swilkinson

I just cannot understand why we as women think that just going on will fix our problems. I think the anxiety attacks I had after Ray died were simply symptoms of the exhaustion I was suffering from. Yours led to having a stroke instead. We both learned from those experiences I guess. I am so enjoying reading your story. Thanks for blogging it here.

I too have a hoe to kill snakes Fred, ours are usually summer visitors just passing through. I used to get real hysterical and did not leave much to be identified. These days I just walk away. So sad to see your floods and the houses damaged and families dislocated. Hope it all ends soon. One of my "cousins" in Washington State has a nephew who lost everything in the fires there. Like us you live in a vast land of contrasts, floods, fires and drought can all happen at different parts of the country at the same time.

A pink house sounds great and in a nice if not posh area. I think we sometimes get exactly what we want, not all the time because we have to learn that some things are worth waiting for.

Katrina, after all the time you have spent with your wrist bent it really must be weird to see it straight. I can understand that. It is how you feel when you have the baby, your body goes back to normal and it seems odd because you no longer have to consider your posture Now you have to start a whole new range of therapy and that is good. If you need help now just ask for it, say something like: "My hand is pretty weak after surgery could you help me with the door please?" and go on practicing doing things with that affected hand and maybe you will get quite a bit of movement back and get used to the joys of being two handed again.

Thank you for documenting that hard period in your life. Ray and i had one when we were first married, too little money too many bills but we just took it a day at a time and in the end came out the other side. Glad you were able to do the same.

Sarah, you did a marathon trip but YOU DID IT!!!! Well done. I'm guessing those good memories, people, places, faces you love will stay with yo for a long, long time.

Tracy, thanks for starting a blog, it is a good way for us to get to know you and for you to tell your unique story and release a few of your feelings about what has happened to you. I started mine in 2005 for that reason, to release some of my feelings and literally to sort things out in mymind. It is strange, is it not. to look back and see that last "normal" day? I look back at 9th April 1990 and think how unaware I was that people in their forties who are otherwise fit and strong and active and energetic can suddenly have a stroke in a hardware store like my Ray did.He was at his peak at 48 and we were on holidays in Queensland. Luckily he was with his brother who took him to his doctor who rang an ambulance that took him to a good hospital and so they found out what had happened. Keep up your writing and I will look forward to getting to know you better through your blog.

Only one more month of winter. I can feel Spring is on the way when the sun shines like it did today and I am able to get out more. Love those days. In winter we are not locked in like you are in the colder parts of the northern hemisphere but the short grey sky days inhibit the actions I would like to take. The garden is dormant, the possums just ate off half the remaining baby spinach, the wind dries the tenderer garden plants out and until the temps rise the plants will just look as if they have stopped caring about growth. A week of warmer weather, say at the end of August will make all the difference. At the moment things are at a standstill as far as plans for the future go. I know one day I will be able to tick another item off my bucket list. It only really exists in my mind and it is like one of those lists that self-adjusts so item number one today may be item number three tomorrow. I am aware of the passing of time (getting older) and that I should do something about some of the items. I have several older friends who want me to visit and I would love to do so but I don't have the time, or so I tell myself. I have built a routine for myself and somehow I feel that diverting from that might cause an upset. ( I do remember that a rut is the same as a grave, only the depth varies.) On another site I offered some advice and it has led to a discussion about what we want out of life. Particularly life as a widow. I thought I knew what I wanted and you might have gleaned that answer from reading many of my blogs. I basically wanted that the life I should have led after my retirement was still a possibility. Well I realise now that it is not. What Ray and I would have done in OUR retirement is just not possible for me alone now. Ambivalence has always been my middle name and so I vacillate between liking my new freedom and hating being alone. I have been seeking a companion. I loved my Ray, with my whole heart, I still do, but he is gone and now I am alone and I admit lonely as well. I think because for those last few years I had to be with him twenty four hours a day he filled my life, not in the way a working husband or a husband that had his own pursuits would but totally filled my life. We were “joined at the hip”. He was 24 hour care so I was his 24 hour caregiver. For this reason his passing made a huge hole in my life even after twelve months in a nursing home. After all I visited him most days and on his bad days toward the end of his life multiple times a day as the nursing home staff could not manage to get him out of the seizures so I would go back and help them. Looking back this seems like an exercise in lunacy but it made sense at the time. Too many seizures can cause further brain damage and a much slowed metabolism can do some harm. Doctors say fits and seizures do not necessarily cause brain damage but Ray had long periods of being only semi-responsive and that would indicate to me maybe low oxygen levels as often using oxygen on him brought back. But that is all in the past. I now have a man friend I go out with on Wednesdays after doing Caregiver Chat with Host Sally. We usually we go out for lunch and then a drive somewhere or go for a walk. Today we went out to one of my favourite places, the one I have been to several times with my Caregiver friends from my old Stroke Recovery group. I used to go out with that group every couple of months but haven't been lately as they now go out on Sundays and I am busy with church then. It is a rambling hotel single storey and there is an indoor/outdoor area where we sat and had barramundi (fish) with mash and green veg, cooked just the way I like it. It was a lovely Spring-like day today and all the doors were open and in trooped the ducks! Lynn suggested that I capture one or two and pop them in my handbag and I could cook Duck a l'Orange when I got home. He does have a good sense of humour and that is one of the things I like about him. We are keeping things on a friendship basis which suits me as I have no wish to complicate my life at this stage. We went from the restaurant in the pub to our local Art Gallery, about fifteen minutes drive away. Lynn is interested in art and so am I as my Mum painted and so do several of my friends. There is always something of interest to see there and today there was a "Retrospective" with a lady who is 79 exhibiting works she has painted from the age of 17 till now. The Gallery adjoins the Japanese Gardens and we spent some time there enjoying sitting in the sun and watching the koi carp in the pond and seeing the first early buddings of Spring there. I talked to two of my grandchildren tonight and just got off the phone when my son in Broken Hill rang me. Like most people I do not hear from them for a while and then seem to hear from them all at once. I am glad it happens this way. At the moment I can be free and independent and mostly able to look after myself but one day as I age I know that will not be so and so it is good they keep in contact on a semi regular basis. I know I am so lucky in so many ways.

