height of consciousness and the apex of enlightenment knowing that you are more worthy In that you think about others and they do not reciprocate? At what point in doing the “Namaste” thing and letting it go because you are better than that worse than not thinking? What am I supposed to think – that I’m more fortunate and therefor I have more tolerance to brace myself against the rude? What? What? What?

What do you want from me universe?

It’s this whole political crap going on too – being taken advantage of because you believe that you have to be tolerant of others even when they espouse hatred and intolerance themselves. Where is the dividing line between being acceptably not tolerant?
Yes I am a little unbalanced………
I am attempting to understand my unevenness by trying to find a framework for understanding myself. So far I’ve done the healing through sound and light and Ayurveda as well as trying to balance my chakras, somewhat superficially because I really don’t understand things the way I used to. At least I know why I have no less than 8 blue green shirts and sweaters and coat and why certain music balances me ( songs in the key of G). So, I’ve done some of the new age stuff you’ve heard about and finally I am back to go old fashioned write therapy. Of course I thought I would share my struggle with you as you may benefit from the observations I have relative to my situation.

Here are the things I am struggling with:
Myself
Others
God
And physical limitations of being bound by earth and the rules governing our bodies.

Not necessarily in that order and not all in equal amounts. I would hope that you would say that makes me normal, however I know that I am not –I’m thinking about all of it, a lot and I’ve come to the understanding that there is not a great deal of that thought thing going on in most of my planetary cohorts.

God- Maybe God thinks about things in general more than It’s creations but I must admit that I don’t really know what God is thinking any more. Not that I was ever in the inner loop but I always thought I had an idea or a slight glimpse from time to time when the curve of the world was aligned with my bend. I just have no clue anymore. I find that I tend to write now in chopped clipped sentences, with no poetry or pleasure in my written voice. I do want to say that I am thankful for my guardian angel Sarah because she really sticks her neck out for me on a regular basis. Shout out for the GA.

I want to say that I miss the old me the me before Michael died but I don’t really miss that me – I miss the purpose I had the day to day feeling like my being here was somehow important. I don’t even miss the person I was when Michael was well and alive, because that me was often stupid and shortsighted.

I guess I miss the me I could have been if I had not been me.

I am currently at the Amherst Audubon library and it the past couple of minutes I have had to bear witness to people I would not want to be locked on a bus with. There are two seats in the library I just once want to get here in time to take, but I fear that the people that take them are here often earlier than I. Both coveted seats are with the back to the window and on comfortable seats. Both taken by young women in their twenties one probably East Indian and the other Mediterranean. I have seen both here before and they both sit in the same places every time I see them and don’t do anything. One talks on her phone endlessly quietly talking into the mouth piece and that other has a computer in front of her and instead is on her phone neither studying or actually doing anything but taking up the air that I want to breath and I somehow am angry at them for being. I don’t know them I don’t know anything about them except that they annoy me, and yet I am here in a public place with them and not doing something else anywhere else.

I also watched as an older woman – older than I- I’m assuming pick the pant out of her overly tight crotch and listened to an even older woman fart as she got up from her seat and fart all the way out the door. I am baffled often by humankind and its foibles. They also have loud talking librarians here…….and a screaming child. What a petty ass I am. If it was warmer I would be at the park, but I am not sure how that is going to go this year as I am not smoking now.

So I quit smoking about a month ago, real cigarettes that is, ran out down to a pack and have not smoked it. I have however been vaping which gives me the nicotine but not that other stuff, just different stuff. I can’t really say I feel different. Well that is not true because I am abnormally picky and believe me that is more than usual. I like the park because there is generally nobody there but until it warms up there is also no bathroom and I need a bathroom. Haha.

I’ve been going to a chiropractor since before Christmas and I have a little more stamina, I have been doing the stretches but not every day, as I am a lazy jerk that talks about wanting to get better but somehow can’t stick to a freaking schedule to save myself. I got cracked on Friday but I still hurt today from that because I stupidly refused bio freeze – today is Monday by the way. I also did some chair yoga which I do not think helped me. I was up until 3 in the morning last night and I couldn’t get back to sleep after I called in and I think I have been drinking too much tea and not the green variety I should be drinking and drinking soda which has grown a kidney stone and possible infection that is causing me pain.

The lack of dopamine is definitely affecting me – I’m angry.

Well that’s a brief recap of what is current – who says that I cannot be in the moment, no problem with stream of consciousness thought here!

Also I decided to start studying again and this time to actually do the thing which is go for my L and the other thing is to get my storage cleaned out with the help of someone I know not who. But I will need someone to help me because I am not capable alone. Maybe I am more capable than I know, just tender right now – missing Michael more every day.

I’ve slowed down to the point where I can actually feel the pain – mentally and physically.

I wrote this a couple of months ago but didn’t want to release it to the world. Reading it today I figure why no? If I’m found deceased any time soon it would at least give someone a clue to how I am really thinking, as I truly don’t share my real thoughts with anyone.

I’ve got some real compassion fatigue going on lately and am trying to take some time off to get my head sorted about that. I moving up on the five year anniversary for Michael’s stroke and I have been struggling with that as well. I have been crocheting up a storm and making cool things – I also have been watching “youtube” tutorials on the subject and have found someone who loves yarn as much as I do and actually feels it and smells it. I know creepy right???

