One Month Later

Posted on by Sue

One month ago today my husband died.  Died.  And I am overwhelmed with grief.

I never thought it would be like this for me.  My husband would always tell me he was going to die first because I was the stronger of the two of us.  He was wrong because I’ve discovered I’m not strong at all.

Over the past ten days I was in Florida.  I had to go there to pick up my husband’s van that we left there when I left suddenly to come home to be with him.  John had flown home early to have a CT Scan done on his kidneys and to get a head start on tax season.  My son-in-law and grandson was with me in Florida and we were all going to leave at the same time.  After my husband was gone for just a couple of days I felt I had to come home to be with him.  He wasn’t complaining of being ill or anything, I just wanted to be with him so I flew home and left his van in Florida.

Laura, my granddaughter Emily and her friend Cassie accompanied me on this trip.  Laura worked hard at trying to make me have fun.  We went out for dinner at places that my husband and I went to to make new memories.  People would see the photos and comment how good I looked.  But inside I felt numb, forcing myself to smile.  I was afraid (and still am) for people to touch me.  I don’t want anyone to touch me anymore because the pain is so close to the surface that I’m afraid if they touch me I’ll break down.  I alternate between feeling totally numb to crying and then feeling panic building inside of me.  I can’t believe I still have tears left inside of me.

I actually felt good walking into the condo that John and I owned.  We decorated it together and we loved it there.  It felt good to be there and I felt close to John.  I felt I would be ok there because there are several people there that have lost their spouse (the joy of being in an over 55 community).  When I went to the pool the three people that I thought would give me words of wisdom and comfort surprised me with what they said to me.  The two ladies told me that the pain never goes away and I’ll hold it until the day I die.  I had expected them to tell me it would lessen over time and I’d be able to go on.  I went to see a good friend that lives downstrairs from me and I told her what they said and how surprised I was at their answer.  She looked at me (she’s 76 and lost the love of her life many years ago and remarried 25 years ago) and she said, “honey, they are the first people that are being honest with you.”

I now understand why some long term couples die days apart.  My heart actually hurts at times.  I think of John and the pain in my chest is intense.  I can’t breathe.  I feel like I have to go somewhere but I can’t figure out where to go.  I realize that I want to be where John is and that is not possible.  My focus right now is to get everything in order for my kids for when I die.  I want everything laid out for them so they know where to go and what to do when it is my time to die.  It will take some time I believe John left this for me to do so it would give me some purpose to go on.

Month one over .. Verdict … I barely survived.  I don’t know how I will go on without John. I’m not sure how to live with my heart gone.

Shattered Happiness – Part 3

Posted on by Sue

One week left in tax season and John is home from the hospital.  Clients are coming to the house to see him and are shocked at how thin he has become.  When I say clients I should say friends because that is who they are.  They have been part of our lives for over 30 years.  John rarely lost a client.  Sometimes they might go to another accountant thinking they would save money but then they would come back because they knew John always gave good service and sage advice.

John was not strong enough to go upstairs to our bedroom so he slept on the sofa in the living room.  We now had a nurse that came daily to change his IV bag and give him medication.  He was now in palliative care.  She was awesome. She explained to me how to give him his morphine, codiene and other pain killers.  John always had a problem with taking pills so everything was injected into a port.  He had a separate port for pain medication, one for his antibiotics and one for miscellaneous drugs.  Every morning he got up and got dressed so people thought he was ok.  The doorbell would start ringing around 10 and people would arrive to talk to him.  Most would cry at the door and hug me and tell me to stay strong.  Stay strong.  Everyone would say that to me.  Inside I was dying but outside I was smiling and telling people that we were going to fight this disease.

I worked hard trying to get the work out and take care of John.  He was weak and I’d try and feed him several times a day.  He needed to be walked to the bathroom and his medication had to be given to him several times a day. He was sleeping on the sofa and I was right next to him on the love seat.

May 1st came and the nurse and I finally talked John into getting a hospital bed put in the family room.  He was very worried that people would see the bed.  But once the bed was in he was happy.  I would go in to see him and I’d say “shove a bum chum” and he’d move over.  He’d hold me, we would talk and I’d just listen to his heartbeat.  I would sob in his arms and he would hold me telling me that he’d always be with me.  He said if there was any way he would be besides me the rest of my life.

