Running on Empty

Posted on by Sue

My husband has been gone for two months now.  The days drag on but I can never remember what day of the week it is.  I don’t sob very often anymore but I cry every day.  Every day.  When people ask me how I feel the only way I can describe it is that I feel empty.  I am not complete.  My heart is missing.

I went back to Florida for a very short time.  I went with my goddaughter Zoe for some girl bonding time. She is heading off to university this fall and I have barely seen her in years.  Not because I didn’t want to see her but she lives a very busy life.  She models professionally and when she is not modeling she is studying.  It was nice being with her as she actually spent the time with me and not with her phone.  A week from now I’ll see her again when I go to Halifax to see her off to university.  Seems like it was yesterday when she was born.

I’m feeling very stressed these days.  I’ve finally started the house renovations.  I called a contractor and am waiting for the quote on my dining room ceiling and getting the hardwood installed in my family room.  It is time for the house to be fixed and I can’t do it alone.  My family has been helping me.  We have a dumpster and have filled it.  There was a major leak in the basement and the flooring was ruined and moldy.  My son and his girlfriend are now going to have two rooms … One for sleeping and one for hanging out in. I want to get my room finished this week.  John’s closet and dresser empty. I want to renovate my ensuite and I can’t do it until my room is clean.  Everything is such a mess.

But the biggest cause for stress that I have is there is this woman that owes me money.    A friend of mine told me she said was happy that John died, that in fact he deserved it. She said many horrible things that I won’t repeat here and now she refuses to pay me the money she owes.  She doesn’t owe me a fortune but she does owe me money.  What bothers me the most is what she is saying about my husband.  I am taking her to court.  I will spend whatever I have to in order to make her pay.  Only because she is so heartless.

I also have gone back to work.  I am self-employed and I took enough time off.  We were supposed to be retired this year but now that John is gone I don’t think I want to sit around doing nothing all day so I have decided to go back to work.  I’ll see how this goes … Being self employed is hard work but it is better than just sitting here waiting to die.

I have written out my draft will and given it to the lawyer.  I want to get my affairs in order so I can stop thinking about that aspect of my life too.  Once my will and POA is completed I will begin training my son and daughter on how to run the family business.  Maybe when that is all finished that I will start to heal.

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.

 

 

My Last Tax Season

Posted on by Sue

I’ve been having a difficult time writing lately and I think it is because I’m tired of work.  A little background for you first … my husband and I have had our own business for over 20 years.  He’s a chartered accountant and I’ve run the office plus worked with clients teaching them bookkeeping and QuickBooks.  The practice was successful but there are times I think the cost was too great.  We worked very hard, most times 6 or 7 days a week.  We spoiled our children.  Just when we had decided to stop working as hard, my stepdaughter moved in with her one year old baby.  Suddenly there were two more mouths to feed, a baby to dress and care for and we had to work harder to provide for the family.  Then the whole financial crisis killed our investments.

In 2010 my husband entered into an agreement with another chartered accountant to take over the practice.  He turned 65 on his last birthday and he deserves not to continue working at this pace.  Over the past two years we have been winding down and getting the clients used to the changes.  My time at the office will end the end of April while my husband will continue working (but less hours) for the next couple of years.

I’m finding it difficult to focus at work.  I feel a sense of loss since work defined me for so long.  My role there has changed.  I’ve gone from the person running the office to the person making tea, answering the phones and, yes, I am filing.  I have some tax returns and bookkeeping to do for clients but I’ve lost my work mojo.  I am tired of being there.  It is time for me to move on.

I feel tired all the time and I know I’m trying to sleep the time away.  I need to look at this as a positive change in my life.  One step at a time and move forward instead of dwelling on the past.  So tomorrow I’m going to try to focus on my happiness plan and work on the plans I set out earlier this year.

And When I Die …

Posted on by Sue

I want the people who love me to be able to say, “oh she lived a wacky, loving, happy life”.

When I was growing up my favourite aunt was considered “eccentric”.  I loved going to her place.  She lived in an old farm-house in a small village outside a small town.  She was larger than life, loud, flamboyant and creative.  When I was small I would go and explore her house while the family would visit.  There were secret passageways between the walls, I spent hours creeping along the walls and finding new passageways.  As I got older I spent more and more time in her company and I would listen to her stories about faeries living in the trees, of how we should treat nature and her religious beliefs.  She believed she was a modern-day Druid.

