Your Dying Spouse 343 - Frozen In Time

Sorry this is late being posted...a few difficult days here.

And so...

Dear Caregiver,

There is something your spouse/patient would like to tell you, but perhaps he or she can't find the words.

But I can, and if needed, I'll speak in his or her behalf.

With a terminal diagnosis, one becomes frozen in time. One is pulled from the River of Life that extends from youth to old age, and is deposited on the shore.

The past becomes irrelevant to the current fight to stay alive, and the future becomes irrelevant because...well, the patient isn't going to see it.

Your spouse will not grow old with you. That, dear Caregiver, is a fact.

And the 'remember when' of scrapbooks becomes painful. Memory raws its meaning from the prospect of a future. And with that prospect lost, Remember When is simply a painful reminder of a future in which this present of terminal illness is simply a place the patient won't see.

The scrapbooks of the future, those that memorialize today, and forever closed.

But your life, dear Caregiver, will go on. YOU will go on.

It's a hard dichotomy to have to live, especially since part of your duty to your dying husband or wife is to ease the twin burdens of fear and regret.

There's no one right way to do this, but here are some suggestions:

• Don't talk about your plans in a future your mate won't see. It hurts.
• Don't talk about adapting to growing older. Your husband or wife would ive a lot to be 'growing older', and that, too, hurts.
• Don't talk about what's on your bucket list. For the dying, the bucket list is fantasy...one the diagnosis has been given, all efforts go to mitigating pain and prolonging life. There's very little room for that balloon ride over the Serengeti to watch the migration of the animals of the plains.
• Be there in your spouse's Now, een if that means watching a DVD you've seen a doen times. That may be all he or she has...and you are almost certainly all he or she has.

The musical theme comes from Imagine Dragons...

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 342 - "Here's The Deal," Said God {FMF}

I hate saying, "Well, it's getting worse" every week. It feels like a request for pity, and kinda weak...but it is the unfortunate truth. And talking about it is the only way to accurately bear witness to the process. So here we are.

Again.

If you dropped by the last post, you'll know that along with everything else I've got a really painful rash that's tracing the lines of my lymph nodes, which can mean some very ugly things. As it is, I can't keep my arms by my sides, so I guess I'm helping Moses keep the Amalekytes at bay. Nice, feeling like I'm a part of Exodus 17:22.

(This is being written ahead of time for Five Minute Friday, and when the keyword is revealed I will try to work it in.)

(The word is INSPIRE.)

As things are going, to put it in Star Trek vernacular, my matrix is destabilizing and I will likely soon go offline.

Not where I wanted to be at this point in my life at all.

But to be honest, when I look back at my life, wherever I was, professionally or personally, I wanted to be somewhere else, as well.

And in that Neverland of Somewhere Else, when I caught the brass ring, everything would be groovy.

After I finished this project, after I got that grant, after I was accepted into these elite circles.

After I got a literary agent. (Hasn't happened yet.)

After I got that big publishing contract. (Hasn't happened yet, either, though I did get published...yeah!)

After I got married. (That did work out well, though it took a divorce from and remarriage to my magnificent wife before I kinda sorta figured it out...'it' being How Not To Be A Selfish Jerk.)

Everything had to inspire something else. I was like the famous Malaysian Concentric Bird, flying in eer-tightening circles until one day I would disappear up my own...uh, never mind.

I think it was Paul Theroux who wrote in The Old Patagonian Express that it's better to journey in hope than to arrive.

Yes...but here's the key...the hope has to be built into and for every step of the journey.

It can't be for the arrival.

The Hope is for and in God.

Not that He'll make your reams come true, but that He makes every moment you have into a dream come true.

Give Him everything you have, in every moment you have, and you'll receive more in return than you ever dreamed possible.

That's the deal He offers. He'll celebrate your victories in a dance that shakes Heaven, and when your heart is broken, it will become kintsugi, repaired with the lacquer of your tears and the gold-dust of His Love.

Think I'll take it.

How about you?

And for an appropriate musical theme, let's hand it over to the Electric Light Orchestra with Mr. Blue Sky.

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 341 - Making Like Moses

It's one of those "You have GOT to be kidding!" things...an extremely painful (and, as Barb said just now, scary-looking) rash has developed under my arms and along the sides of my neck...following the line of the lymph nodes, which may not bode well.

But that's beside the point. It hurts so much that I have to keep my arms extended away from by body...but I guess I'm in good company:

And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Exodus 17:11-12

It's tempting to feel kind of put-upon by this...I mean (pardon the organ recital) I've got severe abdominal pain, the dreaded D&V, and an abscessed tooth. Was this rash really necessary?

No, it's not. But it's just part of life. We were not promised a limit on tribulation; we were promised Help in dealing with it.

We were not promised a world without pain, but if we believe, we are promised an eternity that transcends the pain.