John had a few corporate clients and they still needed to be serviced but he was not strong enough to sit at a desk more than a few minutes at a time.  I worked as hard as I could writing up the records of the client and getting their year ends done.  He would review them and then I would get the tax returns done and print and assemble everything.  He would meet with the client and I’d have to do most of the talking.  He was exhausted easily.

I didn’t want to leave John for a minute.  The nurse kept asking if I would take a personal care worker in but I wanted to take care of John myself.  He would shave using an electric razor, I’d bathe him, change his clothes and take care of him.  I was sleeping on the love seat near him.  I just wanted to spend every moment with him.  But he just slept more and more and ate less and less.  I started having panic attacks and he would calm me.  He kept telling me I’d be ok and that I was strong and could manage on my own.  He would go over things with me, how to run our business, how to take care of our finances, what he wanted me to do in the future.  All he wanted was for me to be happy.  I was his primary concern.

During his last few weeks he had lots of time to talk to our children.  John had two daughters from his first marriage, Julie and Laura and we had two of our own, Amanda and Adam.  Everyone came as often as they could.  Adam actually still lives at home with us.

My nephew Stephen came every weekend and visited.  Sometimes he just sat in the same room with John so I could have time to run some errands, take a shower or simply go to the bathroom.

May was hard.  I was exhausted, sleeping only a few hours at a time and listening for whenever John needed me.  I was afraid to sleep.  I could see John’s life slipping away.  If there had been any way we could switch places I would gladly have done it with him.

John ate less and less.  He’d have a little rice pudding now and then and some canned fruit.  His belly was huge and full of fluid.  He hated looking in the mirror.  To me he was still John but all he could see was a gaunt old man.  To me he was my handsome husband.

One day John woke up around 4:30 am and had a to pee.  I helped him into the bathroom and then went to get his needles ready.  While I was getting the medication out of the fridge I heard him fall. I yelled for my son and he came running.  He was able to get John up and we got him back to bed.  He cut his forehead but seemed fine.  He asked me for a bowl of Special k.  He hadn’t eaten solid food like cereal in weeks.  I was praying that we would have a good day together.  Maybe he could get stronger.  Maybe … Maybe.

That bowl of cereal was the last food John ate.  He stopped eating and drinking that day.  When the nurse came she told me not to offer him food or drink, to wait and see if he would ask for it.  He was still lucid, he was still talking to me and he was still my man.  I told the children that John would not last many more days.  My nephew Stephen arrived immediately.  He was there for the long term now … He was there to help take John to the bathroom, helped me with everything I needed.  I would never have been able to function those last weeks without Stephen.  He was my rock.

John went almost a week without food or water.  But he was still peeing.  This confused the nurse and the palliative doctor.  Where was this fluid coming from? We figured it must be coming from his belly fluid.  He drifted in and out of consciousness.   By the weekend he was becoming more and more agitated.  He would insist to walk to the bathroom but his heels had huge pressure sores on them even though I constantly changed his position in the bed.   My heart was breaking.  I didn’t want John to die but I knew it was time for him to pass on.

On Monday morning John woke up very agitated.  He wante to get dressed and go to work.  He had an errand to run that was urgent.  He was difficult to handle.  I knew this was his turning point.  When the nurse came it was decided it was time to sedate him for his own good.  I curled up with John one last time by saying “shove a bum chum” and cried in his arms until he slept.  And I stayed listening to him breathe.

I didn’t leave John’s side that last week.  I did finally relent to having a personal care worker come to teach me how to care for him now that he was no longer conscious.   John was barely breathing.  Stephen and I would wake up several times a night because John took so long between breaths.  We were both sure he passed away several times that week.

On Sunday Stephen went home.  He had to go to Halifax for work and we both knew there was nothing that could be done for John now.  John would have wanted Stephen to go.   I slept holding John’s hand that night.

On Monday afternoon the personal care worker came and we bathed John and made him comfortable.  Laura just arrived and Julie had taken Adam out to pick up some groceries.  I let the PSW out the door and sat in the front room with Laura for a moment.  I heard a sound and ran in to check on John.  He opened his eyes and looked at me  as I took his hand … I called for Laura and I told her I think he just passed.  He took one last breath and died.

