Life goes on, doesn't it?

Seven weeks since my son passed away.  My life stopped for a moment.  But there's been time to heal.  Time to move on.  I had been so worried about my other son and he finally came around.  We spent a few days together creating a small memorial garden for the son who had died.  We painted a bench, put up some decorative fencing, added huge stones, some gravel and a lot of plants.  I had previously made fairy gardens in a little red wagon and in a child's sized wheelbarrow and we moved them into the memorial garden.  We planted a dozen "forget-me-nots" and then painted a rock that said, "forget-me-not."

My son sat on the bench and cried his heart out. We had a private memorial...just the 2 of us.  It was all quite healing.  And it was good to see my son coming out of his grief.

Hubby has been quite compassionate and "normal". Oh - he is having plenty of lows and these days, when he starts to go low, he goes dead white so it's easier to recognize them.  He had one today.  He didn't give himself any insulin this morning as his sugars were at 110.  He had breakfast.  But at 2 pm, he was white as a sheet.  So we ate.  And then he was fine.

This just tells me that his glucose is still completely out of control.  But at least I recognized it today. His attitude has been in check for the most part.  His labs are not good, but they haven't declined in the last 2 months.  OK, that's not entirely true.  They seem to go down by 1 point each time he takes them which is monthly now.  So in a year, we will look back and see what the overall changes have been.  I swear the guy will eat 4 ice cream drumsticks a day!

And don't get me wrong.  We have had our arguments, fights, battles....mostly over his glucose levels.  And his diet.  And his A1C.  He thinks if it's at 9 and it stays at 9, he's doing great.  I think I've gotten to the point where I just roll my eyes when he says something like that!

I still want to escape, to run away, to buy an RV and just travel anywhere but here.  However I have noticed something in the past month....he wants to go everywhere I go.  If I run to the bank, post office and grocery....he will go with me and sit in the car.  Today we drove and hour to get to a shop I wanted to go to.  He sat in the car.  I asked him why.  He said, "it's just as easy for me to sit in the car as it is to sit at home and I'm not alone."  I have to wonder if he's starting to get afraid to be alone.  He has often said that his biggest fear is that he will die alone.

And all I want to do is to be alone!  LOL!

We have completed all of the paperwork on palliative care.  We are waiting for the doctor to sign off on it and the nurse to return it.  Have I written about that?  Palliative care is fairly new.  If he goes into a coma from a glucose low or high I do not call 911.  I leave him where he is and if he doesn't come out within 30 minutes, I call palliative care.  They will send a nurse out to the house and set up hospice care.  If he wakes up, that ends until the next episode.  But I am off the hook and do not have to call 911.

It had become a burden to me because he has always said that he doesn't want me to call 911.  But I feel there's a responsibility that I shoulder....that I would not be able to explain why I didn't make that phone call if he died.  Now....I have the paperwork that says I'm not to call 911.  And that helps.

I was totally set back that he checked the block that he doesn't want any assistance at all.  There was a separate block for tube feeding and he even declined that.  I'm not so sure I agree with that but it is his choice.  He probably wouldn't last long with no feeding, no fluids, no assist at all.  As I understand it, we are among the first (and probably the few) who are setting this into place.  But he has spoken at length with his doctor, the nurse and me and this is what he wants.  At least I no longer have to struggle with the responsibility of making a call.  (Yet I still think the automatic reflex is to pick up the phone and dial 911, so we will see how I do in the event something happens.)

I have gotten back to my art classes, to some genealogy research, and my days seem to be flying by.  I ignore most of the hiccups that get in my way and just trudge along.  Life does go on, even when you think it had stopped....it was just for a moment.

DW