My cat Pece died after 17 years and I am heart broken as she was my lap dweller and smudge is not so much that. I think smudge wants to learn how to crochet because she sits and watches the videos very intently – which is very strange.

We had an active shooter training the other day at work and one of the nurses that actually tolerates me and I went over the short list of people in the building that we would actually help in the event of that. I’m pretty sure that is not a thing that I should be talking about.

Ok well, I will resume my battle and write more, I hope this finds you well.

Peace from the weary empath

Three Long Years Later…..

Michael died on Thanksgiving morning . He was 61 years young. I had his Mass of Christian Burial on December 16th in his home parish in Youngstown. It has been three years and a month after my last post, I will return to writing soon, I’m still trying to navigate this new chapter in my life and writing will be part of it again. It was impossible to write during this time because of exhaustion, lack of concentration and having to focus on advocating for Michael’s care.

I was with him daily on this journey and he recognized my voice and smiled and turned his head toward me when talked to him. I cared for him, comforted him and fought the lazy reckless staff and their lack of caring and care.  I cannot mention the God awful nursing home he had the misfortune to land in but there are only three vent units in western new York : terrace view in buffalo, elder wood in Williamsville and High Pointe in Buffalo and it wasn’t the first two.

I kept some notebooks during that time mostly related to his care and I do have all the letters that wrote to the unit manager.  I will let these memories fester for a while before I attempt to figure out what I want to communicate. I do mean fester because when a nursing home director of nursing tells you, ” Cheryl, we just can’t provide the good consistent care you would like for Michael”, you realize how bad the situation is and it gets worse from there.

So that’s all there is for now. I will get back to something weekly.

Hope your still out there!

Peace  from the Weary empath

Happier New Year.

 

 

Sad News for the Wearyempath and Especially for Michael

Well so much for my last blog – the one where I fully indulged in my own “navel gazing” as my father used to put it. You remember, the blog where I  lamented my kidneys and their status and it’s implication on the rest of my life. Well all that is simply put small potatoes compared to what my significant other has been through and is still going through.

On May 1, 2014 Michael had a stroke and everything after that has been pretty much mal practice. Currently he is in what would be described as a “vegetative state”. It has been five and a half months and many miles traveled by him and by me, three different facilities a “mercy” flight and lots of parking fees and cups of Tim Horton’s.

My world view, which was never really rosy when it comes to the medical community even though I work in the medical field, has gone from thinking that somehow one facility or one nurse or doctor or social worker could be better than others to knowing that everyone is human and makes mistakes and sometimes even if you are right on top of things the clinical cascade is too strong for you to hold up against.

Michael’s biggest challenge has been getting off the ventilator which he is been on again since July 17, 2014. The brain damage caused from loss of his air way is pending but hope for something different is ever present, but we know the stroke damage will now never heal. He is minimally responsive at times and at others cannot find his way to respond. It’s like his mind and body are in the bottom of a deep pool that’s all murky and sometimes he floats to the top just long enough to connect and then goes back to the bottom just as fast.

He has two friends who visit him weekly and other than that everyone who was close to him seems to be too busy. I visit him daily. I have missed only one day in five and a half months and that was when I caught a head cold from one of my nurse co workers in the middle of June and I have the voice mail recording of Michael telling me to stay home – because if I get sick all hope for him to return home is lost. That was when he was in acute rehab at a local hospital.

I’m not even sure what my first mistake was with all of this but perhaps it was being pompous enough to believe that people knew what they were doing and that I would recognize it when they were not. I was wrong, even if you are one of them you probably won’t be able to fight against their steam rolling.

So many points in time during this seem exactly what followed before, hopes heightened and then lost.  A common example of this was when Michael was in the ILCU,  I was told by the social worker for the unit that they were no longer trialing him off the ventilator because he de- saturates on a Monday. However when I went to visit on Tuesday he had been off the ventilator for 10 hours, the next day 7, the next day 8 and then two days in a row 12 hours off. He was holding at 97% oxygen with no assist. He was tired and less responsive but HE WAS BREATHING ON HIS OWN.

So, the respiratory therapist told me, “this is progress”, and “it takes a long time sometimes after anoxia but sometimes the brain kicks “on” and it’s easier. The social worker said last week that because of the brain damage he won’t breath on his own again and a ventilator home is the best place for him. Do you see where I am in all of this? Who do you believe?

I was ready to put Michael on “comfort” care that week because of her and then he was breathing  on his own for half the day – what the hell???

Then of course the other shoe fell. The respiratory therapist on that last day decided to see if he could tolerate being off for longer and supposedly they monitored his saturation rates and he did just great until  -he didn’t- and coded. He turned blue and they had to “bag him” and when I went to see him on that Sunday he looked like he had been shot out of  a circus cannon. They scared him. The likelihood that he will ever be off a ventilator is now —– zip. Thus it has been for Michael and thus it has been for me. And so it continues to be.

Writing has been a bit difficult, mostly because I am trying to work and visit and still be home for my overly needy cats. I started writing a journal but after a month I was exhausted by it, it took up too much time, which I needed to drive. I bought a hand held recorder but generally, I’m so foggy from all of this I’m not sure anything would be coherent. I’ve been reinventing everything and nothing seems to work out exactly as I had planned. I need to be more focused so…..

