Semi Apology

This is a semi apology for not posting much of interest to anyone other than immediate family tracking the status of my parents. The journey through the end of their lives has proven more tough than I expected. I find myself swideswiped, gobsmacked, exhausted and overwhelmed by turns.

Up until a few months ago, it seemed I was coping well and maintaining interests in varied things. The last two months I have found myself not coping so well. I go into hibernation it seems whenever things become overwhelming.

Joe's recent health crises seem never ending. There's been no slow decline to end of life with him. It's been crises after crises and battle after battle that simply seem to go on with no end. Nothing with him has been critical, OMG this is awful. It's been dashes to the hospital with barely a definitive diagnosis. It's been battles to find a bed in a nursing home. It's been battles to find a nursing home that could handle him. It's been battles over his personality combined with his dementia and needing a locked, secure setting. It's been notifications of end of Medicare payments intertwined with his ups and downs of needing skilled care one day and not the next day.

Lola's decline has been just as serious though much less dramatic. She now shows almost no will to get up out of bed and has to be forced to do so. She lives in the pictures of the prime of her life and has no working knowledge of the present. She has to be prodded to pick up her fork to eat her meals, to go to the bathroom, to drink enough fluids, and to go to bed. Her life consists of getting up from bed to go to her chair in the living room, turning the TV onto the classic movie channel and going to bed when I force her to. The best that can be said at this point is at least she's not bedridden.

So it seems I've dug in my heels and am existing. Doing the necessary for the moment and not much more seems to be my limit. I look at their house and belongings and think of weeding through things and needing to pack up keepers and shudder. I look at winterizing the house and shudder. I look at the paperwork that needs sorting and shudder. I daydream of my own house surrounded by my own belongings and being with my own husband.