Pearls none of us are "too" anything, we are just US. It is easy for the young to see us as past our prime but we don't have to take that on. I am worthwhile, you are worthwhile, we are all useful in some ways and helpless in others. Our abilities are many and varied and while we all have the ability to love life then life is good. Massive (((Hugs))) Pearls from Sue Down Under.

My late husband Ray had seven major strokes over a long period of time, usually about two years apart. I too would say the impact does lessen but your vigilance has to stay at a high level because mistakes can be made at any time. One stroke saw him in hospital but only for seven hours, discharged at 3am! as the young interns did not know how you recognize one in a series of strokes. Luckily his neurologist ordered another MRI some weeks later and then ordered more physio etc or he would have been much more debilitated as a result of their ignorance. So keep vigilant!

George it is always good to find someone you can help. I know your blog here has helped a lot of people over the years. I think it is great you can repair your Bowflex and get more use out of it, I am a great believer that you recycle and reuse rather than just throwing things out and getting a new one.

The south wind has blown snow onto our Snowy Mountains and so taking a trip to the ski fields is now possible or so one of Ray's sister-in-laws told me, a reason we cannot meet up for coffee for a while. I still hear from another SIL and two of his cousins. I have tried to keep in touch with Ray's family, I was always the one keeping them updated with what was happening to him anyway, even if the Christmas cards were signed “Love from Ray and Sue” it was always me that wrote them and posted them, and they all knew that. Or perhaps i expected them to think more about it than they did? But since Ray died it is as if we have nothing in common, the other family members and I and yet I was their SIL for 44 years. Strange how quickly they forgot how grateful they were that I looked after Ray as an invalid for all those years. I thought we would go on being family but alas that was not to be. I do regret missing out on seeing their children grow up and get married, have their first child etc. None of them have made me a friend on Facebook so I don't even get to see photos posted there. Family was really important to Ray and I had hoped it was to his family too. We both said before we got married that we would try to spend an equal amount of time with each family so no-one felt left out and that is what we did. But it seems like once Ray died all those relationships died with him. How very sad. I guess initially it is not knowing what to say that kept people from contacting me and then it was embarrassment about how long it had been since we were in contact and then it would be “Sue who?” and then it seemed like the relationship was over. I have made attempts to contact them all but usually there is just an awkward conversation and I don't hear from them unless I make the effort. I went to a funeral yesterday and another one today, life is like that as a pastoral care worker for the church, sometimes deaths seem to all come at once, well it is winter. The funerals were very different one at a Crematorium and one at our Church. The ladies were both Christians, one I hadn't seen for a while although I had been friends with her years ago and today's funeral was a lady I visited in a local hostel/nursing home for the past five years. I try to go to the funeral as my last “visit”. The first lady was single but one of a family of five girls and representatives from all the families were there. There were only three people from outside the family plus three representatives from the nursing home and the family were very welcoming, thanked us for coming and really made us feel a part of the service and afterwards the afternoon tea at the little cafe in the grounds. Today the funeral was in our church with the afternoon tea in the hall with some family members and a lot of War Widows and other friends from various organizations she belonged to there. The family didn't mingle much with the other guests and at the end of the afternoon tea I had only been introduced to three of the family members. Strange how different families can be. One of the things I have found as a widow is that I have time to listen to people now. When I was caring for Ray I never had time, I would phone someone and if the phone call took more than twenty minutes I would try to wind it up and go on to the next task. Now I can spend more time with people both on the phone and in personal encounters. I have time now to listen to their stories and find out about their problems but also their hopes and dreams. We all have hopes and dreams but it is easier to talk about the tough stuff in a way. Explaining our dreams to someone can make us feel vulnerable. I put dreams aside while I was a caregiver. Being a caregiver required so much of my energy each day that to have dreams for the future seemed to be indulgent. Then I had three years of just plain getting over the exhaustion, getting some semblance of life back together. Now as I approach four years since Ray's passing I can see a few things I can do, not big things but things that will enable me to feel happier. In the end it is not the big things that count really is it? This summer's plan is to tackle the garden up the back, maybe plant some shrubs and screen off the mess the neighbour behind's garden looks from here. I am just realising that I can change some things about my life now. I have always had an excuse for not ticking things off my bucket list, things like getting some new hobbies. Sure I can go on just as I am but we all need to have new horizons to explore physically and mentally. It is something I need to do for myself, I can ask for advice but I can't give the responsibility of decision making to someone else. As a widow life is a do-it-yourself affair.