When my daughter was born I would take her up to the farm with me.  My aunt was a master weaver and she was teaching me how to spin.  We would take the freshly shorn wool, carded it, spun it and died it together while my daughter played beside us.  I loved those afternoons.  I knew people who my aunt was eccentric, crazy, wacky but I thought she was wonderful.  Her home was a drop in centre for all sorts of people, artists, gays, cerebral people … it was like a melting pot.  Once my son was  born it became difficult for me to go visit there anymore.

My aunt’s funeral was an event.  Her ex-husband was the host.  It was packed with all sorts of people.  My mother clucked and clucked … by this time she and her sister hadn’t spoken to each other for years.  I mourned the light that had left this earth.

So this is the long way around to say I want to be that kind of person.  I want my creative juices to flow, I want to live a fun life.  My life has become boring for the past twenty years.  Work consumed me. I had some many dreams and they went by the wayside.  I wanted to design jewellery, create glass creations but there just wasn’t any time.  I lost so much time and I want it back.

So now it is time to fly kites, slay dragons, rekindle my passions and embrace my inner wackiness.  There is no more “tomorrow” … time is running out.

I want to make a difference in someone’s life and change my own.  Help me.  Give me any advice you have!

Mother Mother Ocean

Posted on by Sue

I love water. When I was young I had a canoe and small sailboat and I spent hours at the cottage on the water. As I got older I started coming to Florida. For a few years we had a condo on the Gulf of Mexico. I would watch the waves and dream of the ocean. I wanted to sail on the water, feel the spray on my face and watch the dolphins play in the wake.

I will never have an ocean-going sailboat but I have been on a cruise ship. I know it is not the same, but I have spent hours on the balcony watching the water. It is like heaven to me.

Today I touched heaven again. Tourist heaven, but heaven nonetheless. I went on a tug boat out onto the Gulf of Mexico to look for dolphins with my son and his girlfriend. I loved the motion of the boat, the sun on my face and smell of the salt water. Within the first few minutes of the trip I spotted a solitary dolphin. The boat headed out to the Gulf to see if we could find any other dolphins. Gulf was choppy so the spray was fierce and waves lapped into the boat. We came back to the intercoastal and found the original dolphin. The dolphin played in the wake of the boat. Watching him play filled me with such a feeling of joy and peace.

Tonight I hope to dream of the ocean.

Giving Thanks

Posted on by Sue

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. Unfortunately I am far from most of my family today as I am in Florida with my son and his girlfriend while renovations are being done here. Even though we were unable to have our standard holiday dinner I am thankful for many things.

First I am thankful for my husband. We have been married 31 years and been together for 33 years. We live together, work together and usually holiday together. We are together more than most couples. Yes there are times we drive each other crazy and there are times we need a break from each other but we are still in love after all this time.

John is my rock, my iron man. He has been a good provider for our family. We may not always agree but I don’t know what I would do without him.

I am also thankful for my children. I have been truly blessed with my children.

My beautiful daughter Amanda is brilliant and creative. I have never met anyone else like her. It seems there is nothing she can’t do. She is an extremely talented artist in many fields (photography, drawing, needlework), excellent writer and the smartest person I have ever met. She is one of the people I know I can always count on to be there for me. Amanda has a travelling bug that she inherited from me .. often I dream of doing the Amazing Race with her.

My son is another one that has always been there for me. Adam is a gentle giant and one of the kindest old souls I have ever met. I can always count on him to tell me whether I’m off base … he centers me. When I am troubled he senses it and does what he can to fix it. He is smart, handsome and in the process of finding himself. I think this next year will be a watershed year for my baby boy.

John brought his two daughters into our relationship. Julie, the oldest, has grown into a strong and independent woman. In many ways she is much like me. We tend to like the same decorating ideas, clothing styles and we both are very family oriented. I wish she lived closer to me so she could be bigger part of my life but I plan to see her more often from here on out.

Laura is my other stepdaughter. Laura is a hands on woman … loves to do home renovations on her own. She is friendly and is competitive and loves to play games. Laura hates confrontation and will work at alleviating conflict.

I am thankful for my grandchildren (more on them later) and my extended family. I am thankful for my health and home. And lastly I am thankful for my most comfortable bed … I am heading there now!