The Next Day

 I actually posted on FaceBook the day after I came home (in addition to the death announcement on The Day).  It just showed up in my memories.

"After having been sequestered in a hospital room for the last three months, it feels oddly expansive to come home to where I can wander several rooms, have a real bed instead of a small couch in the corner to sleep, and even have a kitchen to get food instead of going to the hospital cafeteria. (Dear friends stocked the fridge for me). It will take me awhile to get used to this much freedom."

I felt like a pressure cooker that had the lid unexpectedly removed. I was still in shock - functioning, but not feeling. And dealing. When I came home, the first thing noticed was that my air conditioning had died. Rob was nice enough to set up an appointment with some AC people, and to come back the next day when they showed up. That was good - I was sort of functioning and then I would phase out. "Sorry I seem out of it - my husband died yesterday." Just yesterday. Bob died. And now I was at home with my cats and chickens and dealing with the air conditioner. Every now and then I would say "excuse me a moment" and step away and breathe.

It was good to get out of the goldfish bowl. For three months we had lived with a window in our room, a nurse usually outside. Someone walking in the room at least once an hour, checking vitals, hanging bags of blood or platelets. Alarms and bells going off, IV drips clicking. Sometimes the crash/evaluation team running in. And I had to keep my act together. All that pressure was now gone. I could take a shower without some stranger in the next room. I didn't have to stay alert for Bob needing something, or grabbing my notebook anytime a doctor or nurse came into the room. I didn't have to hold myself together for anyone. I could lay on the floor and scream without someone splashing water on my face. I didn't owe anyone anything.

So I got the AC replaced. A few months later the ceiling leaked during a hard rain and I got the roof repaired. The front deck was rotting and I had it torn out and replaced. And yesterday I had the goat shed torn down and hauled off.

When we first moved here, I wanted chickens. We got chickens. I also wanted sheep and angora goats (angora for the mohair). So we fenced in the area behind the cottage, built a shed, and got some sheep and goats. Have I ever mentioned that Bob spoiled me rotten? He even called around and found a woman who had angora goats. The sheep came from a co-worker who was getting out of the meat sheep business. This was one sheep that she had never sold nor butchered but kept as a pet. At first I said no - I was interested in a fleece sheep, not a meat breed. "But Rosemary said he's very sweet." Nope - nice doesn't necessarily make good spinning. "He got attacked by a dog when he was just a lamb and got his ear ripped off, so his name is Vincent Lamb Gogh." So of course we had to get him, bringing him home shoved into the back of our mini pickup with a small camper shell. It happened to be Earth Day, and when people noticed we had a sheep in the truck they assumed that it had something to do with that (is there a tradition of carrying sheep in a truck on Earth Day?)

Later we went and got a couple of angora goats. I need to find pictures of Vincent and Shazbat (our little Angora) but here's Sid - short for Don Simon Xavier Christian Moreno de la Cadena-Ysidro. We bonded. I adored that goat.

We loved having them.  We'd come home from work, let them out of the pen to graze a bit, sit with them, feel our blood pressure drop.  But we had to admit that they tied us down, and sometimes horrible things would happen like coming home and discovering that someone's dogs had gotten into the pen.  Eventually time took them away from us and we didn't get more.

So the shed became storage for random, well, junk.  And started falling apart.  And dragging all that crap out of there and taking the shed down got put on the permanent "things to do" list.  And a few months ago it simply fell over.

A few days ago I wrote about chatting with a guy in the parking lot of the gas station while we were both at the little food truck.  Well - he came by yesterday - and the shed is now gone.  Feels strange - it was there for almost 30 years.  But I have to admit it was an eyesore.   And he did such a good job that he's going to come back next week and take away all the stuff "that maybe someday we'll do something with" piled up behind the barn.

Things are looking emptier.   Much better.  But emptier.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a spinning project  - have decided that I need a handspun shirt (which is insane - it will take a hundred hours or two, but it's what I do).  I was going to spin and bit and watch Downton Abbey (never got around to watching it before) but I'm a little sleepy and it's after 10 so a book and bed might happen instead.  Yes, bed.  In my reliving of 2020 I'd taken to sleeping on the couch again, but it's time to return to the bed, even though I'll miss Hamish plastered up against me.  Some of the other cats like to sleep on the bed (whether I'm there or not) and he doesn't like being with them.  And if I'm honest, I don't know if he was so much sleeping with me as that I was sleeping on *his* couch and he was just nice enough to share.

And So It Ends

 And there it is - I made it to March 30.

