Re-defining the Rabbit Hole

I have been off of the grid for a good long while. Many things have happened in this life that I have dubbed "down the rabbit hole"

We have gone through even more changes. I am now on disability and staying at home, both a negative and a plus. All I have ever wanted to do was be able to stay at home and once that decision was made, the adjustment was so much more than I ever expected it to be. When you have nothing pushing you to get out of the bed in the mornings, you find that you just don't.

I'm not a huge Martha Stewart fan, but her show comes on at 9 a.m. and I do enjoy the things that they do on her show, so I get up for that. An hour, a couple of cups of coffee and I'm usually good to go.

Since my last post I have had so many surgeries, two of them very major, with the major set backs that go with them. Recouperation has been long and tedious. I have been both tortured and mutalated due to the radiation that I received during my cancer treatments. I have had everything but a small part of my colon and my kidneys removed from my abdomenal cavity because all the soft tissue was so damaged. So much for survivor.

I have survived so much more than cancer. I have lived to meet yet another grandchild, a sweet 8 month old by the name of Ella Suzanne Clinard. She is a little doll, so happy and laid back. We are truly blessed.

I still knit daily, now I putter around in my yard, working on starting next years garden, getting back into the habit of cooking evening meals and learning to make cheese.

I'm glad to get back to this, I feel that I have things to share, I've been on quite a journey in the last two years. Learning how to be "retired" reveals something new every day. People think you have loads of time to do lots of things, when actually you are busier than you have ever been. How did we do all of this and work to ?

Still in the rabbit hole

I Was Going To Say Give Us A Break

until we wound up at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital today with our 11 year old grandaughter. Turned out to be nothing major, thus far. They are keeping her over night and doing a lot more blood work.

As my title would imply, haven't we been through enough recently and about to go through more. Until I got to the hospital today, we are so blessed, how many of those parents would give their life for mine. How many would beg for the chaos that seemingly rules our lives. Makes you think, makes you grateful, makes you pray !

Now what?

Most of my posts have been about life with my mother-in-law. How we adapted to the change she brought to our home and how we tried to help her adapt to that were going on in her own personal life.

Mitzi's life ended, very peacefully, this past Tuesday night. Her sister, sons, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, Leeanne and myself were with her.

I keep trying to grieve, to cry, but so far it hasn't come. I think it's because she and I grieved together over each thing that changed, over each thing that was forgotten, over each activity that now required assistance, where two weeks prior she needed no help. Perhaps we just grieved together and I'm done.

I do grieve for my family and the hurt that they are going through that I cannot take away. I grieve for my husband, I can't begin to understand how he feels, I've never lost a parent. I grieve for my children and grandchildren, I've been in their shoes and know the pain that is in their heart.

I celebrate that prayers were answered and she did not suffer, that her sister was able to see her while she was still mentally with us. I celebrate that Hospice was with us when the time came and I celebrate the new friend that we have in her room mate at the nursing home, I can't imagine having gone through all of this without her wisdom and humor.

Now what, well we'll see, God always surprises me with each and every new chapter of my life.

To Grammie, Rest in Peace.

moving into the 21st Century

Finally got a computer that works from the house. It's difficult to find dependable service when you live in the middle of approx. 800 acres. We have had lots of drama around here lately, the QUEEN has been in the nursing home for approx. a month. She is doing better and that is where she needs to stay, we'll see. I have been enjoying my down time.

I had yet another surgery on May 15th and have one coming up in a month or two. Hopefully, it will solve some of the annoying problems that have been tormenting me for a while now, if not then I will have tried eveything possible.

So,, to conclude, all is quiet in the Rabbit Hold for now. I don't feel so much like Alice at the moment.

HONEY, I'M HOME

Well not really, I've been at home the whole time. I've just been out of the blogging loop.

I've begun a new career, well sort of, Caregiving. Something that I did for a very long time, left and have come back to in an adminstrative role. My husband also has a new career, so at 50+ we are both upwardly mobile and exhausted, because we are too old for all of this stuff. It's that old dog, new trick thing. New tricks make you very, very tired.

The dementia situation in the Rabbit Hole is getting worse. We have days where the Queen in just as lucid as she can be , but for the most part, she is declining both physically and mentally.

Without some type of outside help,whether from family or the company I work for, she really is not going to be able to stay at home unassisted for much longer. All day is too long. My husband has worked second shift for as long as she has been there, until this new job and now we are gone at the same time. She spends that time in the bed, asleep, dehydrating and loosing any thought of staying active and in touch.

I have lots to say and very little time, more later.

TAGGED?

My daughter tagged me re: six wierd things about myself !

I told her I didn't know anything weird about myself, I was normal.

I quess that is weird.

1. I, too, know how to make molasses. We do it every year at my mom and dad's. That's also one of my daughter's.

2. I had a cousin that was on the Batan Death march in WWII and lived.

3. I had never been out of Tennessee until I was 19 years old.

4. I acutally had to wade a creek to catch the bus when I was in high school.

5. I've always wanted to be a writer.

6. One of my favorite meals is popcorn and warm chocolate cookies. Wait, that may be normal !