Better to do a time line:

May 1, 2014  – Michael had a cerebellar artery stroke, with total left sided droup and loss of ability to swallow at home and was transported up to “the stroke center – where they took a CT and a MRI and said, “he didn’t have a stroke”. Then they said that he had diabetic keyto acidosis and the doctor against the protests of the nurse gave him three 1, 000 ml of IV fluids and then insulin and gave him pills to take, which he then aspirated on because “hello” he had a stroke and couldn’t swallow. He got to the “stroke center” by 230 and by 1 am on Mary 2 he was on a ventilator.

May 2, 2014 Michael told by the neurologist that he did indeed have a stroke but it was in a tiny little place in the base of his brain and the person who gets paid to look at diagnostic tests “on second evaluation” found it.

May 8, 2014- Michael off the ventilator for a day,  but the nurse in the MICU gave him ice chips without a swallow evaluation so he aspirated again and went back on the ventiltor and this time when they re-scoped him and ventilated him they gave him Klepsiella bacteria, which they spend the next ten days trying to identify and by that time his heart was weakened by the Haldol they were giving to sedate him.

May 19, 2014 – Michael pulls out the ventilator for the third time and they decide that he is doing well enough to be left off of it. Michael heads to the 16^th floor.

May 19, 2014 – Michael begins to be able to suction himself because the swallow evaluation shows that he is not able to swallow.

May 25 through May 31. Michael has a feeding tube placed and a pacemaker and physical therapy has actually gotten him to stand up 6 times.

June 4, 2014. Michael transfers to a Orleans county hospital acute rehabilitation unit where he promptly aspirates again and is put on vancomycn for three weeks.

July 4, 2014. They try to take the urinary catheter out so they trial Michael for the day but his bladder is lazy an they have to re catherize him – which lead to a urinary tract infection about 5 days later.

July 14, 2014. Despite two antibiotics Michael is getting sicker, a high fever, confused.

July 15, 2014. They finally take blood cultures and find that he is septic, but from what they do not know. The nurse who was pouring his evening feed was in a hurry so she fed him too fast and laying too far back and when he couldn’t suction himself – suctioned him and gagged him causing him to vomit and aspirate again.

July 16, 2014. Michael is out of rehab unit and into the intensive care in the Orleans county hospital  where he is ventilated again. They tracked the source of the MRSA to the central line they had put in on the 7^th of june that they had never bothered to take out.

July 17, 2014. Michael is still on vent, but his temperature went from 104 to 102 to normal and he was responding to antibiotic.

July 18, 2014. Michael’s aspiration pneumonia finally surfaced and the doctor in the intensive care unit lost his airway and Michael had a heart attack and lost oxygen to the brain – they don’t know how long as no one was keeping track but he was at 30% oxygen for more than 5 minutes. They Mercy flight him to the hospital with the “stroke center”, where he is back in the MICU in Buffalo – this time he is totally unresponsive.

July 26, 2014. I meet with the MICU “doctors” and interns who proceed to tell me that they have taken an EEG and that Michael has acute diffuse encephalopathy and that he probably has an infected pacemaker which will have to be taken out. They intimated to me that they knew what Michael wanted for his life and I informed them that I know what Michael wants and that is for me to be comfortable with any decision I make and turning off the ventilator is not one that I am going to do. I signed a DNR for further heart or pulmonary problems but did not take restrictions off regarding testing that might need to be done or treatments. I asked if the damage was permanent or transient and they said that they could not be certain. I said let me know when that is and ordered a trach for his comfort and noted that if the pacemaker has to come out he will be getting a new one.

July 31, 2014.  Michael was transferred to the ILCU, which is a step down unit from intensive care in the same hospital, he has medically stabilized and is in a persistent vegetative state – or so I’m told. He is getting IV Vancomycin  and will for another two weeks. His pacemaker did not get infected so that is not a problem. He stays on the ventilator unit through august and September.

September 30, 2014. I put Michael on comfort care after his 58^th birthday after several unsuccessful attempts to wean him from the ventilator.

October 10, 2014. Michael is transferred to a nursing home ventilator unit in Buffalo which is where he is currently.

I haven’t heard Michael’s voice since July 17^th and I miss him even though I see him every day. I know that then next infection will take him and he desaturates very quickly because of the build up of mucous. Apparently the kind of stroke he had messes with his sinus and he has excessive drainage – of course another complication.

I want to say that I have great friends and one in particular Carol who keeps me balanced and centered as much as possible and some other friends who keep me distracted from self harm – or as much self harm as possible. My whole life is in limbo because Michael’s life is so fragile right now.

I was on call today for work and the nurse of course called me to come and meet with a family. I was almost all the way to see Michael in Buffalo. So when I asked if I could meet with them later in the afternoon and explained where I was and they agreed she said. “Well have a nice visit, “ in a cold and sarcastic voice.

I could not help myself  any longer and said, “ Wow really? Have a nice visit, oh my how utterly nice my visits are with Michael on a ventilator de saturating to the 80% oxygen level because of mucous plugs that he can’t clear. How wonderful our visits are when I’m not sure he recognized me other than I am that lady the messes with him and fusses around him. Oh yes we surely will have a wonderfully nice visit while I have to witness snotty aides toss him around like he’s a sack of meat and nurses that hook his feeding tube up to the inflation port of his urinary catheter and then when they realize what they have done try to put it back into the peg tub without cleansing it. A super visit where every time I hear a worker sneeze or cough I wonder if he’s giving that to Michael and if this will be his last week on earth. Thanks for thinking of me.”