I woke up around 5:00 a.m.  Good time for second thoughts about all the decisions made - especially after Mike's outburst last night.  Why couldn't I just continue with Bob's treatments, while he was sedated and couldn't object (true answer - sedation suppresses breathing so you can't do that but you don't think about that a 5:00 a.m. when someone is dying)

I crawled into bed with him.  This is something I hadn't been able to do - the bed was too small even for just him and he'd been too uncomfortable.  A nurse came in.  I talked with her.  "I don't know what to do.  I don't know if I'm strong enough for this. I don't know if it would be ethical to try to keep him alive after he's made his decision.  Would he ever forgive me?"  She said she would make a note to have someone from social work to come talk to me about that, and also Dr. Farhadfar, for the medical aspects).  After that I just lay there against him, feeling his warmth, his breathing, holding onto him.

A few hours later I got up, got dressed.  Paced the room.  Called Gill - stood next to Bob, stroking his arm while I talked.  Still didn't know what to do.  Gill suggested that I start writing - make two columns, pro and con.  Sort my thoughts.

I had been warned that they dying process could take a few days (it was three days with my mother).  Mechanically, I turned to self-care.  I don't think I had eaten the day before.  I walked to the snack room at the end of the hall - got some tea, a small box of cereal, small carton of milk.  Back to the room - poured the cereal and milk into a bowl, got my notebook and pen.  Wrote across the top of the page "To Be, or Not to Be, That Is The Question."   That's all.  I knew the con list would be long and involved.  The pro list would be one line - he would be alive.

How long did all of that take? Walk away from him, short walk down the hall, short walk back, pour cereal, pick up pen?  10 minutes?   A nurse came in - there was a lift team in the ward, so did I think he needed to be re positioned?  I looked over at him.  "He's resting quietly - I think we can leave him alone."  She walked over, took our her stethoscope.   "I think he's stopped breathing."

I blanked out for a bit.  Recently (as in now, 2022) I was talking to Amanda about her work in ICU and the ER.  She had talked about an accident victim that had been brought in and didn't make it, and the mother came in, and "we heard that scream that you never want to hear."  I told her - I know.  Pretty sure I screamed that scream.

I vaguely remember people running in, grabbing me, talking sternly to me, dragging me to the bathroom, water on my face.  Finally letting me to back to lay my head on his chest and sob, more quietly. They left me alone for awhile.  I fumbled for my tablet, put on the beautiful "Into the West."

            "Lay down, your sweet and weary head

            Nighttime is falling; you have come to journey's end"

Someone was gently rubbing my shoulder.  Asked if she could call anyone for me.  No, I could call.  First, Mike.  He started to apologize for the previous night.  I cut him off.  I thanked him for saying the things I wanted to say, expressing my real (if selfish) feelings. Then I told him there was no decision to be made; he had spared me that.

I called Amanda.  After that, I had no strength left, so I asked her to call Della.  I sent a group text to friends.  Packed up my things.   And then went and laid down with him again.  The chaplain came in to talk with me.  I stayed resting quietly against him while we talked.  After that, his case worker came in.  "I'm so very sorry.  But we have to talk about arrangements."

Arrangements.  Because there was a corpse that couldn't just stay there in the room.  My practical side took over, and I got up and went to my purse.  Four years earlier, after my father died, Bob and I had made our own "arrangements."   I pulled out the little card that stays behind my driver's license and handed it to her.  "That's the funeral home for the cremation, and that's the company that handles the transport of the body.  It's already paid for."  She stared at the card for a moment - "I've never . ."  She walked out and I went back to him.  She came back a few minutes later and told me everything was settled.  There wasn't even any paperwork to sign.

One of the nurses came in and asked if it was all right if they all came in to say goodbye.  They have a farewell ceremony for the people they have cared for and lost, very beautiful.  After it was over, they told me that I could stay as long as I liked.  I thought, and said "No, I'll walk out with you."  I didn't want to walk out alone.  Bob was gone.  My work here was done.  There was nothing more I could do.  And I wanted to go home.   I went with them into the hall.  My strength was fading - the willpower that had held me up because Bob needed me was gone.  Quietly I asked "could someone - please - could someone walk me to my car?"  Of course of on them did.

I went back to the hotel.  Strangely empty, smelling of freshly shampooed carpets and antiseptic.  I hadn't thought that much about Covid.  I called Jeff.  God eternally bless he and Rob, because he said they could be there in three hours.  They had said all along that they would come get me when the time came, knowing I would be in no condition to drive.  But I had thought it would have to be the next day.  But no - they were going to drop everything, leave work, and come.  "I can go home today?"

