swilkinson

Kelli loved your thought process. I treat a day out with friends in a similar way.

Good to see you dropping by again Jean. Asha's blogs have always been an inspiration to me and give me something to think about. It is great to have regular contributors in the Blog Community. Miss your input but catch up on your blogs from time to time.

They look normal on my screen.

An act of kindness always lifts our spirit. What a great thing to do. Love those moments.

This is the progress of the dementia caused by stroke plus ageing. You are doing the right thing Ruth by just letting nature take its course. It is a day by day journey now. You have done all you can.

Welcome to the Blog Community Wonder Woman, we are all wonderful in our own way, thanks for the reminder. Go on blogging and helping us learn more about you. Keep posting and you are sure to make friends here. Good to hear you have overcome so much to get this far. Warm (((hugs))) and welcome from one of the long term members.

That is a beautiful poem. You are right caring support can come from someone close at hand or someone far away. One of my dearest friends lives in England so we ring and email but only see each other about every four years. Other friends are close by and I see them weekly.

Thanks Jay for the silver linings idea. Yes, whatever comes out of this will add something to my life experiences. If you approach each day looking for good things then good things do happen. You do have an impact upon the lives of those you come into contact with whenever you honestly share your life with them, as all the Blog Community members do.

You will see some messages on Facebook Sally. Nothing too descriptive, just updates. Got some bad news yesterday but life is a process so good can always come out of bad.

Thanks Jay for your prayers, I appreciate your caring about what's happening to me. Kind and caring words do make a difference. I do sometimes think nobody cares but I know that is just that those who care are just not close by. I am thankful for the Blog Community and the caring comments the members post.

ASHA I somehow missed this happy blog.Flying over Everest must have been awesome. So glad you are able to cope with such excursions. You are definitely the kind of travel companion I love to be around.

I hope 2018 will be a great year for you. I admire your perseverance with finding solutions to the problems you have health-wise and emotionally. You are an inspiration to many on here.

Sarah, having family around can give you such a good feeling, so glad you got to have that for a while. I can imagine Gary's delight in being the centre of attention on the dance floor. Thanks for the update, always good to hear your news.

It is a little hard to write this blog for many reasons. One is that I don't have a working computer and am typing this with one finger on a tablet, another is that I am not feeling good about life right now. I went for my four months check up today and by the way the radiologist spoke all is not well. So I go for more tests next week. I just hate it when a medical professional pats my hand and calls me "dear" as that usually means there are problems ahead. I had a good Christmas with five of my grandchildren together with my daughter, son-in-law, his brother and mother, my fomer daughter-in-law and several others together for what turned into a real feast. I had seen Trevor and Alice a couple of weeks before so although they were not with us they were by no means forgotten. I miss Ray at every family event but I know Craig's mum was also missing her Don so felt somewhat for her too. It was good to be in lively company and enjoy family time. I think in a way as time goes by I miss Ray more when our families get together. I understand now why some families put out an empty chair at special family events as it felt to me as if there should have been an acknowledgement that the two grandfathers were missing. I think Craig's mum felt that way too. It seems sometimes as if part of me is missing and it makes happiness seem like something that used to happen rather than something that happens now. Is life still good? Yes it is. My word for this year is NEW and that is because it is NEW every morning, and whatever is happening in my life I want to go on feeling that way. I mean to turn what could seem scary into something exciting. I want to go on enjoying life. Today may have been scary in a way but tomorrow the sky may be blue and good news of some sort may brighten my day. I don't know how far ahead I can plan life but I still need to make the most of this summer. I have plenty of gardening to do, the elephant still needs painting, and there is so much to do in the house. I have friends to see locally and further afield so I need to go on enjoying what I can. The diagnosis may not be as bad as I am thinking right now. Time to put my Big Girl pants on and keep on going. I know a lot of people are much worse of than I am and really at 70 I have plenty of good memories to look back on so why am I worrying? I guess because I am human, and will always love life and want to live with health and wellness . But if that is not the next part of the journey so be it.

Pam, I am always glad to see a blog from you because it means you are thinking and thinking outside the place in which you live. It would be easy to see life as a journey to the grave and not see the real meaning of life which for me is to connect with others. I am just going for more tests myself which if scary as the Big "C" dominates my thinking again. So hugs and prayers are coming your way dear friend.

