Embrace The Suck

When something bad happens, you have three choices.  You can either let it define you,  destroy you,  or you can let it strengthen you. Maria I can hear the clinking of pills falling into their plastic holes, like horses being loaded into the starting gate at Pimlico. Across the hall Sweetie is filling his pill case for the week. Mostly I don't pay any attention. He takes care of his meds and I take care of mine. Except for ever-changing lists of meds neither one of us can even pronounce. Dammit. F*!#K! It wasn't the words but the frustration in his voice that startled me. What's wrong? I dropped the damn pills. I can't hold these little ones. Need some help? No. I can do it. A few minutes later, job completed, my love came into the room with tears in his eyes. Are you crying? I'm just so damn frustrated, he says as he plops his head down on my tummy like a pillow - his go to comfort spot. From this position I can rub/scratch his head, should...

Well now; I am blessed with two sons and two daughters. My youngest (42) lives in Jax. A son and two daughters live in NY State. My oldest is 53, next is 2 years younger and next is 1 year younger. I know if I have the ages wrong, I'll hear about it. I called and spoke to the NY contingents to mixed reviews. Sorry to sad. My youngest and I had lunch. A fete in itself as he has a lot of work to do. Although he and his family live across town we see each other rarely. Our cats and dogs set off allergies in them and the stay on the go. (Cats in the cradle sort of arrangement.) Today we sat and talked at length. Everything for ALZ to grand child to work to whatever. Then we went out for hamburgers. Things I didn't know: the problems he has with his stomach, the different medicines he takes, the adjustment he went through with a new baby, just how level headed he is, and his perception of me. I was both floored and blown away. I had no idea. We parted making a pact to see each other...

As I said in my last post, it's hard to be grateful when a big pile of poopoo is dumped into your life. While I was waiting at a rather long red light this afternoon, I pondered that idea a little bit. What is poopoo, I asked myself, but fertilizer? And what do you do with fertilizer? You grow things! Sweetie tells the story of the time he bought 2 rabbits for his son. He built a rabbit hutch in the back yard for them. It wasn't long before he noticed that the grass growing under the hutch was thick and green. I believe he contemplated a whole herd of rabbits.  Maybe one day we'll write a book about our Alzheimer's journey. We'll call it The Grass is Always Greener Under the Rabbit Hutch, and hope there's as much humor in it as Erma Bombeck put in her book of a similar title. The really cool thing is it's already happening. The fertilizer is already making things look better. I told some friends today about Sweetie's diagnosis. Almost immediately my in...

I remember back in the 50's or 60's a song about I'm The One, a native son or something. Mary said I am the 1 in 9 who has ALZ. That's the connection. Gotta go to You Tube and look it up. I think it was a Bobbie Darin Song. WOW! About a year ago Mary and I went in to talk with my primary Doc. I showed him a list of symptoms for ALZ. and stated I had every one of them. He said they were the same symptoms for sleep apnea. So we got another C-PaP machine and tried it for a couple months YUK! Set that aside and went to a Neurologist who gave me some cognitive tests in his office and thought it was great I answered 30 out of 30 memory questions. Over the next few months I was in and out of Dr's. offices, tested, advised and had to fight with the insurance company over CAT scans PET scans and such. 3 months ago I had a CAT scan of my brain. Two days ago I was told the scan showed my brain had lost mass on both sides, an indicator of ALZ. Another lobe on the back of my br...

I went to google to find a quote to start off this post - Inspirational Alzheimer's quotes. I scrolled through a few pages of quotes about Alzheimer's Disease, but none of them felt inspirational. Seriously? I don't think Alheimer's Disease and Inspirational quite go together. Perhaps because I'm still a bit numb. My whole body is asleep, but that prickly, tingly burning feeling is rocketing around my nervous system like a pin ball on tilt. (I think that's a mixed metaphor but you get the picture, right?) Alzheimer's Disease. According to Alzheimer's.net  : 1 in 9 Americans over 65 has Alzheimer's.  On Tuesday we found out that my Sweetie is the one. Alzheimer's Disease. Like cancer, car accidents, rape, serial killers, or a bunch of other things, something that happens to other people, not you, or me, as the case may be. Only it does. It wasn't a great surprise. Sweetie knew there's been something off for nearly a year. Bu...

I don't know why, but I feel like crying. I must be feeling scared. Tonight is our very informal Chat Noir Writer's Circle 2015 recital. I'm reading a story about not being afraid . How's that for irony. There is no reason to be afraid. There is no place or group of people where I feel safer. Still, my stomach is kind of grumbly, and I'm kind of teary eyed. Except when I'm at work, I spend a lot of time in bed. Not always asleep, but a lot. There's a lot of change a foot. Guess who doesn't like change. Yesterday, I took Bella to a new park. At first she didn't like it cause there weren't any other kids there. Then Leah and her brother showed up. Leah was 6 and a half years old and wore the very same pink Frozen shirt that Bella was wearing. That was all Bella needed. She followed Leah around the whole park. She watched as Leah climbed on top of the slide, stood in the notch of a tree, swung really high and jumped from the sw...

I get a newsletter from the Abbey of the Arts. This week's edition has rekindled thoughts of crossing new thresholds. I got off track in my writing about thresholds. I failed to see anything, anyone or anywhere new on the horizon. Could it be that even though I fail to see it, there is still change afoot? Sweetie and I are coming closer and closer to saying "yes" to the task of selling this house and moving. Talk about new thresholds. Do you remember playing Mother May I when you were a kid? To sell the house I grew up in and came back to is like asking, "Mother May I take a giant step into the big unknown." Only I'm not asking anyone for permission and no one is giving me a new set of "orders" like the Navy did for 20 years. This time  If  w hen I move, it will be because the time has come to let go of the hold the past has on me. Decision making does not come easy for me. Even as I cried and fought most every move I ever made, I knew deep d...

It's Mother's Day. People on FB are posting pictures and sending wishes to moms everywhere. I'm a mom, a grandmom and great grand mom. I get what it's all about. So why am I feeling so pissy and whiney? Why do I want to slam my computer shut and not look at the happy Facebook images? Maybe it has something to do with my mom not being here. With the fact that I can't remember what she smelled like or what her laugh sounded like or what it felt like to hold her hand as she crossed from this world to the next. Somehow in death my mother has become even smaller than she was in life, still lost in my father's shadow. Reminders of my mom don't come as easily as they once did. I'm embarrassed by that. Ashamed. Nude bathing suit, Pikaki leis Red hibiscus behind her ear Red chiffon Christmas dress dinner parties Chicken curry with 21 condiments Martini on the rocks Knitting and crocheting teaching me to sew, silently watching me lay out quilt ...