Earlier that day I put my Fitbit on John to see what his heart was doing.  I was surprised to see it was heart was beating quickly and the nurse explained it was working hard to keep his body going.  A couple of hours after John passed away my Fitbit died (without warning).  It shouldn’t have been out of battery because it was fully charged the day before.  I charged it up and looked at my heart rate and realized it recorded the moment my heart broke.  John’s heart rate and my heart rate were almost the same.  Two hearts were broken.

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Shattered Happiness – Part 2

Posted on by Sue

After receiving the devastating diagnosis while at Princess Margaret hospital in Toronto we headed home.  I cried all the way home from Toronto and my husband just kept holding my hand reassuring me that I’d be ok.  That I’d be okay … Not him.  He was so calm, so loving and so supportive.  I asked him .. What do you want to do?  Is there anything we can do now that you have always wished to do?  He just smiled that lopsided smile of his at me and said we have always done whatever we wanted to do … He was quite happy just to spend time with me.

We got home and the family doctor called saying he received the orders from Princess Margaret that a stent needed to be inserted as soon as possible.  He told us the specialist would contact us the next day and it would likely be done on the Friday. We waited.

On Friday morning I contact the specialist’s office since we had not heard from them.  The nurse said the specialist was aware of the orders but wanted to see us the following Wednesday and he would decide when the stent would be insterted.  I called Princess Margaret and they told us to go to the hospital’s emergency ward and tell them to call Princess Margaret directly for orders.  We went in at 10:30 and sat there until 5 pm.  At that time a doctor came in and told us he was unable to get the operating room to do the procedure due to budget cuts.  We had to return on Monday at 6 am but he’d do it then.

We went back on Monday and sat there.  At 11 am the Doctor came out and told us he had been bumped by that specialist and that we were to return the next day.  At this point John was turning yellow.

Please remember the clock is counting down and these were our “quality of life” days.

We returned at 6 am on Tuesday morning and the specialist himself announced he’d be doing the procedure.  He failed.  He told us that they would try again in the afternoon going in through John’s back.  That failed.  Apparently the tumour had grown and was squeezing the gall bladder making it difficult to insert the stent.

They had to admit John that day into the hospital. Neither of us were happy about this as it was taking time away from us being together.  Plus it was tax season.  John desperately wanted to have one last tax season.  He loved his clients and wanted to be able to see all of them during this time.

Wednesday the specialist tried again and failed.  He reassured me it would be done the next day because he had “slashed” at the tumour loosening its grip on the organs.  John was getting yellower by the moment (I told him he started to look like a Simpson’s character) and he was tired.

On Thursday the doctor we saw in emergency originally successfully inserted the stent.  If only he had been allowed to do the procedure a week earlier!

The specialist released John from the hospital on the Friday morning saying everything was good.

John was feeling good and talked to several clients on the Friday.  His only complaint was he felt a tightness across his belly.  Other than that he was his old self.

The next day we worked in our basement office together on tax returns.  In the afternoon the Blue Jays were playing so he went upstairs to watch the game while I continued to work.  About an hour later I heard a thud.  I thought he was trying to get my attention so that I’d come upstairs to see a particular play between the teams.  When I got upstairs he was on the floor, feverish and unconscious.  I yelled for my son and called 911.

The ambulance came and within minutes the paramedic announced John was in septic shock.  They rushed him to the hospital and his temperature was over 105 degrees.  When we got there they put us in a little room and left us there.  They gave me a cloth and a bucket of water to keep him cool with (there was an ice machine just outside the room) and then basically ignored us for 24 hours while they grew the culture from his blood.

John was so ill.  He was burning to touch and his sugar levels were out of control.  I had to go out every four hours to ask them to check his blood.  I didn’t want to leave him for a minute since I was afraid he’d fall or something.  My son would come to relieve me so I could get some food for us or just to let me stretch my legs.  I was exhausted but refused to leave John.

At one point John opened his eyes and looked at me and asked why I was there.  I replied because he was ill.  He said, “go home, there are tax returns to do.”  I said no because I wanted to be with him.  He became quite stern, looking at me and saying, “honey, this is what we do … Now go do it … We serve our clients”.  So I packed up, went over to the hospital cafeteria and got a tea and came back.  When I walked back in the room I told him I’d just returned from working on the tax returns and was finished.  He believed me.

