Your Dying Spouse 284 - Eating To Live

We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages - please drop by Beth's site for some great marriage resources and her own deep wisdom.

You probably wouldn't like my diet.

Breakfast is a couple of white-cheddar rice cakes.

Lunch is a bowl of rice with protein powder (rice-based) and lean chicken, mixed with orange juice and ketchup.

Dinner is a bowl of rice with unflavoured brewers yeast powder and a pat of low-fat margarine.

I think that defines the expression 'acquired taste', don't you?

What you can read into this is that it's a very low-fat and low-sugar diet, because my pancreas isn't processing either of them well.

I have to eat to live, and not for enjoyment. If I can tolerate what keeps me going, I'm not going to experiment, because culinary adventures that used to be fun can now cause discomfort, outright pain, or can trigger a serious setback.

And that situation, for a spouse-caregiver, can be sneakily frustrating.

Sharing meals is a cornerstone of every society, and most certainly every marriage. Our dates involved food; weddings always include a feast, and special occasions in a shared life are marked by breaking bread together.

Oops. Can't really stomach most breads any more.

So there's the problem; one of the strongest links between people, by custom and nature, is broken. We're not eating the same food (I mean, would you???) and even eating together's hard, because when you're sick you eat when you can. Dinnertime is when you can face a meal.

It's easy to resent this; it takes away something, and it's unfair.

When Barb can eat, it's hard for me to be there, because it's one of my worst times of day...and by the time I can stomach even a small meal, it's close to midnight and she's gone to bed.

There are some ways to make this less difficult and less of a relationship strain, though:

• Be together at mealtime when you can. When Barb's eating, I try to be in the room, and at least have something available to drink (a shot of Jack...I wish!) so that the spirit of breaking bread together can be observed.
• Find new ways to be together. I can't watch anyone eat, so I sit turned slightly away (and I sit on the floor anyway, because chairs hurt).
• Share an activity during a mealtime...this is one case where watching TV during dinner can be a really good thing. The dude or lady who can't eat is distracted, but it's shared time.
• When you have foods you can still share, make the most of them. I can eat nonfat low-sugar ice cream (whee) and Barb can eat the good stuff...but they're both still ice cream! We can have a bowl together, and at least share the experience.

What suggestions do you have, to make a shared meal possible in the face of adversity?

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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 283 - How Can I Help?

This post will be short and sweet, because I'm really feeling awful - and considered putting up a "too sick to write" sign.

However, there's something that needs to be said, a mistake I tend to make in being a good patient. So, dear caregivers, stick this one under the nose of your ill husband or wife...at the right moment.

Often Barbara asks me, "What can I do?"...or more wistfully, "I wish I could do something."

Being something of a fatalist, my stock answer tends to be, "There's nothing you or anyone can do."

It isn't meant badly, but I have realized that it can be a terribly hurtful thing to say. The desire to help is sincere, and even more sincere is the despair at not being able to do anything effective.

To have the hopelessness o the position underlined isn't pleasant. It may be 'bracing' for me, but it's also selfish.

Far better to say, "Thanks, I really appreciate it, your care means the world to me."

And better also, to ask for and graciously accept a small favour, like a glass of water, or a light for my cigar (yes, they still help against pain and nausea!).

The point here is that caregiving is interaction; it's not a 'job', it's the continuation of a relationship, and the required courtesies and kindnesses still apply...on both sides.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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 282 - For Love's Sake {FMF}

We're back with Kate Motaung and Five Minute Friday, the writing flashmob working from a time-limited keyword. Please drop by for some really great faith-filled and excellent writing!

I've written this ahead of time to try to document what has been a heartbreaking week, and I'll try to work in the word when it's revealed. (It's ABANDON.)

When Barbara is at work, we communicate by email at lunch, to check in. (As I've mentioned, talking is hard for me now, so a phone's of little use.)

Anyway, the other day she asked me how I was doing, and this was my reply:

"Pancreas and tooth are giving me a bit of trouble but I take a certain
pride in my infirmities and pain, knowing that they are given me to
glorify the Lord and to bear steadfast witness to His Love and Mercy.
He is my rock, my deliverer, and my comforter. He is my Friend.

"So I am OK."