And we have examples...Lou Gehrig, retiring from baseball after being diagnosed with ALS, saying "I am the luckiest man alive."

And our musical theme-person, Donna Fargo, released Happiest Girl In The Whole USA in 1972...and in 1979 was diagnosed with MS. She and her husband fought the disease to a standstill, and she was able to keep up her musical career, albeit on a more limited basis.

Donna Fargo's also an author, and a recent book, released in 2010, has the winning title I Thanked God For You Today.

You see people like that, and a rash is nothing. And neither is the rest of it.

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 340 - The Caregiver's Dilemma

This is going to be short, again...I'm having some trouble physically, and had to act as caregiver for Barb this weekend. It has been tiring.

But there's something worth addressing, and I'd love your input...it's what I call the caregiver's dilemma.

You're taking care of your terminally ill spouse...and you want him or her to have the best quality of life available.

But how do you do it?

If he or she sinks into the sofa or bed and dozes through DVDs, do you support that, or push for activity, even when you meet resistance?

If your spouse keeps pushing to the point of collapse, do you stand back and ready to pick up the pieces, or do you chide their selfishness and lack of consideration? Because, after all, it's you who will be picking up the pieces, at no small cost to your psyche.

(I'm in the latter group, and I suspect I have caused my dear wife no end of heartache by being willing to beat myself up to prove a point, that I'm still man enough to beat myself up.)

Reality lies somewhere between these extremes, of course.

But...what would you rather face? And if you've been a caregiver, what of this did you see?

Since I'm a permanent beat-the-crap-out-of-myself patient, the only appropriate music can come from Imagine Dragons...

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 339 - Revelation and Forgiveness

My fatal illness was not an accident of nature, nor a judgement or test sent by the Almighty.

It was done to me. Not deliberately, but through negligence.

(And this is my post for Five Minute Friday, being written, necessarily, ahead of time. I will try to work in the keyword when it is given.)

(It's COLLECT.)

Many years ago (I won't say when or where) I had abdominal surgery, which was done laparoscopically and should have been routine. An overnight stay in hospital, and I was out.

Recovery wasn't routine. There was a lot of pain, and I went back to see the surgeon.

This individual (I won't specify gender) didn't think much of my complaint, inferring that I was a hypochondriac, and left the exam room.

Three hours later the receptionist opened the door and asked exactly what I was still doing there, as the office was closing. The surgeon had left to play golf.

So I went home, and toughed it out. Barbara and I were due to move to a new home, and I was to drive a u-haul loaded with aeroplane parts on that 14-hour road trip.

When we got to where we were going, Barb had to carry me from the truck to the house.

An ER trip led to an appointment with a gastroenterologist, and he was horrified at what had happened. After several ERCPs (they stick a flexible fiberoptic telescope down your throat into your gut and look around) and CAT scans, he told me that I had been leaking bile into my abdomen, had cold sepsis, and that my pancreatic duct was damaged. He was kind of surprised that I was still alive.

He referred me to the Mayo Clinic, and they tried a procedure that had a mortality rate of 70%' worth a shot, eh?

But it didn't work, and I was told that there was nothing that could be done. Pancreatic cancer was going to be my fate, if acute or chronic pancreatitis didn't kill me first. It would be highly unpleasant.

And here we are.

For years I carried a load of hate in my heart, directed - understandably, I hope - at the original surgeon.

I wanted, in the worst way (there are a few meanings to that phrase) to personally introduce that individual to the devil, for it was there that I was sure that was where the road lay.

Every time my right leg gave way (the head of the pancreas is on the right side of the upper abdomen, and refers pain with a kind of unholy glee), I imagined gory medieval scenes in which the surgeon was the principal.

The interest I collected on my investment in hate didn't make me a lot of fun to be around.

And then...I remembered an old adage which has served me well. Hatred had driven it out of mind.

Never ascribe to malice that which can as easily be explained by stupidity or incompetence.

I was being grossly unfair. The surgeon didn't want to kill me, or make me sick. This individual was simply going off a body of experience and literature references, and made a judgement that was very wrong.

Oops. But that's all it was. Just, oops.

And I was left holding a bag whose bottom had been burnt out by the acid from my own heart.

Forgiveness does not come easy, because in this case, forgiveness is not required.

It was a mistake. There's nothing to forgive, or hold in hatred.

It was unfortunate, and that's all.

It's frustrating. A part of me wants to hate, and a part of me wants to feel oh-so-Godly and forgive, but neither is an acceptable posture.

So wat IS the acceptable posture?

LET IT GO.

And move on. Sure it's unfortunate, sure it's unfair, but so what?

Is hate going to make anything better?

Is feeling righteous in setting aside wrath for forgiveness going to make me a better person...or just someone who thinks so highly of himself that he can't see that mistakes happen, bad things happen, and the only real way to deal with them is with a smile, and a firm resolve to look ahead, however close the horizon of life has become?