Finally a doctor came in and gave us the results.  Apparently … Big announcement here … John was in SEPTIC SHOCK.  Really?  Everyone knew that by the point.  Then the doctor starts mumbling and was quite uneasy as he asked questions like, well .. “If we found you on the floor .. What would you like us to do?”, “if your heart stops, what should we do?” We were so confused and said this is just an infection, please treat it and he ran out saying he’d get another doctor to talk to us.  He kept mumbling asking us for our yellow file. We had no idea what the yellow file was all about.

The doctor he sent in was from the infectious control unit.  He first apologized for the infection saying we should never have been sent home without antibiotics.  He stated the hospital tries to stay clean but it is a hotbed of germs and disease and they can’t stay on top of it.  He told us over and over again that John should never have been sent home after gut surgery without antibiotics.  He explained to us that for the rest of John’s expected life he would need to be hooked up to an IV with antibiotics in it.  So much for quality of life.

At this point it was Sunday night and they admitted John to the cancer wing until they could get the infection under control. He got settled into the room and they were bombarding him with antibiotics so I went home to work on tax returns.

For the next four days John fought the infection.  The ass-monkey of a specialist had the nerve to come to the room on Monday and tell John that he was fine and was to be released Tuesday.  I flipped out when I heard this as John was not well and I knew I couldn’t handle him at home yet.  He was confused and weak.  I went to see John’s nurse and he explained to me that specialist had no standing on that floor (since it was dedicated to cancer patients only) and that John would not be released for several days.

By this time the word was out about John’s illness.  There was a constant stream of visitors during the daytime and phone calls at the house inquiring about him.  Clients showed up at the house sobbing, telling me how John saved them in one way or another.  John was a quiet man, his clients would talk and talk and he would just listen and then at the end he would offer some sage advice.  John would find a way out of the mess for the client and all would end up ok.

I was exhausted.  I was at the hospital as much as possible and then working on the tax returns during the rest of the time.  In the evening I would go to the hospital and say “shove a bum chum” and John would move over and hold me while I cried or napped.  He would just look at me and tell me everything would be ok.  He said I was strong, said I’d be alright and said he would always be with me.

John was not a religious man.  He believed in a higher place but not in organized religion.  We were both raised Roman Catholics but the church didn’t accept us as we were both married previously.  As a result churches were not part of our lives.  But he did believe there was something after death.  He accepted his death.  He felt no anger towards the doctors who misdiagnosed him, felt no anger towards the hospital and never once had the “why me” time.  He just accepted the illness like he did everything else in his life.

One day while I was recovering in the hospital from the septic shock my daughter Amanda and I were sitting in his hospital room talking to him.  He kept looking just past us and I asked him what he was looking at.  He smiled at us and said “your dad is here” and he just kept talking to us.  Amanda started to cry but John just kept talking like nothing was out of the ordinary.  Then suddenly he said, “oh your dad is leaving for now .. He is going down that lane”.  I knew then John was not afraid to die.

On Friday, April 22nd the hospital released John and we drove home.  He was quiet in the car.  I asked him what he was thinking and he said he knew it was the last time he’d be in the car.  He wanted to take it all in.  I squeezed his hand and through my tears drove the rest of the way home.

 

 

Shattered Happiness – Part One

Posted on by Sue

I haven’t written in three years.  In those years I truly found my happiness.  Over the past three years my husband John and I left a toxic business relationship (earlier I mentioned my husband sold his accounting practice to another chartered professional accountant but we remained to help her transition into the business) and we concentrated on ourselves and our family.  My husband continued to work part time (because he truly loved what he did) and I took on other projects.  John and I began to enjoy our “semi-retirement”.  We travelled to Hawaii in October 2013 and were there when our daughter Amanda became engaged to her “sun and stars” Brandon.  Over the next 10 months I planned a beach wedding in Florida for the happy couple.  John and I started spending more time together at our condo in Florida, sprinkling in cruises, a trip to the Dominician Repulic and one to Cuba and just enjoying each other.  Another daughter, Laura, was married September 2015.  We were happier than we have ever been together.  Then things changed.