To that she replied, “Oh Cheryl, I’m so sorry, I guess I didn’t realized, you manage to keep things all together at work, I just thought that things were improving. You visit every day? Oh, I guess I didn’t understand.”

This sums up my existence now. Sometimes I just can’t manage to be nice. I jokingly say to people that I think that I have figured out what God’s purpose in this is and of course some are quick to point out the flaw in thinking that I really know what on God’s mind, but I’m guessing here when I say to teach me to be patient with people who don’t think about what they say or how anyone else besides them feels – just saying and I am failing at it miserably. I seem to be getting worse not better.

Of course the hour that it takes me to get to the nursing home and the hour back home at the end of the day. Some really big mistakes that are flying in my face right now too but I still go on. I’m sitting with Gordon cat, Michael’s painting partner on the couch in a basement that is full of boxes and unfinished painting. It’s gone from the promise of spring and the warmth of summer to the threat of winter.  Gordon misses Michael the most of all the cats, he came with him when he moved here and has been the basement cat because he bites the other kitties and I cannot afford a vet bill. But he likes his new circumstances, having a couch to lay on and a brand new blanket to hump. I sit with Gordon for an hour or so everynight because he is very lonely, most times I fall asleep down here, before I got the couch I would fall asleep in a camp chair and wake up drooling with my body twisted. Now I’m more comfortable now too, thanks to my friend carol’s granddaughter.

I’m going to start blogging again. It’s one of the many things I miss. I miss Michael though the most. I have to be the grown up now and do all the things that Michael took care of, the dishes, the cat litter, the garbage, the gutters, pick up the lawn, laundry, dust, vacuum in short I have to take care of myself. I am painfully aware that I am singular now except that I sit with him every day and hold his hand and pray for either God to give him wings or a place to put his feet. I miss it that he put a new bar of my soap in the dish when he saw mine was getting small. I miss the hugs in the morning before I went to work. I miss the fights and the making up and I miss the sound of his beautiful deep voice.  I miss his making a fire in the fire pit for me to come home to and calling him “sparky”. I can’t bring myself to use the last garbage can of kindling he gathered before the stroke. I miss his lengthy messages on my cell phone, so long that I would forget that I wasn’t talking to him and that it was a message.

I got rid of the van- took it off the road and had it towed to the junk. No more art shows for Michael and I. No more beautiful sunsets for Michael to paint. It physically pains me to know that his swollen hands will never produce such beauty again.  And no, it doesn’t give me comfort to know that people loved his work, not yet – sorry – I’m not that evolved. Generally I compartmentalize well and sometimes displacement works for a while. I know it’s not that evolved a defense mechanism but I guess I’m just not there yet.

Sometimes I cry all the way home or all the way to the nursing home. I worry constantly that my good friend Carol is going to die from listening to my sadness and not being able to help. I have a Michael size hole in my heart and it will never be filled again. I avoid talking to people mostly because there is nothing I can say that they will ever understand. If they have had the loss of their spouse it was sudden and unexpected. I watch him slip away from me every day and on the days that he is more alert I’m more sad because I think he knows how his life has turned.

I used to know how my caregivers felt to lose their parents but now I know how they feel to lose their spouse, the person they were spending the rest of their lives with. I can’t tell them where I am in this, I can only validate their experience. It puts me in a very strange place. So much grief and sadness. When people say, “have a nice day” I cringe. I don’t expect that to happen any time soon or anyone to truly understand how I feel about it. The pain I have is a sadness that sits in the back of my heart, it is all at once a hole and a ball at the same time, there and not there.  It’s fear, anger, sadness, rage, pity, love and need all wrapped up in a neat bow. The only problem is when I go to show it to someone it’s indescribable and unfathomable because they have not endured it.

I only know that whatever happens I will abide. I have always and will always abide. I will go through this, not around it and I will limp a little but I will still walk on – alone again. I’m not sure how much peace I will find but if it’s God’s plan then it will, if it isn’t, then it won’t.

So here is  challenge for you from the wearyempath: tell someone you know how much you value them. Go out of your way to acknowledge their gifts to the universe and to you. Pray for Michael that he is delivered from this locked in life and for me that I might continue to find strength and love and maybe even some peace.

Thanks from the Wearyempath – I hope you have peace as well.