Kelli, it must be really hard for you to try and adjust to not remembering so many important milestones in your older son's life. I hope he has the insight to know that you need some gentle reminders each time you meet that will help you to remember and connect with him.

That was some experience and in a way I am sad you missed out on it. Sending you warm (((hugs))) Kelli, I, like you, get emotional sometimes but hey! that is what makes us warm and loving human beings. Bless you.

Asha, you always find a way. It is one of your strong points. Yes you get frustrated but in the end you do it! Yeah!!!

Yes indeed.

Good you got it all together in the end. Using lists is a great idea, I use lists as at my age I don't retain as much information as I used to so I make a list and cross the item off as I complete it. I find that saves me a lot of time chasing things I have forgotten to do.

Some days I am glad to be alive, to see the sun, feel the breeze, talk, laugh, sing, other days I take it all for granted. I am aware that I am slowing down. I turned the alarm clock off at 7.15am this morning and turned back to look at the clock and it was 8am, I had just daydreamed 45 minutes away! Of course it is winter and much harder to get out from under the covers but back in the last decade I was always up at 6am, summer, winter, autumn and spring. With someone to look after there was not really an option. But now I can get up later, no-one to look after but myself so I guess it is my time to take my ease now. I have to plan things into my week. There were a couple of people I have ministered to who died this week already, well it is winter. Those funerals will be next week, one on Monday, one on Tuesday. So that means not taking Friday afternoon off but using the afternoon to do the nursing home visits I would have done next week. The problem with any volunteer job is that it is a commitment and so although you don't have to clock on and off as you do with a job and really no-one is going to have you on the carpet if you don't do it. I just know I need to keep up the visits. I know the old folk I visit look forward to me coming, to supplement the visits they have (or do not have) from their families. I do get some leisure time, I make sure of that. If I fill my life up too much I get tired and have those sudden mood shifts and do feel out-of-sorts and headachy and all the signs that my body is saying "slow down". At my age that is natural. I do feel good though after a day when I have had some exercise, done something I enjoy like being out in the garden for a while, having coffee with a friend or chatting to someone on the phone. There are plenty of ways for me to be good to myself now and most of them cost very little money. I still enjoy being on here, reading the blogs and posts and seeing how my friends are doing on Facebook. I am glad that I live in a place where I can still sit on the verandah and enjoy the view with birds singing and dogs barking and trees swaying in the breeze. Of course in winter those days are rarer and I have not been walking on the beach this month as it has been a colder winter but I am sure in six weeks or so that can be resumed so I do get to enjoy the scenery on my little bit of the coast and enjoy the water in the ocean and the lakes close by. I love Spring with all the birds nesting and the ducklings and water bird babies to enjoy when I can go for a walk along the lake edge. I really am blessed to live here. Life is busy. I stopped and got out of my car at the shopping centre today and the lady in the next car parking space go out and told me about her grandchildren, her ungrateful daughter-in-law and a lot about her life in a ten minute conversation. I must have "good listener" written on my forehead because I am never short of someone to talk to when I am out....lol. A group of older men who meet daily at the Food Court now welcome me as I go past so they are always ready for a chat. Most are widowers in their eighties. I don't often have time to sit with them but occasionally I do. I know from experience what loneliness is like. I am looking forward to going out to Broken Hill again at the end of next month, winter seems longer without some time away and I have not felt like making plans to travel alone. Maybe as time goes by I will find a travelling companion. My present man friend can't go far due to medical problems, he is a nice man to talk to but maybe I need some women friends to travel with and go places with. Will see what the future brings. No rush, plenty of time to see how life unravels. Finding things to do to keep busy keeps me busy. I did have a day of sorting through drawers and cupboards but that was just to gather some of my craft materials together, you could hardly call it decluttering . But before winter is over I intend to do more of that. Praying for sunshine for me to enjoy and some time to sit in a sheltered spot out of the wind to enjoy just being in a good place. Add a cup of coffee and a good book and it will be a place close to Heaven.