In September my husband had surgery to remove his ascending colon.  In a colonoscopy they discovered a flat polyp that the specialist felt should be removed.  The kids always were amazed at my husband’s healing powers but this time was different.  He didn’t bounce back quite as fast.  We saw the surgeon late October and he suggested we go south and get some sunshine.  We took a cruise to Grand Caymen and Cozumel but mostly sat on our balcony on the ship and enjoyed the sunshine.  But John still wasn’t recovering.

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We came back home and told the surgeon that John continued to lose weight and was passing blood in his stool.  We were assured this is normal after bowel surgery.

We came home for Christmas but everyone could see John was still ill.  He was cold all the time and tired.  Not like him at all.  We saw the doctor again who assured us John would be fine.  We headed back down to Florida for more rest and relaxation hoping that John would get stronger.

By New Years John was weak and in pain.  He had lost about 25 pounds since his surgery.  On January 10 John had to fly back home.  He was near death from loss of blood.  The incision where his bowels had been rejoined was leaking at he had lost almost half the blood in his body.  No wonder he was weak.  They operated on January 11, 2016.  We thought the worst was over.

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John started to get stronger.  The surgeon mentioned there was a “shadow” on the pancreas and felt John also suffered from pancreatitis.  We asked .. “Is it cancer?” But we were assured it was just the leaking intestine and pancreatitis.  After 6 weeks John and I went back to Florida with the surgeons blessing.  We felt more sun and seafood would put the meat back on my hubby and he would get strong again.

John had to fly home again in March to work on some client files.  I stayed behind because my grandson and his dad were visiting me in Florida.  John was still complaining about pain in his belly but the doctors felt it was a combination of things but no one considered cancer.

John had to have a CT Scan done of his kidneys because he routinely passed kidney stones. While having the scan he asked the technician to go higher because his pain was across the top of his belly.  She complied.  A few days later our family doctor phoned us saying he had booked an enhanced CT Scan on March 16.  I flew home to be with John for the test.

John was still passing blood so the surgeon had scheduled another colonoscopy on March 21.  While John was having this procedure our family doctor called to tell me he believed John had pancreatic cancer.

On April 7 we went to Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto only to be told John’s cancer was too far spread to do anything.  All they could do is recommend palliative care.  John had a couple of months at the most.  They recommended a stent be inserted in John’s gallbladder to prevent jaundice and told us they were sorry but nothing else could be done. We came home devastated.  OK .. I amend that.  I was devastated.  John was accepting.  I will write more about that later.

It took a week to have the stent inserted.  That is going to be another post that deals with his last months of life.

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One is the Loneliest Number

Posted on by Sue

Actually over the past couple of month’s I’ve realized that I don’t mind being alone. I have done things I’ve never done … gone to sit down restaurants by myself, to the beach, walked along the boardwalk at John’s Pass and went Black Friday shopping alone. I was alone, but in this high-tech world, I’m not lonely. My daughter has written to me each day and I’ve video chatted with my grandson and his mom a couple of times also. I face-timed with my husband, son and granddaughter. It was all good. 🙂

Tomorrow I’m heading home. While I’m very happy to be going home I’m also happy to have found out that I’m a strong, independent woman who can be happy alone.

The Circle of Life

Posted on by Sue

LETTER FROM A MOTHER TO A DAUGHTER:

“My dear girl, the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through.

If when we talk, I repeat the same thing a thousand times, don’t interrupt to say: “You said the same thing a minute ago”… Just listen, please. Try to remember the times when you were little and I would read the same story night after night until you would fall asleep.

When I don’t want to take a bath, don’t be mad and don’t embarrass me. Remember when I had to run after you making excuses and trying to get you to take a shower when you were just a girl?

When you see how ignorant I am when it comes to new technology, give me the time to learn and don’t look at me that way… remember, honey, I patiently taught you how to do many things like eating appropriately, getting dressed, combing your hair and dealing with life’s issues every day… the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through.

If I occasionally lose track of what we’re talking about, give me the time to remember, and if I can’t, don’t be nervous, impatient or arrogant. Just know in your heart that the most important thing for me is to be with you.

And when my old, tired legs don’t let me move as quickly as before, give me your hand the same way that I offered mine to you when you first walked.

When those days come, don’t feel sad… just be with me, and understand me while I get to the end of my life with love.

I’ll cherish and thank you for the gift of time and joy we shared. With a big smile and the huge love I’ve always had for you, I just want to say, I love you… my darling daughter.”