where the light gets in

Where the light gets in.
Where we are most vulnerable is seen as a hole in our armor, but the hole in the armor is where the light gets in. Stolen unashamedly from Louise Penney- author.
It’s been a long, dark winter and I mean that. It has been long and dark physically and emotionally. I don’t really know when this started with me, this feeling, this irritation, this tired. Something has been bugging me and I just didn’t know what it was, I thought that it was compassion fatigue and I guess in a way it is. I have always been opinionated and a little bullheaded but I have let things get out of hand.
Just so that this does not come across as random musings I will explain. For a while now I have been toying with the feeling that I have lost my idea of unconditional positive regard. Social work wise, this is a very important thing. It is the essence of person centered therapy and generally what you need to have in order to build a therapeutic basis for working with someone.
My problem is that lately, I have not been able to hold that with all the people I meet and work with. I think that I have confused unconditional positive regard with liking people and I don’t have to do that. More about that in future blogs, I am certain.
As always in my unfailing overly analytical brain, I keep trying to think about when it started to slide into the abyss of negatude that I disappeared into before I pulled my head out of my ass. Not that it is totally out of my ass as it is not, but at least I can see a little daylight. I can’t really think of when it was that my attitude fell out of kilter, my vision of the time frame is still foggy and I must admit that it is bothering the hell out of me.
I am usually a little cranky and more than a little sarcastic at times so it’s a little more difficult to tease out. I seemed to have lost my unconditional positive regard sometime prior to mikes hospitalization in November. I think it was sometime during the end of the summer, but I cannot be positive ( play on words – get it?).
So, now I am trying to do the inverse which is to think about when I actually had my unconditional positive regard with me at all times and I must admit it has been spotty for the past 6 months perhaps almost a year. I m trying to figure out the coming and goings of patients and people and I think I lost it around the time the Lewiston art show. Maybe it was when I was horrifically over worked or maybe it was around the time that Larry left our ranks of social work at Hospice and I could see exactly how little regard people had for everyone.
When was that? Oh yeah back in July, that’s when Larry stroked out. I can see it in my writing. I was just beginning to get a grip on my grief from the deaths I had during the winter months when the whole “model” thing at work took hold, but before then was chronic kidney problems.
I really do think that it was about the time I was hospitalized for my last kidney problem – see I wrote problem when it was really more than a “problem” it was kidney failure. Maybe it was most of last year and part of this year all ready as we are headed into May in a week or so.
I know your thinking that the time frame is not important, but I can assure you that it is. I’ve always been a little “cranky” dealing with people who are have the capacity but who do not think about the bigger picture, but generally I let it blow when I am upset and let it go and move on. I don’t know, it just seemed like I could let things go better before last year. I don’t know maybe that is wrong too. Anyway, I used to have a better sense of myself.
Last year affected me differently, this I do know because I have a greater idea of my own mortality now. I know that sounds rather absurd, I work at Hospice right? A place where there is death and dying all day every day. It is different, very different. Those deaths, that dying do not belong to me, they belong to other families and other people. I did have the experience where it belonged to me with my mother and father but that was mine on the periphery of their own and over the years I have found places for that.
This is a very different kind of mine, it belongs to me and only me, this awareness.
I know that others have awareness of their own mortality and that it true that is theirs and theirs alone, I understood that and still do, it is not something I can join where it is but only in that place where it comes to sharing it with others on that periphery. But this is mine and I am struggling with it. Realistically, why wouldn’t I- I’m only 57 on Thursday.
This reaction to it has been different, for some reason it made everything turn inside out so that I couldn’t see the stars in the night sky anymore, I could just grasp at the void in the black of night.
I am generally cautiously optimistic, it’s true, I used to look forward to things with anticipation not dread but instead of dealing with this, my mortality, I have fallen into negatude. When you throw Michael’s brush last November with mortality, you have two gaping sucking holes in the universe. Black holes, death stars, silent sucking vortices of the human spirit. I would be lying if I said that his journey has not affected mine, but I have to start with myself.
So in dealing with my own mortality I need to take some advice from that person, that social worker who goes and visits with terminally ill people and brings them some perspective when they struggle. I need to listen to the person who listens and validates their experience and give them their options.
So Cheryl, listen up – none of us knows when our time will be to leave this mortal coil, none of us. Knowing this fact and acknowledging that it is a valid feeling, the question then becomes what do you do with this time that you have? Do you get bogged down in the milieu of everyday petty nagging crap? Do you overlook the broken fence to admire the garden? Do you seek out the awesome or do you drag yourself down by concentrating on mere residue?
The great thing about the free will God has given is the ability to make choices- light or dark, unconditional positive regard or endless fault finding and brooding, understanding or willfully and recklessly disregarding and invalidating. Forgiving and forgetting or harboring the hurt – keeping the feeling and not the lesson learned.
My goal is to pull myself back up the hill to the point where I can see the stars more clearly. I may lose my grip from time to time, but I doubt that I will fall all the way back into the valley. I have a lot to do before I leave here and maybe I will get to all of it, maybe not, but I am back on the path of trying at least.
My back yard looks like hell happened and it did – but it happens every winter, not usually to this extent because it has been an unusually dark and cold winter but I have faith that it will gradually get better.
The robins are playing “tag” looking for a date to the prom and they will soon be fat with babies, some will make it and some won’t but the ones who do will feel the warmth of the sun on their backs at times and the cold wind other times but they will endure.
It is a warm day in April and I sat in the sun and let it sink into my bones today – it did me good to feel the baking heat. I spent Saturday cleaning out some flower beds and Sunday reading the paper and resting. I was pissed off at something at work today so I “played hooky” and called in sick. My only patients were transferred to our Hospice House anyway so it was not a big deal, I didn’t let anyone down. What I really needed to do was what I started a couple of weeks ago – this writing, this throwing down the thoughts and feelings – “Throwing down the bones”. It has helped – I know that it always does.
Getting back to it……I can see a pin prick in the armor now –it’s where the light is going to get in.
Peace from the Wearyempath

Carol’s Happy Birthday

Happy 80^th Birthday Carol – you are officially an Octogenarian!!!