So I packed up.  They texted me when they arrived because they were nervous about coming inside.  Jeff drove me in my car, Rob following in theirs.  In town, everything was shut down and empty, quiet.  Somehow, it seemed appropriate.

When we turned into our drive, I asked Jeff to stop and let me out.  A couple of months previously, when we thought Bob would survive this, he had said "no matter how long it takes, or how much I have to rest, when I go home, I'm going to walk up our drive."  So I walked up it for him.  I was overwhelmed - I almost couldn't register how beautiful our land is.  Jeff waited outside while I went and found all the cats - they remembered me and were happy to see me.  I looked at the chickens and the peacocks.  It was all very normal; all very surrealistic.

I stood on the deck with Rob and Jeff a few more minutes.  It was starting to turn dusk.  They had driven six hours that day to bring me home.  "Thank you, guys.  I guess it's time to start learning to be alone."

So that's it.  2023 self, I hope you appreciate this self-evisceration.  Not sure why I felt the need, but it's therapy.  And I never have to do this again.  This year I've looked back at 2021 self to see how she got though this, and it was just crickets except for a post in June that said "I had to relive every goddamned minute of it." But I've faced it now and guess what, 2023 self?  I've gotten through it.  Time to march onward.

Time to Say Goodbye

 Still sleeping on the couch.  I like it; again, the solidity of my back, and Hamish stretched out beside me.  But the couch doesn't face a window, or a clock, so I didn't wake up until 10.  Doesn't matter - I took the day off work.

Can't remember if I wrote that the crows are back (I'm writing all this stuff but I can't make myself go back and read it).  Bob loved crows, and so do I.  I put food (cat food and peanuts) out for them.  Two days ago in the garden I heard the high pitched annoyed chirp of a hummingbird, so I put out the feeder and they're using it.

Sudden flashback.  About the time that we realized that Bob wasn't going to make it, our friend Kim put the word out.  Bob used to go to high school reunions (that's how he met Kim).  So his friends from high school, and his new friends from the reunions, started sending messages and stories about Bob to Kim and she forwarded them to me.  When Bob would float to consciousness I would read them to him.  Happy memories.  It was a lovely thing for her to do.

So, this morning I'm drinking tea and eating scones and playing Wordle and watching the hummingbirds.  Two years ago, about this time, I said goodbye to Bob.

That morning I helped him make two phone calls - to Della and Amanda.  He couldn't say much (he hadn't been able to talk well for the last two months) but he was able to tell them he loved them and say goodbye.  Then he started fretting for the nurse to come with the morphine.  I myself wasn't in any hurry.  I kept trying to talk to him, to make sure that he knew this wasn't a temporary fix, that it was goodbye forever.  Yeah, yeah, yeah - why is the nurse taking so long?  Go ask for the nurse.

And the nurse finally came in.  I really want to say that he took me in his arms, looked at me with those great eyes of his - that we told each other that we loved each other, and whispered a last goodbye.  But that's not what happened.  I was trying to get his attention, to get him to say goodbye, to make at least some sort of ritual of passing.  He brushed me off, fussing at the nurse, who was hanging the IV bag and attaching to the pick line.  I at least put on "The Minstrel Boy" on my tablet.  I don't know if he noticed.   I nodded at the nurse.  I said "I love you.  Goodbye."  And I was crying too hard to know if he ever said it back to me. 

A couple of hours later Dr. Farhadfar comes storming into the room.  "What's going on?  Why?"  I told her that it was his decision, that he didn't have the strength to fight any more.  And then she said the words that will haunt me forever.  "But I just checked his blood count.  The numbers have shifted."   Well, not really.  The numbers had shifted from <0.01 to 0.01 [for the record, the number needed to show that a transplant is taking is 1,000; normal is over 2,500]

It's amazing how much can flash through your brain in a few seconds.  Of course, first a surge of hope - he's going to be all right!  Followed by the reality of no, he isn't.  If he survived (still not likely) he would be in the hospital for months, in the halfway house for more months.  Never really get his strength back.  Be on dialysis several days a week for the rest of his life.  Be alive, but not living.

Two seconds maybe.  I held up my hand.  "No."  She stared at me.  Looked at him.  Looked around the noisy crowded ICU room, strangers coming in and out.  "Not here.  He's my patient.  He's coming back to my ward."  She stepped outside.  I heard her yelling on the phone.  "Get him a room, now."