– Unknown

I read this on Facebook today and cried.  I see myself in this scenario .. in my relationship with my own mother and I pray this won’t happen to me as I age.  Now my mother is past help .. she suffers from Alzheimer’s and rarely recognizes me.  I do know I am guilty of every point listed above and, for that, I am sorry.  I do try, I try so hard to be patient with her over the last 20 years but it was difficult at times.  Now I go and sit with her and she is grateful for the company but really doesn’t realize I’m her daughter.

I do get confused thinking about this because I have always had this unusual relationship with my mother.  In many ways, I was the mother … even though she had a totally different relationship with my sister and my brother.  My mother would lay out all her problems to me to solve rather than be there to support me.  I can’t remember a time when I felt that she took care of me.  My father cared for me when I was small.  To my mother I was always the anchor in her relationship with my dad.  She married him in order to have her other two children supported and she looked at my dad as her meal ticket.  Eventually I became the negotiator in her relationship with my father, I took care of her instead of the other way around.  So yes, there were times I was impatient, arrogant, bitchy and short with her.

My mother has contributed to the person I am.  I am strong and able to function on my own.  I don’t “need” people to solve my problems.  I don’t share my worries or feelings easily.  I will downplay any health concerns because I want to handle it on my own.  I don’t like to appear weak to my family.  I am the mother of my family.  I need to be strong for my children and they need to know they can count on me to be there for them.  My husband and children are my world.  I would do anything for them and would be devastated if they felt I was a burden to them.

Recently my husband’s ex-wife’s husband died.  (Whew … what a sentence.)  He died after suffering from cancer for a year.  He had always had health issues and personal issues.  He was a recovering alcoholic.  Even before his cancer they would pressure my two stepdaughters to take care of things for them.  Now that he has passed away their mother has gone into this “take care of me” mode.  Suddenly she can’t manage her money, take care of her home or her health.  She has now talked her youngest daughter into  selling her condo and buying a house together.  On the surface this looks like a good idea but neither one has equity in their current homes and are taking on a $300,000 mortgage.  The mother is over 60 … how many more years does she expect to work?  She doesn’t have any RRSP’s or savings to draw on once she retires, all she has is a small insurance settlement that won’t last long.  She wants someone to take care of her and she is looking at her daughters as her way out of the responsibility of life.

I don’t want pity from anyone.  I just want to be loved.  There may be a time that my husband and I move in with one of our children but we will want a separate area and I will remain independent.  We would sell our house and put towards the new home (whomever I live with will get part of the inheritance early).   It would be a win win situation.  The six months a year I live there I would help my children any way I could.  I would be an asset and not a liability to my children.  If neither of my children aren’t interested in that arrangement then we will move to a senior’s apartment but I would hate wasting all that money on rent.  I would rather the money end up helping my children in their lives.

I am terrified that I will end up like my mother.  I don’t want to live in a nursing home, alone and confused.  I totally agree with my father, the day I can’t drive anymore is the day I want to die.    I want to be strong, eccentric and loving until the day I die.  I want to be me.

It Is Not You

Posted on by Sue

When I was 12 I was sexually assaulted. Normally I wouldn’t bring this up but I need to in order to introduce you to one of my greatest influences of my teenage life.

I was babysitting my niece and nephew. My sister was out (I can’t remember where) and my brother-in-law was supposed to be at the cottage for the weekend. It was around 7:30 and both my niece and nephew were sleeping when the door to the apartment opened. In came my drunken brother-in-law demanding to know where my sister was. I told him she’d be home in a few hours and he suddenly grinned at me. I will never forget the look on his face as he came towards me. I’m not going to go into details here but he ended up leaving (he went back up to his cottage) and I phoned my parents. My mother answered the phone and she told me she’d come get me.

She arrived, assessed the situation and packed the kids up and we went to my house. My mother left my sister a note saying she could pick the children up in the morning. In the car my mother told me I was to tell my father nothing about what happened. I didn’t understand how I was going to explain the fact I had a split lip, black eye and one very sore side. I also didn’t understand why she was angry at me.

The next day she told my father and sister that I hurt myself while babysitting. She said I was reaching for something in the cupboard, it fell and hit me in the face. No one said anything to me. My mother warned me not to say anything about that night … that if I did I would be blamed for ruining my sister’s marriage. I was confused, hurt and felt very alone. My nephew spent most of the day on my lap as if he knew I needed someone to care for me. I knew that day I’d protect that little boy for the rest of his life.

