#2017cantakeahike

I suppose I should provide an update on what this year has been for me.   First and foremost, clearly losing my husband wasn’t how I anticipated spending the first month of the year.  I spent February drown in the required paperwork after a person passes.  Lots of accounts to close out, bills to pay, and documentation to provide.  You guys, if you don’t already, make a will, set up POA paperwork, just get it done.  In my case, it wasn’t terribly difficult, but stressful, nonetheless.  My biggest challenge was waiting a month for the benefits center to find 3/4 of John’s 401K!  Like, it was kinda missing.   Thank God he still got those annoying paper statements, you know, the ones I had a pile of stacked in the spare room.  I escaped with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin in March with a trip to the beach.   I totally unplugged, but was smacked with reality when I got home.  Toward the end of April, I realized my anxiety was taking over.   I had been on anxiety meds since John was first diagnosed.  I’m a worrier, and I come by it honestly!  I had just been to the Dr, and she had suggested a med change, but I declined.   I ended up spending most of May in a pile of anxiousness on my couch.  It took several tries to find the correct medication and the correct dose.  It is miserable to go through, but now I can function 1000 times better.  Anxiety and depression is the real deal folks.  I have seen a counselor for nearly 4 years, and have also required medication.   For awhile there, I was fine with John being gone, (not like fine I don’t care, but fine as in it wasn’t hanging over my head), but it was the normal life stresses that was killing me.   Like my body didn’t quite know how to handle it.  Oh, hey, work is busy, or oh shoot, I have to remember to get these bills paid.  For the love, I was in retail management for 10 years!  That shit changes a person…nothing should stress a person out after doing that job for so long!  At any rate, I’m not some superhero that’s “doing really well, considering.”  I’m a normal person who needs crazy pills to function.  No biggie.

The next obstacle came about in early June.  My brother CALLED me.  We have this weird relationship where we will go months without talking, or we will hang out quite a bit.   The last several years has been especially weird though.  Way too much for this blog, but I will say, he distracted me nearly every time John had a procedure, or was hospitalized in Peoria, and for that I am extremely thankful!  At any rate, we hadn’t spoken for some time when he called, rather than text.  He told me not to freak out, but…….Yeah, you are right, I immediately freaked out…..he had to have a biopsy done b/c there was an enlarged nodule in his lung. AS IF this is news I needed after losing John, to a disease that effected his lungs!  On July 18, ironically, 6 months after Johns passing, I sat with Nate at the surgeons office, where we learned how his cancerous tumor would be removed.  He had a successful surgery in August, but they had to removed the upper left lobe of his lung, and that’s exactly where I tell him I will punch him when he pisses me off!  HA!  Before I continue, I’m not by any means happy that Nate had to go through this, but what I am happy about is that it brought us closer together again.  I had missed the snide comments and back and forth bantering far more than I had realized!

While Nater was in the hospital, we lost my grandma to dementia.  I realize I am VERY lucky to at this point be 37 years old, and still have 2 living grandparents.  The timing was just unfortunate.  Not that there is a right or wrong time for someone to pass….but it was especially hard with everything happening in the same week.  Let me just plug in here that my grandfather had “reconnected” with someone from his youth, and SHE was relocating to an apt with my grandpa.  I get being lonely…my grandma had been in a nursing home for probably 4 years, she wasn’t herself for a long time.  I’m glad he has someone to go on walks with and go to a movie or whatever 78 yr olds do.  It’s just hard to think of someone literally moving in on my grandpa!  I seriously can’t make this shit up!!!

Our latest thing is with John’s mom.  Today she came home from the hospital after 6 weeks of being inpatient with a viral infection, causing encephalitis.  She has extreme aphasia, and gets super confused.  She knows what she wants to say, but can’t find the correct words.  Several people have reminded me that Cathy isn’t my responsibility per se.  I get that, I do.  I’m a complete control freak and I’m well aware of it!  What I may not express is that I’m keeping a promise.  A promise that I made to John EVERY time he got a new diagnosis.  Every time he was upset along his journey it was because he was worried that I would leave his parents if something happened to him.  Well, that and he also worried about leaving me.   But in this particular situation, I’m keeping the promise I made to him regarding his parents.  We have quite the road ahead of us, but we will get through it.   Even if we require a “who’s alive and who is dead” chart.  Yes, its a daily event that she isn’t quite sure who is still living and who has passed.   She’s quite frustrated that she doesn’t remember, and its miserable each time she asks what John is doing.

Here’s the thing, this year has been insane.  I feel like my life is a made for TV movie at times.  The things that happen I couldn’t make up if my life depended on it!  My advice to you, is don’t wait for cancer, a cancer scare, a death, or a horrible infection to make you realize how precious life is.  Don’t wait until your life is such a shit show that you just want to hit some sort of reset button.  Don’t dwell on what has happened, but put on your big girl pants and put one foot in front of the other and be thankful for what you have, and look forward to better days ahead.  And for the love, JKLIVIN !!