Friday was my friend Carol’s 80^th birthday. On Saturday her family and friends celebrated with a surprise party in her honor.   You should know that not much surprises you when your 80, she had her suspicions but was very surprised at the number of people who turned out to wish her well.    Her husband Joe had to make all his plans when she was out and spent days pulling things together and did a fine job coordinating everything. This was difficult for him as he is as deaf as a post and physically not in the greatest shape.  There were about 50 friend and family who gathered to celebrate her life so far.

I’ve known Carol for about 12 years that would have put her at about 68 when we met. We worked together in a day treatment program for mentally ill people. She never went to college or grad school but she happens to be one of the better counselors I’ve worked with and know. Like my mother, the lack of a formal education sometimes nibbles at her but she knows that experience has been the better school for her and her knowledge about interpersonal relations is greater than some of the younger social workers I work with now.  She didn’t retire until about 5 years ago and by then I was working for Hospice. I should pay her for the good counsel she has given me over the years.  

I usually hear more about Carol’s family than actually see them, she is my phone buddy on the road when I am at work – I get to hear a lot about her children and their lives and I share a great deal about my Michael and of course my work and personal reflections.  I don’t want to creep her kids out here  in case they might run across this blog so listen up Carol’s kids – your mom and I are  friends, we share and you are all normal with normal ups and downs so don’t worry about it. I keep things confidential and – really nobody else could possibly care about your stuff anyway. Mike would be equally freaked out to find out that I share with your mom and I’m not so sure that he is normal and I have no reason to believe that he would ever read my blog as he doesn’t know how to turn the kindle on most days.

Anyway, three of the five children made it to her 80^th birthday party, two helped their father arrange it. The other two live out of state and couldn’t get back home for it.  She has 8 grand children, the youngest is about 17, the oldest in their mid twenties and a great grand baby and step greats as well.  Two of her grandchildren are currently serving in the military of which she is very proud and the others are in college/high school and working Connecticut, Indiana and Florida. She has always been very proud that she keeps regular contact with her out of town family. She makes sure that they know she is there for them.

Carol has lived an interesting life, but I don’t think she realizes that she has had what would be considered a remarkable life  –  although it is. It has been a life that had taken her as a young bride across the Atlantic to be with her service man husband in England where she had her first child-to traveling to Indiana to be a special part of her grandchildren’s life and at home with her friends and family in Lockport.  

Imagine someone so young being in a foreign country facing the most pivotal time in her life. She comes from a broken home in a time when broken homes weren’t so prevalent. She has overcome what would be insurmountable situations for the average person.  She had a lot of sadness and pain growing up but never let it taint her. She has had a number of foster children and worked as a counselor and group facilitator for people with developmental disabilities and mental health diagnosis and provided activities for elderly folks at a nursing home.  

She is an artist and home remodeler – proud pet owner, a builder, seamstress, caregiver and friend. There are probably some things I’ve left out, she is a get it done kind of person.  She is all of these things with a love of life that is unparalleled. People generally cannot guess her age -they usually fall about 20 years short.

She is 80 years old and her children don’t even know how lucky they are to still have her with them. I do.  I know what it is like to lose someone with whom you have held great counsel. They have never had to be without her if not physically then by the phone for empathic ear and careful advice and I wonder if they have ever considered that – I guess maybe one or two do but it would be typical for them to not know what they have until it is gone.

There are more times lately that she speaks her mind with them more than they want to hear ( she speaks her mind with me as well )  but I think she might feel a sense of urgency – I’m thinking that she thinks that she still has work to do with all of us and she does, we will never be finished in her mind, because she doesn’t consider herself finished. This is not a bad thing to always strive – for Carol it is part of her character.

What I really wish she would do is sit down and really write what she has experienced. She has so much to share with the others about how to cope in a world that doesn’t always meet our expectations. She is at the end of the day all about her home, love, life, faith and hope.

I hope and pray that she is around for many more years and I know that this is greedy of me but too bad, I’m not that evolved.  Most of all I hope that her life continues to be  all of what it is – the ups and downs, lefts and rights all of the things that she has come to expect in this world. She truly believes that you have to open yourself to whatever comes your way each day and be thankful for the opportunity. That kind of gratitude and strength are forged from a life well lived – not a perfect life – but one of small perfections each day and faith.

Happy Birthday Friend – thank you.

Peace from the Weary Empath.

 

 

 

Cat Puke In My Purse -February Was Wonderful For Me – How About You!

Moving at a glacial pace – sometimes I forget how painfully slow Michael can be- unless he has something he wants to do then we move at Starfleet speed – gracefully hurling through the black holes of time. I don’t think that this is a problem specifically related to Michael, if I understand other women in their comments regarding this phenomenon –  it is a Y chromosome problem.

Carol, my friend says, “Leave without him.”

I know why she says that, because I endlessly complain about the aspects of his being which disturbs me the most at the time I am complaining. This is most unfair to her because she gets to feel all the pain and doesn’t get any of the benefit of the relationship and there are benefits. He’s been in the shower for close to a half hour now and then it will take him about 20 minutes to get dressed and then he will have to sit for about 10 minutes – just to compose himself.

He has been out of the house about 5 times since he returned on November 30^th last year and today is February 22, 2014. His outings have been very brief, to the Dr., to the store twice and I believe he came along once for a ride because he was bored.