OK enough of that … now to the person I really wanted to talk about.

Over the next year I was becoming a normal teenager. My sister ended up leaving her husband, and to my mother’s relief, I was not blamed. Apparently having the shit beaten out of me wasn’t a good mark on the family. I started high school alone since most of my friends ended up going to the Catholic High School and I went to the public school. I changed my look entirely. I went from wearing very short (my mother used to cut my hair) hair and horn rimmed glasses to growing my hair long, going strawberry blonde and getting wire framed glasses. I embraced the hippy lifestyle. I wore fringed vests, long flowing dresses and coloured glasses. My mother HATED it or me. Obviously I was crazy so I was sent to see a psychiatrist. I am surprised she did this because I would think it would also reflect on her that I had to see this doctor.

This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship that lasted several years.

I remember the day I met Dr Raskin as if it was yesterday. I was nervous waiting in the reception area. Everything seemed so dark. The walls were dark, the lights were turned down … I guess it was meant to relax you. Didn’t work for me as I felt very uneasy waiting. My mother and I went in to meet this man who was going to turn me into a normal human being. For the first hour (ok 50 minutes but I’m going to say hour because it is easier) my mother talked. She told him that I was impossible. I listened to loud music (IT WAS NEIL DIAMOND … WHAT TEENAGER LISTENED TO NEIL DIAMOND), I didn’t keep my room clean .. she told him about me and my faults for the entire session. I just sat there. Went back the next week and once again she did all the talking. How horrible her life was, how horrible I was … I just couldn’t understand why I was there. Third session started and Dr. Raskin finally spoke. He looked at me and said, “Why are you here?” My mother started to answer and he looked at me again and said “No .. Why are YOU here?” I replied, “I really don’t know. My mother feels I need to be here.”. He asked, “Do you?”. I just shrugged. He told my mother that she was no longer needed at “our” sessions and that he would contact her when he felt she should be there. It was the quietest ride home.

The next week (I went every Wednesday at 4) I went in alone. Dr. Raskin and I just sat there. Minutes dragged on. He started reading something on his desk. I didn’t want to interrupt his reading so the silence just dragged on. He finally looked at me and said again “Why are you here?”. I told him I really didn’t know but apparently I was defective and, as a doctor, he needed to fix me. He laughed. Now you have to picture this man. He was very tall, dark hair and had a mustache and always was dressed in black. For some reason he reminded me of Dali’s sane brother. He would twirl his pen in his long fingers and it fascinated me. When he laughed, I laughed. And we started to talk. And talk. He saw me through all the high and lows of my high school years.

Every week we would talk about school, my school mates, music, life … nothing was off-limits. He sent me to the Oshawa Hospital for two days of extensive testing. I was having migraines and he had them run every test possible. Not that it surprised me because I already knew this but I have a high IQ but trouble memorizing things. Don’t ask me dates, names, even words to songs. My mind doesn’t work like other minds … he would tell me I could be brilliant but I had an undisciplined mind. He would lecture me to focus, train it as I would any muscle but I never could learn to memorize things properly. I wonder if it is too late to start training my mind.

For three years I saw him every Wednesday at 4. I looked forward to our visits. To me they were not “sessions” but two friends getting together to chat. We did talk about the reason my mother sent me there originally and dealt with it. I remember leaving one week and as I got to the door, Dr. Raskin said to me, “You know, it is not you”. Nothing else. I laughed and replied that I knew that too.

I started dating the high school football captain and ended up marrying him. When we were getting serious I told him where I went every Wednesday afternoon. He was horrified. He didn’t say anything for a few weeks and then told me that I would have to stop seeing the doctor. He could not go home and tell his parents that I was in therapy! As it was they hated me for not being Ukrainian. This would be the final nail in my coffin. So I went to see Dr Raskin and told him. Dr. Raskin totally understood and told me his door was always open. For the first time, he actually touched me … he hugged me as I left. This time, when I was leaving he said to me “Susan … it is not you. Be you. And … your mother is crazy”. I said I knew that since I was a kid and that was the hand I was dealt as a child.

