Your Dying Spouse 236 - Unexpected Thanksgiving

We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages - pleas drop by Beth's site to find some really great marriage resources.

This will be rather a short post, because I've been quite ill for the past few days. I apologise.

Caregiving for your spouse is one of the most heartbreaking experiences you can endure. Seeing someone you love change from vitality to a pale shadow of what you remember, seeing pain and possibly things like memory loss - those will wound the strongest soul.

It can be tempting to ask that this cup would pass from you...but it's worth remembering this -

Only a heart that has learned to love and be loved can break. And a breakable heart is, to shamelessly borrow the title of my friend Shelli Littleton's book, "A Gift Worth Keeping"

We wish you and yours the happiest of Thanksgivings!

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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 235 - Caregiving And The Holidays

The holidays can be emotionally tough when your husband or wife is terminally ill...this may be the very last Christmas.

The funny thing is that the thought may not bother your mate all that much. Earlier this evening I dealt with dry heaves that I thought were going to tear me in half, and to be honest, I didn't really have the time for sentimentality.

And something like that happens every day; often several times a day.

It's a bit hard to be nostalgic when the next moment may be awful beyond any rational consideration.

But I digress...there are certain practical things you can do to make your life as a caregiver quite a bit easier over the holidays - to say nothing of that of your spouse.

• Don't talk up complex plans; when you're ill, your mind's like a narrow shelf. Push something on the front, something else falls off the back, and that's really frustrating to now about yourself. You mate may have a very limited capacity of processing and retaining the information you'd like to convey. Break the message into smaller parts, each with a clearly defined start and end. Instead of saying, "We'll get a tree and decorate it and then have hot cocoa and watch It's A Wonderful Life and then we'll cann out-of-town family..."NO. Just ay, "Let's go get a tree." leave the rest for later.
• Don't accept or decline invitations to parties or gatherings on your own; make your spouse part of the decision-making process. There is nothing more dehumanizing than having someone else making decisions for you, and presenting a fait accompli.
• When accepting invitations, be aware that travel time will run down your mate's energy. The road bumps that a healthy person takes for granted can really hurt when you're sick.
• When at the party, you have to keep an eye on your husband or wife, and when  before you see energy starting to flag, it's time to go. (That correction was suggested by Peggy Booher, a wonderful and wise friend.)
• Be careful about planning a 'Christmas Shopping' excursion. While you may feel it would be a tonic (and your mate may feel the same way) the crowds and sensory input can be overwhelming...not the mention the long walk from ad to a parking spot.
• This is going to sound unfair...and it is...but avoid Christmas music or movies that put you, the caregiver, into a melancholy and sentimental mood. Your mate may well not be able to deal with that, an those media choices are just that...choices. Don't set your own triggers. Not now.

What do you think? Is there anything you'd add, or anywhere you think I'm wrong? Please, speak!

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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 234 - Goodbye Bitterness {FMF}

We're with Kate Motaung and the Five Minute Friday crew for this week's exercise in timed, keyword-driven writing.

The word this week is ENJOY.

When you're where I am, it seems that bitterness is expected.

I'll pull no punches in describing this - so please forgive. My days consist of interminable trips to the bathroom, to either throw up or worse, and I often don't quite make it. Laundry time! (And you've never seen a Heeler Meltdown like one who's been awake for 48 hours straight and has just been puked on...and knows a bath is coming. Not a pretty sight.)

The rest of it is pain (as I write this, beyond reasonable comprehension) and fatigue that makes one too tired to sleep.

They say I should be bitter, that I should cry out to God, and ask, WHY??????

But I don't, because, honestly, you can get used to anything, and I have found that the best parts of life are those lived in the overlooked spaces between triumph and tragedy.

And I am thankful for that. I'm going to enjoy life.

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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 233 - Feedback For Caregivers

We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages. Please visit beth's site for some great marriage wisdom. And we are also linked to Lyli Dunbar's Thought-Provoking Thursdays.

As a caregiver, you want to do your best, but do you have a standard by which to measure your effort?

Well, yes. You can ask your patient-spouse. But be warned; you may not like the answers you get. Don't ask unless you really want to know.

Caregiving is something of a tightrope; you have to try to anticipate the needs of someone who's going through something that's probably out of your experience. Pain and fatigue are the beginning; the dread of further debility and fear of death are something which which you can probably sympathize, but can't - I hope - completely empathize.

And this affects almost all facets of life. Your husband our wife may have been very much on the same page, but now he or she lives life from a very different perspective.

And the things you do, as a caregiver, to make life easier may seem right, but may be very wrong. You do things you think you would like under the circumstances, but the fact is that those are not your circumstances.

There's also the factor of past experience. You may have taken care of your parents, or your grandparents or other relatives (usually older). But a spouse is quite different; an equal, and not an elder.

As an example, it seems to behooves me to do as much as possible myself, even though my abilities have faded a lot, to keep some level of strength, competence, and self-respect.