Getting back to my friend Carol, I should stop complaining to her about Michael, but then that leaves blogging about it and stressing others about my relationship which is equally unfair to people who don’t know that my ranting is my way to get it out of my system and does not mean that I am going to throw away a ten year relationship.

I do have to admit in the shadow of last November when Mike was in the hospital for 22 days, my spirit on his comeback trail has been tested. There have been many times I questioned whether our relationship was going to make it through. I still have some doubts on some days. But that’s because the weary empathy is tired, yes tired – very tired.

I need a vacation, not like last year where my vacation was spent with a urinary infection and nurse maiding Michael.

I need a real vacation, from listening to people’s problems and helping them through solutions. I need my ears to rest and just listen to music or the sound of nature. I need to stop talking too and just be silent.

Sometime in April I will vacation, but probably just to clean out my blue room full of junk – so don’t take the vacation thing too seriously folks – I’m not really a vacationy kind of person, I’ve tried, I always make them more work –  so on to the rest of it.

I’m for the first time giving up some things for lent. One of them is the F word, because I realize that I use the word too much. On local television the other night they were showing how service people spouses use technology to keep face to face with their loved ones and a wife with a newborn was sitting in front of the computer with the child who has never been seen or held by his services man father who then walked into the room behind her and what did she scream out – yep – F……!

I have to stop using the F word.

It’s been a rather crappy month- I tried to start the whole telling of it in another start of a blog but my computer – the one I use for work got some sort of problem and I couldn’t connect to the mother ship so I got a loaner. I had to put all my stuff that I normally have on hand onto a data key and now I am too lazy to go and get it to start over.

The reason we had to get going this morning was so that I could go and get my car from the body shop. I drive a 2004 Chevy Monte Carlo into which a deer decided to take aim two Saturdays ago. That was the week from hell followed by another week and another and another. Hopefully March will be less hell like, but I am simply not counting on anything.

They gave me a loaner Volkswagen Jetta and it was murderous on my body. It was a nice car and all but not at all like the full size I am used to and no power whatsoever. It was spunky but no power.

I finally got my butt in gear and pulled out the zip drive, but only because I had to email the march on call schedule to the scheduler. Which brings me to my original blog…………

I thought that the cat puke in my purse was the perfect end to my week on Sunday night last weekend. I’m so naïve – there was more to come.

I was on call Superbowl Sunday, one of those twenty four hour  on call deals. Mike and I had been invited out to a Superbowl party and I had told him that I was on call and that it might not be a good idea to go. Not that he felt like going anyway as he has not been able to feel better since he came home from the hospital after Thanksgiving last year.

So I was right in not going, just as the kickoff was caught – I got a phone call to go to a patients home because he was non-responsive and the family was not doing well emotionally. The next call I got was to go to the hospital because the patient’s family called 911. This is the kind of thing that happens when the family is either not well prepared or one of those families who really should not be in the program because they are not ready to let go.

So off to the hospital I went. I sat with the family as the patient snored loudly and I explained that he really did not seem like he was end staging, just sleeping. The nurse had all ready explained that the hospitalization was not going to be covered by our program. I told the staff that if they kept him it would not be within our plan of care and they admitted him.

I should back this up a bit, super bowl Sunday was the first of my7 days of on call.  I should also say that seven days is broken by two days in the middle of it being taken by another worker – so it’s not bad, it’s the weekends usually, but not this week.

I got the family settled and went home around 10pm to write the clinical note, the game was pretty much over. I got ready for work the next day.  No calls through the night which surprised the hell out of me because I figured the flood gate was open.

The next day I talked to the social worker who handles that hospital and she had to go and see the family. It was explained to them again that it was non program and to the hospital again who said that it was our admission. I ended up having to return to the hospital that night to go over the options with the family. So I spent another two hours on this and they decided to revoke from the program, which in all fairness they should never have been in to begin with – they are never going to buy into the plan of care – no matter what lip service they give.

That was on call day two.

On call day three, I got a call at 11 pm that a patient was being belligerent and not taking his medication and the nurse that was there needed help. Off I went and after two hours finally drove home in a snow storm. I went to work the next morning only to return to the office after one visit because the weather was so bad I couldn’t see 50 feet in front of me.  I don’t mind going out and doing home care visits in harsh weather but in a blizzard???

I wish I could say that the place that employs me has a care in the world about my health but they do not and to say they might is a lie. I wish I could also say that the county in which I live gives a rip about the safety of their residents but that to would be a lie. Because of the bad winter and all the snow and ice they are running out of funding so they simply do not plow or salt until the storm is over – this time they even pulled trucks off the road.

Fortunately I had two people who cancelled visits. One might have been somewhat coerced but the other was valid. It took me 45 minutes to get back to the office from where I was, it’s usually a 15 minute trip. The snow was blowing so hard and creating drifts in the road and ruts from poor unfortunate souls like me who had to be out and about in it. Any way I did not realize I was following a tractor trailer about 50 feet in front of me until – yikes – he turned in front of me.