They unhooked him from the monitors, and rolled his bed down the hall, through the underground tunnel that led between buildings.  Up the elevator, and into the ward that had been our home for three months.  One of the staff, Tanisha, came running up to me and caught me in a tight hug.  They put us in the room with the large window overlooking the prairie.  No monitors, no machinery.  Nurses who had been caring for him, and by now cared for him, for his sense of humor, his gentleness.  When I stepped out to get some water, I saw that there was a butterfly sticker on the door with the word "Quiet."  I had seen this from time to time on other doors, not knowing what it meant.

I went back to the hotel to get a few things - pajamas, toothbrush.  My phone rang.  There was a soft female voice - "Ann, it's Nosha."  Nosha.  Unfamiliar, but the voice was.  But I had always just called her "Dr. Farhadfar."  Now she was Nosha, a woman feeling pain.  "Is there anything I could have done?"  I told her that he hadn't even wanted to do the second transplant, that even then was too tired and weak to fight, but he did it for his family.  That he said he was grateful and humbled that so many people were fighting for his life.  Then she asked what I wanted.  "I just want it to be over.  I want to let him go."  

So I went to the room and sat.  I doubt if I read.  Maybe I knit - I don't remember.

I called Mike and Margo to let them know.  Mike startled me - he broke down into hysterics.  I've known him my whole life, and I'm not sure I had ever heard him cry before, not even when he lost his first wife.  And now he was begging me not to let it happen.  Bob was sedated; I could keep him that way, authorize the pick line change, go back on the medications, dialysis, keep him alive.  I heard Margo trying to get him to quiet, to calm down.  I was oddly grateful - because breaking down and begging was what I wanted to do, but couldn't.  His was the voice speaking for me.

I don't remember the rest of the day.  Maybe I went outside to feed my turtles (odd, how I thought of them by now as "my" turtles).  Sat by his bed.  Sent texts to our friends.  I did sent a text to Max, our housesitter, letting her know I would be coming home soon, permanently.   But mostly just sat, gazing out the window, and waited.

I'm Not OK

I normally write in the evenings.  But it's 6:30 a.m. and I woke up crying.

I feel like Mirabel in the movie Encanto - she dances around the town, singing her cheerful song of "I'm OK" and then finally segues into "I'm not OK."

I look around.  I slept on the couch again, Hamish against me.  But I had to get up to answer the call of nature around 5 and he left and after that I couldn't really get back to sleep.  I missed his warmth.  I see signs of not being OK - I'm not much of a tidy person, but usually there's not a box of crackers and dirty dishes on the coffee table, nor candy and Twinkie wrappers on the floor.

But I'll dry my tears, feed the cats and the chickens, have tea and breakfast, and go to work.  I have been working Tuesdays and Wednesdays - and had asked for this week off because I know myself.  I didn't want to find myself crying in front of people.  I might have been able to control that.  But I also feel that I would be talking incessantly about Bob to my young co-workers and that could get uncomfortable. Besides, I somehow feel I've earned a couple of moping days.  But I got switched from Wednesdays to Mondays, and Laura was sweet enough to ask if I would be able to work today and I told her sure, I would be OK.

Don't know if I'll write tonight.  Today, March 28, 2020.  Bob is back in intensive care (where there might be more emergency help if needed but ironically his regular care is worse and I'm doing all of it).  I'm exhausted, emotionally of course, but also physically.  There hasn't been much sleep in the last few days.  Bob is fretful. Always wanting something, not knowing what it is.  I've been on my feet for hours.  He finally settles down.  I tiptoe to the chair, start to sink down.  My bottom almost touches the chair when I hear the "Annie."

And I heave a great sigh.  I will always feel bad about that, because he apologized and I was no no no no no I"m sorry I didn't mean it.

We're both so tired.  It's Saturday.  Sunday he will have his pick lines removed (they'e infected) and replaced on the other side.  Go to dialysis.  Monday he'll get the biopsy.  Wednesday he'll be handed his death sentence.  Then we'll wait while they try to keep him alive.

Some time later he rears himself up on his elbows and yells "WHY DO I HAVE  TO WAIT??"  I ask him what he means.  He said "It's over.  Let it be over."  I tell him that they have to check, have the biopsy, maybe the transplant might still take.  He shakes his head.  "No.  I'm too broken.  I can't come back from this.  It's over."  

We ask for a doctor.  Talk about stopping treatments.  He agrees (too readily - doctors usually fight until the end.  But this is the end).  Going on morphine.  Finally I look at both of them.  "I'm exhausted.  I've had maybe three hours of sleep in the last two days.  I can't make this decision tonight."  I look at Bob.  "I'm sorry - but please please give me one more day."   Covid is also complicating things.  ICU is where they try to keep people alive.  I don't know anything about hospice care in Gainesville.  And none of the usual protocols for transferring patients is in place, or having hospice accept people.  The doctor tells me we can do palliative care down there (why are ICU's in the basement?).  We agree - no moving of the pick line, no dialysis.  I've bought a little time to think.   I go to the hotel room, have a glass of sherry, try to grasp what's happening, and sleep for a few hours.