She said that was worth publishing, so here it is.

This is my heart and faith written to a God-sized canvas.

But it can be written smaller, from the macro to the micro.

We lost one of the dogs this week; Dukee, a very large and lovable Pit, everyone's friend. In the morning he was right as rain, playful and waiting for breakfast, but when I brought him his food he had suffered a heart attack, and shortly after noon, he died in my arms.

This hurt; Dukee was my go-to pal for hugs when the pain got scary, or the PTSD memories became too much to bear. He was calm and loving, and never shied away from a hard hug, and never turned his face from my tears.

He wouldn't abandon me in my despair. Ever.

He was my heart's security, though I didn't fully realize it.

When he died I felt that my heart had been torn in half. I wanted to just stop. The sun had gone in, and it seemed a long night was beginning. The thought of moving forward, writing, and continuing my life, leaving this sturdy cherished memory diminishing in the past, seemed the worst of disloyalties.

I wanted to quit, and to stay in the valley of the shadow.

But what kind of legacy would that have been for him? What kind of honour would it be to take his example and use its loss as an excuse for my own self-destruction?

No.

The only way to honour love is to carry the memory of it within us as we move forward, and to let the sparkle and joy infuse, all the more, every waking moment.

Only love hoarded is truly lost.

And so we go on as we have to go on, our hearts broken by circumstance, and sutured back together by love.

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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 281 - God's Glory In Caregiving

We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages - please visit beth's site for some amazingly good marriage resources!

Caregiving can be a very hard and lonely road, and sometimes it can seem like God can be very, very far away.

Dealing with the physical mess, memory and cognition issues, and the sheer despair of watching someone you love slip further and further away toward a door through which you can't yet pass...all of those can beg the question, "Why, God? Why is this happening, and where are You?"

It's not a bad question to be asking...after all, Jesus asked God why He had been forsaken, when He was on the Cross. You're in good company.

But as there was glory in Jesus' facing that which He was compelled to face, there is glory for you, dear caregiver.

First, like Christ, you're doing what you have to do. As the husband or wife of a mate who's terminally ill, you're fulfilling the promise you made before God...the "in sickness and in health" bit.

Second, you've very likely learned to accept help. Like Jesus on the Via Dolorosa, His Cross carried by Simon the Cyrene, you have - I hope - found that there are people who will support you, carrying your cross - and sometimes you - when your strength fails.

And as Jesus took the drink offered on a spear-borne sponge from a Roman soldier, I hope you have been fed by those you least expect.

Third, even though the person you care for may be impatient and quarrelsome at times, there will be moments when you will see and hear genuine thanks.

And fourth, "when you do these things for the least of My children, you have done them for Me."

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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 280 - Accepting Exile

Well, crap...time for another post about incontinence.

Bladder and bowel incontinence are a demeaning and all-too-real part of many illnesses. In a way it's worse than pain, because you can power through the hurt, at least to some degree.

Incontinence is different. It takes away your pride.

There are those who are willing to make use of adult diapers, to allow at least a modicum of mobility and independence, something that helps one to avoid the social exile of the shut-in.

I have tremendous respect for those who can do this; it's a refusal to be beaten back by circumstance.Everybody has bowel and bladder movements, after all. We like to pretend we don't, but a healthy regard for the benefits of socialization and the willingness to face down the sense of shame is, to me, heroic.

But it's just not possible for some, and I'm part of that number.

There's simply nothing I want to do out in the world that would make up for the stigma of potentially having to sit in my own waste, at least until I can get to a bathroom for some messy cleanup. Going to a movie would be a hanging-on-the-edge of my seat experience in more ways than one, and going out to dinner...ugh. That does not bear thinking about.

In a way it's a selfish attitude, because I'm taking away from my wife the possibility of doing things together. But I think, and hope that she understands that it's a disgrace and practical inconvenience that I just can't face. I've lost a lot, in terms of self-respect; diapers would just about finish me off.

The social eile of being at home is better. Having quick access to a bathroom I can often forestall accidents, and if the worst happens, cleanup is easier...and private.

And my wife does not have to see me degraded. I'd rather she remember our time together at its best, and not to have those memories overlain by the sight of me waddling off to a public washroom.