I married my high school sweetheart. I married him for all the wrong reasons and leaving him was probably the best thing I ever did for him. He will be the topic of a blog some day … but not today. When I left him, I knew it was over. I filed for divorce (back then you had to wait 3 years for it to be final). He said he would not contest the divorce IF I would go see Dr. Raskin (apparently I was crazy to leave him) and he agreed that leaving was the best thing for me. I agreed and went to see my old friend. We didn’t even talk about my ex-husband in that session. I knew nothing was going to make me go back to that life.

Dr Raskin had aged. Perhaps he was ill, I really don’t know but all I could think of was he had become an old man. We chatted but that link between us was gone. This time I left without looking back. We both knew it was time for me to be out in the world on my own.

Opening Windows

Posted on by Sue

I shocked myself the other day when I realized I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in the new version of Windows.

I remember in November 1985 (I was pregnant with my son at the time) being excited when the first version of Windows was released. I read everything I could on it and was so excited when we bought a desktop PC with it on it. Over the next few years computers became my passion … learning DOS (and teaching my 4-year-old daughter how to program games in DOS) and exploring the new Windows programs. I taught myself how to upgrade computer hardware, serviced my clients networks and thought seriously about becoming a certified technician. When Windows 95 was released I was ecstatic. Microsoft had revolutionized desktop computers.

For better or worse, Windows 95 changed my life. Windows 95 introduced me to social networking … I chatted with people from all over the world. I became a hostess in a MSN chat room, spent hours exploring the internet (not much was online back then but I read everything I could find).

Knowing DOS gave me a backdoor into the new Windows OS. My daughter and I (she is 13 at this point) could have become a mother/daughter hacking team. We taught each other HTML, simple hacking programs and kept pushing the envelope. Over the next few years I had to watch my daughter because she is brilliant and could easily have become an internet mastermind. I wrote simple password cracking programs, a program that allowed me to record keystrokes entered on the computer and, my favourite, a program that would take screen shots every 15 seconds and hide them on the computer.

I had to watch my daughter. She wrote programs that generated charge card numbers, enabled her computer to make long distance phone calls (an early version of Skype) without being charged. Luckily she moved on to master some other challenge.

XP came out in 2001 and it became difficult to use the DOS tricks we had learned over the years. Changes were fast and I was losing interest in mastering computers. I was so busy with work that it fell into the background. My granddaughter and stepdaughter had moved in with us and suddenly my life was taken up with a toddler. Computers were fading into the background. I still was interested but on a casual level.

Now Microsoft has come out with Windows 8. LAST WEEK. I haven’t even looked at it .. I have no interested in upgrading … no interest in knowing what it offers. I don’t feel like I need to run out and buy it.

The window is closed … now it is time to open a new door.

The Lucky One

Posted on by Sue

When I was young I would ask my mom if I was pretty and she would say to me “Your older sister is the pretty one, your brother is the smart one and you are the lucky one”. I was the lucky one. I thought that I was special … there were lots of pretty girls, smart people but how many people were “lucky”?

As I grew up I realized people were not born lucky. People make their own luck working hard. I knew I was every bit as smart as my brother and while I was not pretty, I certainly was not ugly.

Then I met a man who made me feel that I was all three things .. pretty, intelligent and lucky. Next week we will have been married 31 years.

I am the first to admit we have had both good times and bad times. We lived together, worked together and spent all our time together. We raised two children together and helped raise his two daughters from his first marriage. After all this time I still consider myself lucky to be his wife.

My husband is the smartest man I know, kind, generous and loving. He has spent his lifetime providing for his family. He has taken good care of me and given me a life that I love. This anniversary is the start of our new life together as he retires two months later. After over 34 years of taking care of our family it will be our time together. I am looking forward to our new beginning.

I really am the lucky one.

Baby Steps

Posted on by Sue

For the past two weeks I have struggled to kickstart my creative streak. I have spent hours walking around Michaels and Joanns trying to get inspired. I bought little ceramic houses with the idea of creating a Christmas village under the tree. Well after spending two days painting this little tavern I’m ready to toss it in the garbage. So frustrated I set out again. Then I remembered I still have not completed a Christmas stocking for my son and his is 26 now! I must have 12 stockings being worked on but I never have finished one. This year I will do it! My deadline is two weeks from today!