2022.  It's now 7 a.m.  I have to leave in an hour, so much shove little Stumbles off my lap and get everyone fed.  Go to work and have some fun with the animals and my co-workers.  Maybe some more garden work this afternoon.

I'll be OK.

Winning the Garden Battle

 Didn't write yesterday.  I did finish battling my way to the back of the garden.  The area where Bob tossed everything that might have been useful - like old plastic pots, maybe that once held plants, sheets of corrugated plastic the remains of weed cloth, all covered in weeds and brambles.  I have filled the back of the truck with junk.  Then came the clearing.  Oak saplings.  Feral bamboo in the grip of masses of equally feral Virginia creeper.  I hacked, dragged, eventually burned.

So too knackered to write last night.  Fell asleep on the couch - which I've been doing lately.  Sort of sleep until 1 or 2 and then go to bed.  When I first came home from Gainesville I slept on the couch for two months because I couldn't stand the emptiness of the bed.  Even when I tried sleeping there again I would pile his side with things like laundry baskets.  Now I'm reliving that emptiness.  Last night I didn't even try.  I had the comfort of the back of the couch at my back, and Hamish (normally not a snuggle kitty) stretched out at my side.  And I slept for 12 hours.

Also did a different thing for me yesterday.  It was Saturday, so I went for my weekly treat at my little food truck.  The guy behind me was talking to Rhonda. (I keep making typos - NokoMarie is not quite sharing my lap with the laptop).  Talking about having done his regular job, and then having been able to pick up a little demolition work.  I was listening - there is an old shed behind my cottage.  Once Upon A Time is was the goat shed.  Then it became the repository of anything that wasn't good enough to store in the barn.  Then sometime in the last few months it fell over.  It's going to take a ton of work to take it all apart and haul it off.  But this guy sounded like he wasn't against getting some extra work - so I asked him, and he came and gave me a quote, and we shook hands, and that little guilt trip should be gone in a week or so.

So back to 2020.  Yesterday was Week Three, and  no change.  No change again this morning.  It must have been sometime this past week when Bob looked at me, with a strange confused look in his eyes and said "I can see you.  I can see you talking your walk, playing with the cats, going to a party at Rob and Jeff's.  I can see you.  But I can't see me."  All I could do was hold him.

So yesterday, March 26.  I was on my knees on my couch, head on my arms. looking down on the parking lot where I could see our little blue Honda, and thinking "I just want to go home."  An odd thing to think, because I would only be able to do that after Bob was dead.  Then I went over to be closer to him, and we talking about putting his ashes in his artificial reef, and that's when I asked him if he would like to also have Fiona's ashes go with him.  "I can have Fiona with me?  I would like to have her with me."

I looked him in the eye.  "Tell me you love me.  Because I'm going to have to go an awfully long time without hearing that."  "I love you."   I would repeat that request many times over the next two days - our last two days.

Today, March 27, 2020. The damned alarms keep going off (they're not allowed to disable them).  I'm packing up our stuff, because I think it's fairly obvious that he's going to be heading to intensive care again and I'm not allowed to leave anything in the room.  Dr. Farhadfar comes in to talk with him.  God bless that woman.  Usually doctors skirt around the issue of a patient dying; it's their job to prevent that.  He asked her if he should request a DNR.  She sat beside him - I think she had her hand on him.  She looked at him gently, gazed into his eyes, and said, softly "If you were my husband, or you were my father, I would tell you to request a DNR."  She waited a moment, then repeated it.  A few minutes later, when she was leaving, she looked at me.  "I don't understand.  He was so strong."

I wonder how I handled this last year - I didn't write anything.  Sometime later, maybe June, I wrote that I had to relive every single goddamned day.  I'm hoping, that by letting myself go through this, that maybe it won't be so bad in 2023.  This is for you, 2023 self.  I hope you've had a good year.

Ramin and Misfits and Such Small Deer

 Nope - no deer in this one, just a Shakespeare quote.

An important part in dealing with grief is to allow yourself to feel pleasure where you can - a bit of enjoyment here and there.  And I do - but sometimes it just becomes an uphill battle.