And not having to carry a diaper bag.

There are other reasons I really can't go out; it's hard to ride in a car, as the vibration's too painful; there's enervating fatigue, and it's gotten really difficult to talk. A nice inner at Olive Garden would be pretty quiet (assuming I didn't throw up, which happens a lot).

But the incontinence issue, were it the only one, would be sufficient. I just can't go there.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you feel that I'm a prideful Neanderthal who's tripping over his self-conceit, let fly.

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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 279 - The Greatest Gift {FMF}

We're back with Kate Motaung and Five Minute Friday, the glorious flash-mob of talented writers who can do almost anything with five minutes and a keyword.

I'm writing ahead of time - again - because things are steadily getting harder for me, and chances are that I'd never get a timely post put together. But I will try to work the keyword in when it's revealed.

(The word is PURPOSE.)

And so...

At least I don't have to worry about getting old.

Pain is winning, sort of.

Aside from the normal deterioration in the pancreas (huge pain spasms, dry heaves, and projectile vomiting...sorry) and the broken lower-leg-bone which isn't healing and an abscessed tooth, I managed to get shot last week. It was an accident, I think. Someone doing some target shooting and not watching downrange. Can't be mad about that.

The large-caliber rounds were at the end of their range and didn't penetrate, but still did some bad stuff. One hit my knee (on the good leg) and swept it, and on the way down another hit me a few inches above the navel. It was like being hit with a brick. That one did some internal damage.

It hurts. Bad. The other night was pretty horrible, and in the morning I told Barb that it felt like God was beating the crap out of me for everything I'd ever done wrong, and for everything anyone else had ever done wrong.

Instead of rebuking me for saying something that might have verged on blasphemy, she just shook her head and said, "Yeah. I see that."

So it's getting almost, maybe, intolerable.

And it's a blessing. It gives my life a terrible, beautiful purpose.

I could go on about the theological aspects of pain, but C.S. Lewis already did that, in The Problem of Pain. I'm no Clive Staples Lewis.

The blessing is that it all digs my well of love a bit deeper.

See, I don't want anyone else to go through this. Certainly not a friend, and not even an enemy. I'd do all I could to shield even that enemy from facing my days.

It's not that I'm a good person, but it's just that enough's enough, and you have to draw a Line of Love somewhere. So I'll draw it here.

I'll love my enemies enough not to want to make them endure agony.

Just seems like the right thing to do.

I'm really not in the mood for serious musical accompaniment, so how about some unabashed feel-good escapism, courtesy The Bangles?

If anyone might be interested, my last post quoted Bishop Nikolai's famous Prayer For Enemies in its entirety.

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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 278 - A Prayer For The Enemy

We're linked to Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages -please be sure to visit for some really great marriage resources!

As both caregivers and patients we regard illness as an enemy, and it is. It destroys the hopes we had for the future, strait-jackets our days, and the changes in our priorities and perspective it engenders can separate us from our friends, from the society around us..."how cn you, the world, be worried about that while we are dealing with this!"

But while illness is an enemy, there may be a path other than blind dull hatred.  I heard about one, just today, from pastor Bobby Schuller of the Shepherd's Grove church. He told a story that I found compelling, and would like to share, without my own commentary.

The following prayer was written by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovi of the Serbian Orthodox Church. he was arrested by the Nazis for speaking out against them, and was near death when the Americans liberated Dachau. The prayer and additional commentary can be seen here.)

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Enemies have driven me into Your embrace more than friends have.
Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth
and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.
Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms
and an extraneous inhabitant of the world.
Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does,
so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary,
having hidden myself beneath Your tabernacle,
where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world…
They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself…

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them…
Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.
Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand…
Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life,
they have demolished it and driven me out.
Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world
and have stretched out my hands to the hem of Your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them…
So that my fleeing to You may have no return;
So that all my hope in people may be scattered like cobwebs;
So that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
So that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;
So that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;
Ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me
in the dreadful web of illusory life.
Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows,
that we have no enemies in the world except ourselves…

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good
and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.
Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies.
Slaves curse their enemies, for they do not understand.
But sons and daughte.rs bless them, for they understand.

For they know that their enemies cannot touch their life.
Therefore they freely step among their enemies, and pray to God for them.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

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.