Nine Feet Underground

After a long period of stasis, I have just completed the first step in changing our house and garden to meet the needs of us all.  The first step is converting our garden into a usable space for socialising and hosting gatherings (maybe with food if guests are lucky!) I'm on the verge of starting a project to convert our garage into a combined music room, library, and guest bedroom. It's long been a dream of mine to have a library and a music room, and this dream is now almost a reality.   You might ask why I didn't start this sooner? The overarching reason is that being E's carer, with all that entailed, it was almost impossible (for a long time) to muster the energy or positivity needed to make such big changes. Not only that, some of these changes would have been impossible whilst E was in her hospital bed. Getting to the point where I could even imagine there was a future for me was a very long process involving pain, upheaval, and a lot of counselling.  I need t...

Life has changed a lot since I last wrote here, but there's only one thing I can actually write about. About a month ago, E died after a long illness.  Although it had been expected for a long time, it still came as quite a shock.  There wasn't any warning, and the carers discovered her body in the morning. Although my three sons and I had been grieving for the loss of a mum and a wife for a long time, the finality of this was deeply upsetting. As one of my sons said, "I was just used to her being there all the time". Overall, it was a relief because E had suffered so much in the past few months. This was very unpleasant for her, obviously, but also very hard to watch and hear.  After E's death, there has been lots to do.  Last week, we had a wake/celebration of her life, which was attended by around 60 people from across her life, ranging from her childhood to friends she'd made amongst the mums who had children at school at the same time as our youngest. The...

Sometimes it's hard to know what is good and what is not.  Last night (technically very early this morning) we called out the out-of-hours nursing service to attend to E.  We've had to do this several times consecutively over the past week.   With any luck, this is a sign that things are changing, which would be in everyone's best interest, not least E's.  Either way, the positive thing is that we should be moving to a situation where E gets pain relief and calming medication via a continuous feed syringe driver.  There is no telling how long this could last, so we have to develop a plan B, for the sake of E, who would ideally have access to 24-hour nursing care and for the rest of us who find witnessing E in pain to be upsetting. (Stronger words are more appropriate, but those will do) The reality of the situation is unimaginable unless you are the one or ones experiencing it.  Things must change. On other occasions, it is easy to distinguish good and...

The old year stretches out behind me and the new one beckons me. I haven't made any resolutions as I believe that you should try to improve every day and learn from things you got wrong.  Doesn't always work that way, but trying is half the battle. What I want most this year is for E's suffering to end as soon as possible. We don't even know the full extent of it, only the part of the iceberg that's out of the water. Over the past few weeks, her decline has continued apace, such that we are now keeping one eye open for signs of sepsis.  Fingers crossed it happens sooner than later. This weekend I should be off to Amsterdam with Q and her daughter (who is returning to her home there) to celebrate Q's birthday, hot on the heels of Christmas. I had a neck, head and shoulder massage at the Sue Ryder hospice yesterday which set me up nicely for New Year's Eve.  I have three more sessions to go and I can try reflexology (which I might try) and reiki which sounds l...