Take Misfits for example.  I wrote about this in an earlier post, maybe 2020.  Basically, you get sent a big box of random vegetables every other week.  It was fun - I never knew what I was getting, and it did keep me eating in a ridiculously healthy manner because it was a *lot* of vegetables, some I had never heard of before. (the chickens liked it, too).  I would unbox, set up a still life to photograph, and figure what order to eat it all.  Sort of like getting a strange healthy Christmas package twice a month.  It was fun.

Alas - they expanded.  The quality dropped a bit.  And you had to go "shopping" and pick what you were getting so the surprise of opening wasn't there, and they didn't have the weird offbeat things anymore.  On top of that, they raised the minimum order which made it more than I could possibly eat.  So that was one small pleasure that went by the wayside.

It seems to be becoming the natural order of things.  I enjoyed my chat and planning to get together with Ellen - that ended abruptly and permanently.  I enjoyed the brunch with Adrienne last October, but there's no guessing when she'll be healthy enough for another get-together.  I enjoyed my twice-monthly chats with Randy but that got uncomfortable and then (fortunately) ended.

I love the companionship of my cats - four of whom I have lost .  I never lost my wonderment and joy of having peacocks around - and I'm down to one (my heart is in my mouth every morning when I first go outside, and every afternoon when I got to check on him, until I spot him.)

Even my friendship with Ebaida, so important to me.  For some reason she made a random anti-American post on FaceBook, which startled and confused me.  And of course several of her friends dived in on the comments.  I dropped her a note about it, and she apologized for offending me and took the post down, but still . . . I wasn't offended, I was hurt.  You paint "Americans" with a broad brush, and some of that gets on me.  I am reminded of my rather racist father-in-law, who would say of a person of color - "You know, for a (insert pejorative term here because I'm not writing it) he ain't bad."   And that's how I feel - for an American, I ain't bad.  It was a small thing, and over, and we're fine, but it was a small, unexpected cut.

And then there's Ramin.  Heaviest of sighs  Two weeks after Bob died, there was a fundraiser that aired the 25th anniversary of Phantom of the Opera.  I've always loved that ridiculous play - so I watched it.  And there was That Voice.  A voice like I had never heard before.  I started playing Follow That Voice (easy to do on YouTube).  I clung to that voice like a drowning man clings to a piece of flotsam.

I've written about him before, back in 2020, when I wrote about the song " 'Till I Hear You Sing."  There were others, such as "Broken" - "Broken, broken, she will never be the same."  And the very haunting "You're Still Here" which I called an exaltation of grief.  It made me feel *understood.*   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVZQ6t6pNms)

                  "You're still here, next to me, out of reach, somewhere I can't be"

With the plaintive, grief-stricken fear

                "What if I forget?  I can see you now, but how will it last?  Memory will                     fade, summoning the shadow that you cast, taking you away to nothing                     more than the past."

And then there was his speaking voice, described as having a soft, apologetic Canadian Cadence.  And during the pandemic, he urged people to give themselves grace, to try to find gratitude, to be gentle.  To try to be just a little bit better today than you were yesterday.   Things that I needed to hear.

In short - I fell in love.  I had a lot of love to give, and nowhere for it to go.  He would post a short FB story (meaning a picture and a caption, maybe a bit of song) almost every day.  YouTube videos on a regular basis (maybe singing to his dog in his living room).  It was like getting little gifts.  I'd see that kind, infectious smile, and find myself smiling as well.

And then - weirdness.  He decided to take control of his social media and instead post on his own app.  With a subscription,  $17 a month (that's over twice of Netflix.  A lot of people on YouTube also have patron pages, which are usually around $5).  He was always about sharing, about a feeling of community - and now he was suddenly exclusionary.  There was a lot of hurt feelings on the fan pages (which have pretty much died out now).  Some people who had been fans for over 20 years, since his early West End days, are on fixed incomes and that doesn't fit into the budget.  Others - including me - just don't understand this sudden change of attitude.  I found myself humming an old Tom Lehrer song: "No fellow could ignore that little girl next door, she sure looked sweet in her first evening gown.  Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free . . . "    Or, in my meaner moments, his words from his role as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard: "You think I've sold out, dead right I've sold out.  I was just waiting for the right offer."

I could afford it, but the feeling is gone.  And I very much miss it.

So there's the pattern - I find something I like, that I can enjoy, and it goes away.

And it's March 25.  2020.  Three weeks since Bob's transplant.  The absolute outside day that the transplant should show signs of taking.  The nurse walks in.  They have a daily routine of looking at the blood tests taken in the night and writing the results on the white board.  She pulls up the screen, takes out the marker, and writes "Neutrophils: <0.01.   In other words, nothing.  There's nothing to be done now but wait.  In five days another biopsy will be done.  Two days after that we'll get the result and know if he has any chance of surviving at all.  But we already know the answer.