It hurts, and it obviously hurts. Barbara hates to see me trying to do the things she could do easily for me, seeing me bent over and wincing - or worse - in pain.

Unless I really can't do it, I tell her I'm OK. Sometimes in a sharper voice than I would like, and for that I'm sorry.

It's something I've tried to explain - I have tried to give the feedback - but the care for parents and grandparents in her memory is too ingrained. We've achieved a modus vivendi in which I give her the opportunity to help more than I'd really prefer, from the standpoint of independence, and she gets a bit more insight into what I can - and can't do. But she'd still like to do more.

So, dear caregiver...work up the nerve and ask. And listen with an open heart. It's never that you haven't done your best. It may just be that your focus has to be adjusted, just a bit.

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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 232 - A Narrowing World

In my other blog, "Starting The Day With Grace", I just posted a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe -

"To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization."

This has a lot to say about the progress of a terminal illness, because there comes a time when one's no longer in the wide world, and maintaining care and regard for the common details of life, like grooming, courtesy, and punctuality in the duties one can yet undertake, are the only way the patient can still make his or her mark on the world.

The caregiver can help in this - a lot.

You can help by noticing.

It's human vanity to need an audience, but it's good to remember that the patient's world is so circumscribed by pain, fatigue, and the small and large humiliations of illness that he or she is receiving a constant steam of negative input. It's like having one's body as a hypercritical boss.

So, dear caregiver, drop compliments here and there. Notice the things that are done for you without your asking, and give praise for those.

It may sound stupid to be effusive over a cup of tea placed in your hands, or to say "Your hair looks nice" (when you'd really like to say it's about time you combed it).

But of these small graces is happiness made.

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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 231 - Common Vulnerability {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, the timed and keyword-driven writing challenge hosted by the gracious Kate Motaung.

Have to write ahead, while I can, so I don't know what the word will be. Sorry. (The word is COMMON.)

In reply to my last post, my dear friend Tammy Belau relied that "to love is to be vulnerable".

Wow. She is so right.

Last night, and the night before, were dreadful. Think of the worst flu you've ever had, magnify it, and that's some idea.

I sleep in the 'kennel room' to be near the dogs, and also because I would keep Barb awake if we slept in the same room. Not good for closeness, but practical. Barb has a demanding job.

So the night was dreadful. Sylvia the Service Dog stayed with me at the ottoman, while ladron the Chief Service Dog went to Barbara's door and stared at it, willing her to wake up. (That didn't work, and when Barb got up at the usual time, Ladron was awfully mad...seeing a Queensland Heeler Meltdown is not pretty.)

I knew that Lardon - who is far more intelligent than I am - thought Barbara needed to be here. I knew she was trying to will The B out of slumber.

But I thought...what can Barbara do?

She could hold my hand.

And the practical benefit would be...nothing. I might feel better, but she'd lose sleep. I can hack it. I'm tougher than anyone I know.

That's true. I actually am tougher than anyone I know, and it's meaningless, because there's always something that will break you. It's biology.

So what did I do, last night? I cheated myself out of help and support, I denied Ladron the purpose of her role as a service dog, and I denied Barbara the chance to be needed, because I wanted to live in my 'tough guy bubble'.

What did I gain? Nothing.

It was a long and scary night, and I faced it without the ally who had promised to be there.

ALL BECAUSE OF PRIDE. I AM INVULNERABLE.

Please, learn from this. Vulnerability is something we all have, or should have, in common. Being me is no virtue.

As another view on vulnerability, I'd like to ask you to look at Harry Yates' memoir of flying in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Luck and a Lancaster. There is more heart here than I could have in a dozen lifetimes. This is not an 'affiliate link'. If you buy the book - and I hope you do - I won't get a cent.

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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 230 - Shame

W're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages. Plee drop by for some great marriage resources.

This will be a personal story, and I will write it fast because I don't want to write it. It'll also be short because I'm not doing too well.

Bowel incontinence is a really unpleasant thing, as you may guess, and today was a decidedly bad day. There was no way to stay close enough to the bathroom to read things off at the pass, so to speak.

It's also humiliating. Yes, I know that it's a part of illness, and there's no shame in what you can'tcontrol, but for someone who prided himself on physical fitness, to be reduced to this is a source of something more than embarrassment. It's a source of shame.

And it caused me to be distant when Barbara came home from work. She was concerned that it was something she did or said, and I had to unbend enough to explain what had happened, and why the clothes dryer was still running.

She asked me please not to pull away and shut her out...and she's right.

It's a hard thing, to put aside that level of pride and self-regard.

Much to my surprise, I decided to participate in a '31 Days' blogging exercise; rather than interrupt the flow of this post, I have another blog established, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Ariel Sharon) and a short commentary.

And now that October's over...I'm going to keep it going.  I hope you'll join me.

Marley update...he's probably going to be moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

He's up over 200,000 signatures, but PLEASE keep the pressure on. If you haven't signed, please do! Please click o his name in the paragraph below.

If you have a moment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.

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.