It's a reflecting back on the last year kind of day.

A year ago, John and I made his last trip to the farm.  Dian was on vacation, the grass needed mowing and the garden tending.  Today, I made that same trip, for the same reason, but this time alone.

Looking back to that trip, as crazy as it made me, I now see it as a watershed moment in my life.  It opened my eyes as to how sick he really was and to the fact that he couldn't be left alone anymore.  I had to make some decisions and quickly, as September was staring me right in the face.  How could I go back to school?  Well, we know how that turned out.  John is fully into stage 4 of a 5 stage disease. There's no predicting how long stage 5 will last.  If anybody thinks they can tell you, they're full of you know what.  The very nature of LBD is it's unpredictability.

The very nature of life is it's unpredictability.  This has been a year of loss.  Not just John to the nursing home, but more tragically, my dear nephew, Tim.  Then there's the "STUFF" like the cabin, finances, my life....meh.  Whatever.  It's stuff.  Buddhism teaches you that suffering comes from attachment.  Try not to get attached to "STUFF"....

But it's been a year of great gains for me as well.  I have found strength and acceptance.  To be sure, you take life day by day.  Shoot, at the nursing home, things can change in a heart beat, so taking it minute by minute when I'm there is the path to peace.  One minute he's calm and sweet and the next minute he's threatening me with a tootsie pop.

Understanding the role humor truly plays in my life has also been a gain.  Where would I have been this year without that 9th graders' sense of humor?  When he's got a latex glove on his foot or his shoes don't match and they're on the wrong feet....then there's the stuff I won't publish, but crack me up as well.

Allowing myself to grieve has only really just started this summer.  I think it took awhile because I've just been too caught up in dealing with all of the busy stuff of caring for him and working.  I think saying goodbye to the cabin in June opened the flood gates.  And they're not just moments either.  Pity parties like that take a while to kick all the guests out.  Shoo!!!  GO HOME!!!!

Centering myself in prayer and meditation takes awhile.  But fixing my heart and head on what needs to be done to live this life abundantly as God would have us do is my to-do list.  Each and every day.

I hope that you, too, can find peace and understanding....

It was an Every which way but loose kind of day

I'm not even sure where to begin this post. Last night, John was trying to convince shoes to jump up into his lap and got mad when they wouldn't. Then this a.m, as I was trying to get him into the shower, he got so mad at me, I really thought he would hurt me. I threatened to call 911 and have him hauled away. God bless his heart, he stopped and came back to apologize. And tonight I stopped him from running down the hall in the condo in just his underwear - he had to go upstairs to go to bed. He thinks he's back at the house.

We spent the afternoon with his LBD doc at Mayo. The Doc was shocked at John's decline in the last three weeks. That's putting it mildly for me. I've gone from a semi-functioning, semi-rational adult, to a 3 year old. That would be John, not me.

My intention going down there was to have him hospitalized to pull him off of all drugs. But the good doc convinced me to just pull him off the anti-depressant and the anti-psychotic and do it in a hospital. YES!!!!! But to look for any underlying causes first. While we were there, I found a lump in his neck. Could be muscle, could be lymph node - whatever, it needs to be explored.

So. I left this morning with my gut tied up in knots. Is this a sign that maybe there are other angles to consider? Does our gut act as our conscience? Is it God's way of kicking us and saying keep your mind open? The truth is, and anybody who knows me real well will tell you this, I cannot on purpose hurt another creature without a purpose - like butchering turkeys and ducks, cleaning fish - purpose there, I eat those things. But to kill a mouse? Nope. I'm still second guessing having put our cat down at the start of summer. So how am I to start the process of letting John go, knowing the torment that this will cause him???

I've longed believed that the medical community plays God at a time when we should hand over that role to where it belongs. I believed it when my dad died; I especially believed it when my mother-in-law died after they did experimental surgery after experimental surgery while she was dying of liver cancer. Hospice at least let her rest. There was a point with her when we might have prolonged her life a while longer with a Vitamin K shot, but it would've been for our benefit, not hers. I so wanted her to see the baby - she died a week before Nick was born. So obviously, we opted not to give her the shot. She was ready to go. She'd had a stroke while in my arms a few days before she died. She was more worried for me than for her. God bless her.

Letting go and letting God has it's downside and it's slapping me in the face pretty hard right now. So, I think my gut was saying there were too many "What if's" still to explore. When we've exhausted those, will the answer be any easier?

It was a call your bluff kind of day....

So this morning, I waxed poetically about not protecting John anymore. Who was I kidding?

I had all of Dian's cats in the house yesterday which was good, because I promised to bring home two of them. Those guys are escape artists and once they're out, forget about tracking them down until they're good and ready to come in.

In the back of my mind, I know that if I'm smart, I need to kennel the two we're bringing home so that John doesn't let them out, except, that's a long time in the kennel before we leave. Well, guess what - John opens the door and two get out. One of which needs to stay in.

I scolded him about it. He said he wasn't aware of this, yet I had told him of it. The next thing I know, he is climbing up the rails of the deck to leap off and catch a cat which wasn't there. I yelled at him to get down from there and get back into the house and stay there. So much for not protecting him anymore.

Which maybe I should have let him jump? Maybe I should have let him pull the keys out of the ignition too. No..instinct does take over.

But, that wasn't really the protection I meant, was it? I meant, if I need to leave him alone, I'll leave him for an hour or two. But will I take him back to the farm? Not a chance. Not because he is a danger to himself and me, but because I was so upset by the time I got that the fun I had was wiped out.

Where do we find love?

Today is a "find a nursing home" kind of day. I came home from settling my son into his new digs in another town last night. John's older kids had been baby sitting him while I was gone.

John no longer knows who he is. In his words "John Marsh left because he was too afraid. My new i.d. hasn't been assigned yet." Well, who assigns these things? "Those people." There are people all over the condo that he is hiding from and trying to escape from.

My heart wants to keep him home. My head knows that's an insane mission. My heart wants to keep the cabin. My head also knows that's an insane mission.

So where do I find the right action to take? I believe in love and I believe in duty. I love my husband with all of my heart, but in his words, John ain't here. So who do I love? This shell who lives here, shares my bed, is scared of his own shadow?

Where is duty in all of this? Duty to whom? Meem? When saving someone, don't make a second victim?

True love is the ability to put someone else's life before yours. Where does that fit?

It appears I have more questions than answers.