I don't remember anything else that day.  Maybe he went to dialysis and I went and took a nap.  I don't recall talking.  Maybe this was the day that I desperately needed comforting, crawled up in bed beside him, tried to get him to hold me.  But he was too muzzy headed by then and kept drifting in and out and I couldn't get him to respond to me at all and when I tried to put his arm around me it just fell off again.  I wanted to hold onto him, and I was losing him.

March 25, 2022.  I spent another couple of hard hours in the garden, winning back another 8 feet or so, tackling the huge overgrown Virginia creeper.  Then I got the trash fire lit.  Sat and read for some time.  Got my spindle and took a walk.  It's dark now (I'm writing this outside by the fire).  Peaceful, except for the mosquitoes.  The spring peepers are singing down in the swamp.  The owls are talking.  It's time to put up the chickens, get Hamish inside (I'm tentatively letting him spend a couple of hours outside and then checking him for ticks afterwards - he's so much happier if he gets to go out), and feed the cats.  And myself.  It's been a good day.

Self Care

 Got a surprising amount done today despite a late start.  I couldn't sleep last night - went to be about 1, read until 2, tossed and turned and finally got up at 5 to watch a few videos and share a Twinkie with Hamish.  I put on an audio book, turned low (because the murmur of voices will sometimes put me to sleep) and finally drifted off and slept until a little after 9.  I did the usual housekeeping (litter box, vacuum, dishes) and worked on my rowing machine.  But after lunch I went outside to plant the tomatoes and ended up putting in about 3 hours on the garden. Two major things - clearing masses of bamboo from around the compost pile (so I could get some compost for the tomatoes) and tackling the back of the garden.  Bob had made a large insect habitat by piling up pallets and putting lengths of bamboo in between them.  But they were all collapsing and I got them pulled apart and dragged to the fire pit.  That was probably at least 100 pounds of wood dragged off.

And thinking about Gainesville.  And how, at times, I was self-centered.  As well as taking care of Bob, I realized that I had to take care of myself - and I did, even if I felt selfish at times.  He was confined to his room, but I went out at least a couple of times a day, just to get away.  There was a holding pond just outside of our building, nicely landscaped, with a lot of turtles and a little blue heron.  I would toss food to the turtles, take a walk, maybe call a friend to talk.  I found a place a few buildings over where people had set up nest boxes and food dishes for the feral cats, and I would take kitty treats over there.  I sometimes felt bad, because Bob was trapped in his room, but I needed to do it for my sanity's sake.

I also had the hotel room.  We had lived there for the two weeks Bob was out of the hospital, and he insisted that I keep it.  He wanted me to live there and just come visit him - like that was going to happen.  And it seemed like an extravagance.  But it did become my escape.  When he was in intensive care, or taken off for dialysis, I would head over there - to get some sleep, maybe swim (until the pool was closed down after Covid started).  Take a long shower, often just sitting down on the shower floor and letting the water run over me.  Get a break from living in the goldfish bowl.

And cook.  I've never been a "foodie" or a gourmet, but somehow being able to prepare food gives me a feeling of some sort of control.  I had some broccoli, onions, a few other vegetables.  Eggs.  I had wanted that particular hotel because it had a tiny kitchenette.  I bought small bottles of chili oil, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a bottle of sherry.   When he was taken to dialysis - I would head to the hotel and fix myself some "real" food.

Otherwise, I tried to eat as healthily as I could from the hospital cafeteria - a challenge.  Mostly I lived on a pretty good premade salad (with chicken and cranberries).  I had a decent supply of microwave soups in the hospital room (tomato soup was one of the few things that Bob could keep down).  At the end of the hall on the ward was a small snack area with a microwave and a boiling water tap, so I could make us tea and soup and Bob's protein drink.  I remember feeling so frustrated after Covid hit and they closed that area off to staff only.  The staff were very nice, but I now had to ask them to nuke our soups or get my water for tea.  It was galling; a simple thing, but it took away my tiny bit of independence, emphasizing my total feeling of helplessness.

Not sure where I'm going with this.  Maybe just assuaging my guilt, although there is no cause for guilt.  Bob was trapped in his situation 24/7, where I was free to come and go.  He couldn't keep much food down; I made sure that I ate.  He couldn't even get out of bed, and I would go take long walks.  I need to accept that I *had* to do this, take care of myself physically and mentally.  Because if I broke, who would take care of Bob?