Thanks for your greetings and best wishes for the year to come. With a great deal of happiness and without too much trauma and worry.

Thanks for the update George, glad all is well with the three of you, hope you get a few more trips in.

So sorry for your loss, my mother was 94 when she passed away but l still miss her it is something you come to terms with but never get over.

Seems as if time has flown since I last blogged and now we are just a few days short of Christmas, so only one thing to do. Wish you all the best for the days ahead, a peaceful and joyous time with family and friends. May the year ahead be one of progress and new opportunities. Bless you in all you do.

Dementia is so cruel, and very hard to be exposed to if you do not have it yourself. Do you have head phones with quiet music playing that you can use to block out the noise? I had a roomie at Women's Weekends for a couple of years who could only sleep with the light on and music playing. The first time I shared with her was difficult but the next was okay. I did understand the problem but still found it hard. It must be hell for you

It was the WAGS Christmas party today, my second favorite party. I missed a couple of parties last weekend as I was out at Broken Hill with my younger son Trevor. I wanted to be there that weekend as it was his birthday on Monday 27th. As he is a long way away from friends and family he loves it when I can be there and it was his access time to his five year old Alice too so we had a ball. We took Alice to Playtime at the local Salvation Army, to please her we went to see the movie "My Little Pony", he got tickets for us all to go to a small circus, we went swimming in the local pool and did a lot of reading books, playing games etc all at five year old level. I really enjoyed my time out there away from the humidity of the coast. One of the highlights was a freak rain event, high winds and flooding rain for about ten minutes, then gentle rain for another twenty minutes and it was all over. The rain water drains quickly into the red desert soil so the effect is very short lasting. The highlight of the WAGS Christmas party for me is the dancing. I sat with one of my long term friends an ex-nurse called Robyn who had a slight stroke eight years ago. She deals with life bravely and I do admire her, she is a widow like me and occasionally we do things together. She has a small farm and has cows and calves, she came today from trying to help a neighbour with a young cow who was calving and unfortunately the cow died as did the calf so she was quite sad when she arrived at the party. One of the things we do every year is dance with Robin, who is in his mid-fifties has had a stroke leaving him with a useless hand and a leg in a brace. Robin loves to dance so we get him on the dance floor and dance around him. The smile on his face goes from ear to ear and the other men say: "Good on you mate, two lovely ladies to dance with." and the grin widens. It has become part of the ritual so I will hate it when he can no longer get up on the dance floor. Each year we lose people from the group as we do from this site, some because the stroke damage is magnified by the ageing process and they no longer have the stamina, some because they take up new interests and have clashing demands on their time and some just stop contacting and we don't know what has happened to them. It is sad to make friends and then lose them as the years pass. But it is always fun and we find a lot to laugh at, in fact we were making so much noise today that a couple of others came over to see what the hilarity was about. One of the younger women at our table wore a dress that was too low so she cut out a V piece from a gold Christmas card and tucked it into the top of her dress. We all got so much fun out of the ensuing adjustments with all the women contributing their advice that we were almost hysterical with laughter. She is both a stroke survivor and a cancer survivor with a lovely and loving personality so took it all as a compliment which of course it was as well as an accolade to the person she is. I am blessed with my friends. Some I have had for a long time, since I was in primary school, some are more recent. I appreciate them for the gifts they bring into my life, for the love and laughter, support and care they show towards me. A couple of women who had battled cancer came over to talk to me about the tests I have this month to see the specialist next month to find out if the melanoma has spread to other organs. They outlined some of their own battle with cancer and gave me encouragement in what I have to do. Both are caregivers so still have a stroke surviving partner to care for so I am blessed to not have to do that as well. I do look back on my life sometimes and see where I have come from and the strengths I have gained from those experiences so no doubt this is the same, I will meet people and learn new things because of what I am now and who I am now. The Christmas party season is upon us, the Spring rains are finally here even though we declare it summer from the 1st of December it is still acting like September. We had to run for our cars through the rain this afternoon. I spent half an hour watering my neighbor's pot plants and garden this morning so now I feel as if that was time wasted. He will be away till after Christmas, he and his girlfriend/partner are spending Christmas with friends in Germany and having a week in England before they comes home so it is an ongoing process, looking after his house. He no longer has a cat so that is one problem I no longer have. I am selling raffle tickets in my local shopping centre once a week as my contribution to Lions fundraising, I don't mind as I often encounter people who are acquaintances or old neighbours that I have not seen for a long time and have time to catch up. And there is the other Lion I am on with to talk to. Many of our members are showing signs of ageing now and often have to ask customers to repeat details because of their hearing problems. It isn't embarrassing, it is just life. My oldest grandson Christopher turns 18 next Friday so there is to be a family dinner with a few of his friends to celebrate the occasion. It is another milestone. My daughter told her Dad when he had his strokes in Bendigo in 1999 : "You have to get better Dad, you are going to be a grandfather." And happily he lived to see all of his six grandchildren, although only the first three months of Alice's life so she doesn't remember him. Life is always that mixture of happy and sad isn't it?