George glad you and Lesley are making the most of your retirement and good news about the diet controlling the colitis. I have an allergy to palm oil and coconut and I am lactose intolerance and mostly I manage it well. It is a matter of self discipline and managing to ignore foods I know I cannot have. Will look into the Colitis Diet and see how different it is from what I am doing now. Great news about the new motor home and using the Alfa Romeo more, it is a great little car my son's in-laws used to have one. You sound like you are mastering the art of growing old disgracefully. Good for you.

Lenny, great that you updated with some good news, congratulate Christian on behalf of your friends here in the Blog Community - well done Christian.

Sounds like you just got overtired and then we women get emotional. All's well that ends well Asha, so glad you had a wonderful celebration for your silver anniversary.

Love that smile on your face. So glad you have plans for the future again Katrina. Good for you.

Fred it is always time to do something else beside sit at home, so grab this opportunity and go out and enjoy yourself. Life is too short not to make happy memories. Hope you are a big winner.

It's taken me years to get comfortable being on my own. A caregiver of a person who has many deficits and many needs becomes joined at the hip to the one he or she cares for. I think that is what makes it so difficult to recover from that separation and death, not only the sense of loss and the love you bore them but also the joined at the hip factor. I loved Ray and we were together for 44 years, allowing for the year he spent in the nursing home and the last decade of our marriage we spent so much time together that to lose him was like losing half of myself. I cared for him, in a limited way from 1990 when he had the first stroke and six months off work, when the main issue was massive fatigue and some minor deficits. We were both able to work up until 1999 when he had the the two major strokes and I stepped up to the plate to care for him. That became, probably by late 2008, total care. Admittedly in the end I had some help but as a friend of mine says: “If you have an hour a day with assistance that is 23 hours a day when you manage alone.” A lot of caregivers here will relate to that. I don't regret any of that now, in fact I wish I could have done more, but the emotional as well as the physical side gets to you when you are a caregiver. You want to give more but looking after a person on your own is draining, and the multiple deficits when they include incontinence as well as dementia really weigh you down. No excuses, I did what I was able to do. The time Ray spent in the nursing home was a real trial as I watched him deteriorate but there was an upside to that, the support of those family members who came in to see their spouse or parent or other relative, we all suffered in the same way and that brought us together and I still have a handful of people I met in that year as friends. I found a lot of fun and happiness through all of this too, you should try playing Bingo with dementia patients!. Happiness is where you find it and fun is in seeing the silly side of life, I have always been able to do that. To deliberately pursue happiness has been the goal for me this year. I took as the word for the year JOY and I have endeavoured to find joy in a lot of different ways. The years going by do dilute your sorrow and it does become possible at last to go on with life with some form of acceptance. And slowly I have gathered new friends, people who see me as I am today, a bit older and wiser than some of those who have returned as friends remember me I guess. The years do take a toll. But I can see the world around me and find something to enjoy, something to laugh about, something to make my present life worthwhile. Finding the site Widowed Village has made a difference too as I have my widow blog there. As I do here I comment in their forums and in the groups I belong to. Like here that provides me with a release, I don't have to tell my problems to people who don't understand when there are people who know what it is like to go through being a widow, particularly after being a long term caregiver. And I know people on here read my blog still as a guide to what may or may not be ahead of them, for in every partnership one person has to die first so we'll all have a 50/50 chance of being the remaining spouse. People ask me if I am moving on and I tell them no, I am moving forward. We all have to change throughout our lives, not only because of trauma but stroke for the caregiver as well as the stroke survivor is a life changing event and therefor in a way we all have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) to overcome as well as the other side effects or problems that come into our lives with the strokes. I have been so grateful for the support I have got here and in my life. A lot of people don't understand and that is stressful for us, but a few do and offered me support and that has lightened the load. This might sound like a farewell blog and I know some day I will leave this site and go and do other things but at the moment I am still in pay back mode and still enjoy the chats and doing the Blog Moderator job. So this blog is just about where I am now, not every day but more of the days I can find joy in my life. I hope you all find the same.