I did not get called out on Friday – a minor miracle – but on Saturday I had a visit all ready scheduled to talk with a patient’s family about alternate plan of care. Thankfully after my meeting at the patient’s home in Lockport, I got called again to my Tuesday night guy, this time a little more serious. So they thought he was a threat to others and called me. I sat with him and the nurse for about three hours with the nurse trying to get calls back from doctors. The patient was only a danger to his family at this time because they kept messing with his medications and he knew it. Our medical director not trusting the fact that I am a Master of Social Work decided to send this poor guy for a psych evaluation. There was really no  way that I was just going to let someone over 80 go to the mental ward by himself – so I went too. The goal was to get him to our facility I got to his house at 1pm and left our facility around 1030pm.

Nice on call – I double billed once for at home and once for the hospital but still my rate per hour on that on call was about $7 dollars per hour but I did the right thing.

And no good deed goes unpunished as when I drove home exhausted from the day on snowy roads – I hit a deer!

The first time since I started driving 40 years ago – I hit a freakin’ deer. Thankfully, the damage stayed low, in that it didn’t go through my windshield, which could have happened. I was only going about 40 mph because of the snow and technically the deer hit me. It scampered off into the night – I ended up with $1,500 damage.  ARRRRRRRR.

So I thought great, what next – and found out. During the night the snow plow had taken down my mail box and left mail strewn all over the road.  I worked on getting the old mail box off the bar and then mike and I reattached it. We also went shopping earlier in the day and I didn’t get called out on Sunday at all and it was my last day on call! However, I went looking for my air card for work to charge it up around 10pm and reached in my purse to find that my kitten had puked in my Vera Bradley purse.

EAhhhhhhhh.

With the exception of falling on the ice outside of the office on Thursday this blog sums up my February. Bring it on March! Hmmm sounds incredibly tough doesn’t it – like I’m almost prepared for the worst? Well, I’ll let you know how that works out.

Peace from the Wearyempath.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Pajama time everyone….

I’m afraid I love my pajamas entirely too much. It’s dangerous and addictive this longing I have to come home and immediately put on my pajamas and curl up on the couch. It could be that the temperature has not gone above 10  all day, and that it has been this cold for about 5 days and will be for 5 days more, but now that I think about it, I was loving my summer pajamas too much as well.  I actually have a picture of myself on the back porch with my summer jammies and a corduroy shirt over them. There is something a bit odd about getting your jammies on and going out and sitting in the screened tent.  

I found the wonderful feeling of sleeping pants a couple of years ago when my friend Carol gave me a pair for Christmas. I was at the time stuck on  wearing oversized night shirts to bed, cotton preferably,which would unfortunately shrink to size of a postage stamp and I would have to wear a bathrobe because my hinny would be showing. When I got the sleep pants I remember thinking, I don’t wear pants to bed what the hell am I going to do with these?  That was until I wore them one cold night. I discovered that  they are heaven on earth. So that winter I bought a couple more pairs and just used short sleeve tops. I have heated mattress pad so I am very comfortable at night. I know you are supposed to sleep cold, but if I sleep cold, I don’t really sleep. I hate waking up cold.

The switch in the summer to matching PJs was after I was hospitalized in March and when I asked Mike to bring me some pajamas he brought me one of the undersized sleeping shirts. It was the hanging out at the hospital in front of the son of the patient in the next bed that did it for me forever with the night shirts. When I returned home, I threw them all out and bought about 6 pair of short and top set PJs for the summer.  I love my summer “jammies” as much as I love my winter ones but the winter PJs get more of a work out.

I have a tendency on the weekends to stay in my PJs and not get dressed on Saturday at all, unless I have to go somewhere.  It takes me a whole day to feel normal anyway. For example it snowed all day today and the wind was howling on the hill above me. I went out exactly twice, once to feed the birds and the second time to get the paper and mail. I actually put my clothes on over the pajamas because I was cold and too lazy to change and then change back again.

So why do I need the pajamas so badly? It’s a sense of comfort I think a letting loose so that I can be me and relax and don’t have to be professional on the edge of my seat leaning in, listening , listening, listening.  Although often Michael thinks I’m fair game because I’m sitting in the living room – listening. But I know what they are what they represent; they create a separation from that me -the social worker and the other me the tired me who just wants to read, eat and write a little. I need that separation without it I would lose my mind.

I have had off of on call for the last three weekends and they have been blissful. Reading, sleeping, writing, cooking – a little- doing very little of the have to do things, so little in fact I am a little behind in house cleaning. I did take the Christmas tree down but the box is still in the blue room waiting to go down stairs. I have done the dishes and laundry but that is really bare bones minimum. I have showered and of course changed my pajamas.

I really think that I may be thinking too much about my pajamas for now, but it is cold and snowy and really I can’t think of a reason to do anything else but stay in them. I wish they would have a pajama day at work, like they do in schools. How many times have my caregivers or patients said to me, “I’m sorry I’m not dressed”, to which I reply, “If I were home I would be in my pajamas”. This is the absolute truth.

Not much to talk about social work wise. Things at work have been absolutely ridiculous and therefore I have to process before I write.  I will probably write it out, that is how I process things usually and I will do that before I put it out there and maybe I will just not write about it specifically at all, but generalize the recent happenings.  I took a new hire nurse out on an orientation visit on Friday and I am still reeling from it and what happened during the visits. To say the least, it was eye opening. More on all this soon……

I’ve got my pajamas, now if I could only sleep more, but that’s another story.

Peace from the Wearyempath – stay warm – get your pajamas on!