Embrace The Suck

Today marks the 4 week mark since my fall. 4 down. 4 more to go before my toes get to touch Mother Earth again. I can't exactly explain what the difference is, but I think my toes feel different. Maybe not so swollen. So numb. I take this as a sign of good things to come. My knee is still "asleep". On the ALZ front, we got some interesting information. Sweetie saw a new doctor (old doctor left). After the routine round of questions and memory tests, Dr. Huang said, in a way not quite as condescending as it sounds way, "you know, there's no definitive way to tell if a person has ALZ. No scans or tests tell the full story. If you want you can say you have dementia, not ALZ." Neither Sweetie nor I knew whether to feel comforted or bamboozled. You mean maybe Sweetie doesn't have ALZ and we've been depressed and angry for no reason? The thing is everything we've been told from day one is true. Sweetie has several conditions (diabetes, sleep ...

Clang goes the cat dish. Mary throws off covers and fills the dish. She is just back in bed and a cat starts to vomit a sound we are familiar with, great. Now we are both up in bed looking for the cat. No Cat. "Is it Buddy" Mary asks? I'm out of bed and the end cover is lifted off the crate and sure enough, vomit on the pillow and cage end. I open the door and urge Buddy to come out. He sits there and yawns big at me. "Come out of there," I said in what I am sure was a very pleasant voice at 6:30  AM. Another yawn. Jack in door way, dog in crate. A stand off. Not really, Buddy has now reclined. Mary exits bed, in the wheel chair comes around to Buddy's crate. All sweetness and light she says "Buddy, kiss kiss kiss."  Buddy rolls his eyes and looks at both of us as if we are crazy. At 6:50 AM Mary and I look at each other, helpless in this stand off. OK, I reach in and tug on Buddy's collar. He does not resist and we are not headed down th...

I'm sitting in my recliner. Sweetie within arms reach sits in his. Buddy sleeps on my lap. The ceiling fan hums, stirring up stale air. I'm struck by the quiet, Tears fill my eyes. I relax into the stillness while it lasts. Shhh, Merry ME

since last I sat down to blog, So let's see; Buddy has grown a lot, had some more shots and in general is getting better with toilet training. Mary has fallen, broke her ankle, is in a cast, and gets around the house with the aid of either a wheeled chair or walker contraption. The chair is the easier of the two. Healing seems to be a minor role to attitude. Not a surprise to know how much she dislikes being incapacitated. Can't keep her out of the kitchen or from doing things around the house which I can easily handle. The kindness of friends and neighbors is amazing. Food deliveries, visiting, get well cards, flowers, packages of goodies and books, Mary is well Loved. Looking into the refrigerator is heartening. I've never seen it so full. Nor have I ever had so many choices, friends and neighbors are great cook's. With everything available to us, we both have been eating less. Mary dining in her recliner, me at the kitchen table. Rationally I knew Mary was ...

“Solitude is the soul’s holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others  and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.” Katrina Kennison When I was a kid playgrounds had merry-go-rounds where you held onto a bar, ran around in a circle to get up speed, then jumped up on the spinner where you sat in a dizzying state as the wheel slowed down. You couldn't do much more than hold on. The point of the ride, was to do it over and over again, letting each spin fill you with a weird sense of freedom. Especially if an adult or big kid was doing the spinning. There were also times, as in life, you'd fall, legs splayed out behind you caught in the rut beneath the wheel, unless or until you let go of the bar. Then you limped home for a combo treatment of stinging, red mecuricome and a chocolate chip cookie. All of us have spent time on that metaphorical merry go round. Either by our own choosing or at the hands of a mad twirler with no sense that things were beginnin...