Oooops...

It's not tomorrow.  My week was sooo busy and so sad.  My big brother went to see Jesus on the 9th of this month.  He was 82 and struggling with dementia. Bill had been a highly thought of family practice doctor for all his working life.  He graduated from Baylor in Houston, where he met his wife of 55 years, Mary Ann. They decided that where they needed to start their life was in Ft. Worth, TX, because it was halfway between parents... hers being in Houston and his being in Okla. City, OK.  That made it easier when the babies came for the grandparents, aunts and uncles to be involved in their lives. All us 6 kids were spread out over 17 years so my big brother was 14 years older than me and therefore was almost more of a father figure, especially for me and my baby brother.  I went down to Ft. Worth and stayed with Ben (baby brother) and his wife Diane and we kept ourselves busy enough to not be crying all week.  We had lots of stories to swap and laugh about over the years so there was a lot of joy and celebration of Bill's life to share. As soon as I figure out again how to transfer photos I will photo bomb you all with photos that I love of my big brother and my family... but meanwhile, back to the story.

Senility runs in our family, on our mother's side and we are all aware that it can hit any of us.  It was so frustrating to Bill because he was uber aware of what was happening but was unable to stop the progression and for a doctor that was such a hard pill to swallow (pun intended). When he had his good days he loved to pop his funny jokes and tease like he always had done but his bad days were filled with depression, sadness and tears, wanting to go home. Anyone who has dealt with senility, dementia or Alzheimer's or whatever name you give it understands the frustration and pain associated with the disease, not only for the patient but also for the caretakers. It is a roller coaster ride like no other. You learn to cherish the good times and try to bury the bad times. I am so thankful that I went down and stayed with Bill for 9 days in October while his wife (who is also 82) went for a reunion with about a dozen friends from high school days.  Had I not had that time with him the loss of my brother would have been much harder on me.  Each of us sibs know from our mom that none of us wants to go that way.  While physical pain is not a part of the equation, the mental anguish of being aware of what is happening to them in the beginning is so scary.  Not in the traditional sense of scary but scary in the sense of is "it" starting to happen to me? The only way we have all learned to deal with the possibility of 'being next' is to joke about it.  Like Carol used to joke that she was going to rent me out to the neighbors because I was so good at pulling weeds but we would have to tie me to a tree so I wouldn't wander off.  Things like that.  Kind of like the movie and t.v. show Mash. You make jokes to deal with the pain and destruction that is going on in our head.

Hate to stop on this note, but I've gone about as far as I can go without a brain rest.  I will be back!

I Think It's A Sign...

I think it's a sign that I need to start blogging again...  Face Book has determined that I am a non-entity. I have been locked out and blanked out of the games, off of friends lists and the Good Lord only knows what I might have done to screw up my account. So since even I, the game player, need to talk sometimes and I have been silent too long so we need to play catch up.

So much has happened in the last year that I will have to figure where to start. My depression pretty much got out of hand for a variety of reasons and then I started having palsy in my hands and when I would try to type I would uncontrollably hit the key several times and it would just frustrate the dickens out of me and certainly didn't help the depression, feeling like all I was doing was forever correcting myself and I had enough people in my life criticizing what ever I was doing. I hit bottom. Period.

I didn't want to do anything more than was absolutely necessary. I quit caring for myself physically and mentally. I just didn't give a shit. All I wanted to do was sleep. My poor dogs were so patient with me.

I finally sought professional help and started taking anti-depressants. It's taken a while but I am finally starting to feel like myself again, albeit off and on.

Some of the other things that have happened in the last year...I had to put my sweet Chloe down last May I believe. I'm real sketchy when it comes to dates. I was packing to move to low income apartments since Carol and her sister were moving to Broken Arrow and blew a compression fracture, T-7 or T-8 I don't remember now which one but I had to move by July 1st so I was so drugged up that I am still finding things that were put up in my apartment by friends, but thank God for friends that were kind enough to help. I was already in a world of hurt with my back and Carol moving away and would have even been more so if I hadn't had friends to help me.

SueSue and I got moved in and I spent most of my time playing on Face Book and basically watching the world go by. The only time I got out was to walk SueSue because we have no fenced yard, go to the grocery and to doctor appointments. My family doc sent me to a back specialist, he had the MRI done and found the fracture and in September I went in the hospital and had surgery or I should say got my back superglued back together. I had to stay overnight so they could make sure I could go to the bathroom on my own and what better time to try that out than night time?  Also had to be able to shower by myself and eat before they would let me go back home. The most awesome part of the whole deal was that I could walk Suess without pain. I was no longer doing the Tim Conway "old man shuffle".

More to come tomorrow...