Time to let go.

And let God.

Time for some cheerfully high-spirited and fun music from Guster, with Do You Love Me?

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 338 - Stronger Than God!

Well, according to Pastor Bobby Schuller (of Hour Of Power), I am stronger than God.

In his sermon last week he talked about God's strength, and mentioned that God has 16-in biceps.

I have 17-inch biceps.

Case closed. Though God's muscle tone is probably a bit better.

Obviously, no one and nothing is stronger than the Almighty, but His strength, or a part of it, is always ours for the asking.

We do, however, need to ask.

See, our strength reaches its height, its maximum, when we recognize our weakness (Paul's words, credit where it's due!). Only then, when our muscles are trembling and on the brink of failure, when we say, "God, I can't do this, HELP ME!" do we open up the barriers that separate us from the Almighty. We bow to the reality that we can't do it alone.

And He steps in. In the physical realm, our bodies are limited by their design and construction, as is any engineered entity...I mean, you can take a Ferrari 308 (think Magnum, PI) to the skidpad, and under ideal conditions the best lateral acceleration it can achieve is 0.77 g.

So your body has limits, but turning to God can help you reach those limits, and not stop short. I've seen it often, and hey, I see it every day, when I ask God to help me rise to a standing position, and walk.

But more important is the spiritual and moral strength we can be given. It's the strength to keep hope alive when everything's going dark (been there, done that), and the strength to keep a man from acting to seduce a married woman with whom he's fallen desperately in love. Yeah, been there too.

Our physical selves want to quit, to give in, to take the easy road or that which might promise more pleasure.

But God is more than willing to stiffen our spines, not in correction but in love, to save us from the worst we can bem and bring us to the best we can be in that moment.

Sometimes the best you can be seems pretty small.

But to God, who knows the limits you carry, it can be huge.

But (thanks, Bobby Schuller!), my biceps are still  bigger than God's!

Just for fun, here's Feeder with Buck Rogers. Enjoy!

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 337 - Rising Above

I have to apologise, this will be ery short. A couple of awful days put paid to what I wanted to write.

But I do have a suggestion for you...if you haven't seen it yet, rent or buy the film Passengers.

It's a really terrific exposition about what we can do to rise above the bad things that happen to us...or are done to us.

Here's the trailer. The movie is far better, and far deeper, than these few minutes indicate. I'll write a bit more on this, strength permitting, later this week.

Your Dying Spouse 336 - God's Lighthouse {FMF}

OK, no punches pulled...it's just getting so absurdly bad here...way beyond what I thought I could deal with.

And it just keeps going.

Part of the night is spent curled in a ball, trying not to scream too loudly. Barb has to go to work, after all.

And the morning brings no relief, just a blur of pain and necessary movement, and sluping down when I have to, staring at nothing until I pass out and fall over.

Big bruise on the forehead. Fell over the wrong way.

Oh, and this is written ahead of time for Five Minute Friday. I'll try to add in this week's keyword when available. (The word is COMFORT. It's there.)

You've got to ask...is this worth it? Is facing this doomed last stand every single day worth the pain and the humiliation of blood and urine and other stuff, and the endless exhausting cleanup?

Is it worth going down this ever-narrowing tunnel, feeling the rough and nasty walls scraping my shoulders?

Yes. It is.

It's worth it for the love in my life, for the chance to bear witness that life can still be good when it seems so bad, for the desert sunrises and the Milky Way at midnight, turning slowly overhead.

But absent these, it would still be worth it, because this is the fight I was born to face.

This is the enemy that has chosen me...and I, in return, choose him, in a fight that can have no quarter.

There is a n appropriateness here, something of a comfort.

This is where I get to play the man, after Hugh Latimer's immortal words...just before he and his friend Nicholas Ridley were burned at the stake for heresy:

Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

I, too, want to ignite a flame that will not go out...and that by God's grace I can show through deed and word that God's Grace extends over these Alamo walls, and down into the pit of pain, the slough of despond. 

I want to tell the world that even absent the love and comfort with which I'm blessed, I would still have Love and Comfort that can never be extinguished, however dark the night.

And night is coming, the night that will know no earthly dawn for me. This place on the Internet will go dark, and my footsteps and voice will become a memory.

But the light will shine all the more brightly, because in the end, what I have realized is that I, along with Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, and the fuel for God's lighthouse.

That lighthouse that promises and delivers so much...eternal grace, eternal life, eternal love...can only be fully seen here through the lens of pain that is transfigured by faith.

So bring it, and may my passing become a lamp unto your feet.

So...what's the musical theme to be? Something to do with light, perhaps?

Nah. Need some disco, so here's Laura Brannigan...

You may be interested in another view of this, from Kara Tippetts, on Mundane Faithfulness. I left a comment there...kind of my manifesto.

Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.