My heart breaks for you sometimes when I read your blogs. I know how hard it is to put someone into care but not how hard it is to be in care except by my observation of others. I feel for you as you go through all of these testing time, I have some tests coming up soon too. I hope none of them are as painful as you anticipate. I hope the results are good for you and don't mean any new procedures. (((hugs))) from Sue.

I am grateful for most of the things you have listed. From my caregiver perspective I am grateful for all the people I have met because of Ray's strokes, people who have enriched my life and been such a blessing to me. Including those here in the Blog Community and you too my friend.

Kelli and Susan I love the way you can both turn a negative into a positive!

I have just been on the WAGS Women's Weekend. I can say we laughed and cried, told of our journey, played silly games, ate together, played together and danced with wild abandon on Saturday night and had so much fun. The pink boa in the photo is a tribute to Terry who was her daughter's caregiver and sadly died this year. I was sad, as we all were, to recall those who were not with us for so many reasons. I have been going to this weekend since 2007, some years I have only gone on the Saturday night, some I have gone for the whole weekend as i did this weekend. Each year is different with unexpected events living in our memories. Sometimes the caregiver is called home as something has happened to the survivor, some years there is a family crisis of another kind, this year one of our ladies became ill and had to go home to recuperate. I have watched them age and they have done the same with me. They supported me during my recent recovery after the melanoma operation as they supported me after Ray died. They are caring women and I love them all. We are not the same, but we are all on the stroke journey. I am no longer a caregiver but I can still encourage them in their caregiving roles. Life for all of us is influenced by the stroke event. There is no "them and us" we realise we are all in this together and the more we support each other the stronger we become. We are not noticeably caregivers and survivors but all strong and supportive women. It is incredible what we have shared over those last ten years since I have been involved with them. This year I roomed with another widow, our stories are very different but we both know the meaning of loss and grief. We both know how to scope with whatever life dishes up to us now. We both have had our moments of fear, anger and feeling we were losing it. We talked almost right through the first 24 hours, I guess we both needed to unburden to someone who knew what we had gone through going from caregiver to widow. We know there are things you can tell another widow that your friends who are members of a couple will not understand. It was a good experience for me. Of course I also talked to a lot of others there, some I only rarely see. One of the girls who has only joined us a couple of times after becoming a member several years ago said she was so proud to say she had been away on a weekend with 20 of her best friends, I think we all felt the same way. Apart from that life goes on much the same as usual for November, church, social days, nursing home visits,meetings etc. I did a hospital visit today. It was my turn to be "treasurer" at the Lions Club BBQ this morning, tomorrow I am selling tickets in our local shopping centre (mall) in our Lions Club Christmas Stocking. There is planning to do for the Christmas gatherings and I'm looking out the Christmas cards to send as not everyone is on Facebook or email particularly older friends. I guess it is the same for most people. We are making up Christmas hampers at church for those who are less fortunate and still going on with the weekly services and other events. I am visiting my daughter for a few days next week. Always good to spend some time with my families. My left leg is still painful sometimes, mostly when I spend too much time on my feet. Of course now we have humid days now it is getting closer to summer too and that doesn't help as my leg swells. I may have to go to a local Lymphodema Clinic to find out more about that. My friends remind me that it takes time to heal, I know that but am impatient to get back to full fitness again. It was a joy to find I can still dance but because of muscle damage cannot spin around successfully so I am doing slower moves. Who cares as long as I can dance in time to the music? It is such a blessing to be able to do almost all that I could do before. Of course my age slows me down somewhat but I can laugh at the mistakes i make and my inabilities as well as my absurdities hopefully make my friends laugh too. As the song says: "Be a clown, be a clown, all the world loves a clown."