Plan C?

 Well, it's here.  I was dreading today - the first day of the last week of Bob's life.

I wonder how I handled all this last year.  I don't really remember.  I know it had to be hard.  Maybe I tried to distract myself.  Obviously I didn't write about it.

Hence the total self-indulgence this year.  No distractions.  This year I'm owning my demons.  They are mine.  I will dance with them in the moonlight.  I will invite them in for tea and crumpets.  Hell - I might have a makeout session with them on the couch.  No more demons lurking in the background.  Bring it on.

Because two things are clear.  First and foremost:  Bob should not have had to endure those last two months of torture.  He was too good of a man to have to go through that.  The pain, the weakness, the total loss of any personal dignity, the deep fear.  He didn't deserve that.

Second:  I should not have had to sit there and watch it, helpless.  And stay strong.  Never cried.  Even when I was alone (when he was in intensive care, or in dialysis) because if I ever let myself fall apart I wasn't sure I could get it back together again.  I didn't deserve that.

But you know what?  Shit happens.

March 23, 2020.  Still waiting for the blood count numbers to shift.  At first it was supposed to be a week until we saw the beginnings of the results of his second transplant.  Then 10 days.  Maybe 2 weeks.  Three weeks at the absolute outside.  That would be on the 25th.  Dr. Farhadfar comes in to see us, looks at his records, looks at him.  She says she will give it another week to see if something happens, and then do another bone marrow biopsy.  I ask her what the next step will be if it shows that this transplant has also failed.  Her face was very carefully expressionless.  "We will see what the biopsy says."  And she left.

Bob and I both just breathed for a few minutes.  I had my hand on his arm.  Finally I looked at him and said "I don't think there is a Plan C."

I don't recall anything else that day.  Although we didn't talk about it (well, by that time he was drifting in and out a lot and didn't talk much anyway), that was the day that we both realized that he wasn't going to survive this.  He was dying.

March 23, 2022.  Pouring down rain today - but still worked at the museum.  Wednesdays are giggle day while doing diets - two of the volunteers are good friends and have a lot of fun and somehow we all end up being silly and laughing (although the work gets done efficiently).  Came home and despite my rain jacket I'm soaking wet, so what the heck - on with the pajamas.  Lunch and a nap.  I did stop by the feed store yesterday for a few tomato plants and herbs but it's raining too much to plant them, so maybe tomorrow.   I also got a two more goldfish, bigger ones this time.  Christy and Rik at the feed store (where I got my plants) keep goldfish in the sheep's water trough to deal with mosquito larva and they netted a couple for me.  Once again, after late lunch and nap, I realize it's 8:30 and I haven't had any dinner yet - will I bother, or will it be crackers and cheese and an apple again?  I did go to Aldi yesterday and picked up some double cream blue cheese, so that's tempting.  And do some spinning before going to bed to read.

Garden Work.

 When we first moved here 30 years ago, I spent a gazillion hours setting up the garden.  Our land is on a slope, so the beds had to be terraced. And fenced, after we got goats and peacocks.  It covers an area about 40 x 40 feet.

At first it was pretty productive.  Got a little less over the years, mostly because of a big oak tree that turned into a huge oak tree that provided a bit too much shade.  But Hurricane Michael took care of that tree.

It started to get a bit neglected, especially after 2018.  In October came Hurricane Michael, which covered our 5 acre yard knee-deep in what used to be the tree canopy.  It took us literally 6 months to clean that up.  We did not go into the garden.  At the end of that six months Bob got diagnosed.  So basically the garden just went by the wayside.

Last spring I did a *lot* of cleanup.  Even put in some plants.  But after it got hot and buggy and the tomatoes died and the cotton never really did anything I just walked out, closed the gate, and that was that.

But I've been on a cotton spinning project lately, and uncovered a lot of my saved seeds and I really should see if they are viable, so this week I've gone back in, although it was tricky because it's solid weeds.  Bring on the flame thrower - world's most fun way to weed a garden.  In a couple of hours I got the garden back to where I left off last year.  What was left was a strip on one side, and the back quarter of the garden.  These two areas are where Bob had his pineapple plants (in pots), and where he sort of tossed anything that might be useful (every flowerpot we have ever gotten, including the thin plastic ones that plants come in) now covered in weeds and brambles.

I was sort of sad (OK, very sad) dumping out the dead pineapple plants.  He was so pleased with being able to grow from pineapple tops, and even harvested a few tiny pineapple plants.   Today I finished going through that section, tossing out the old plastic pots, random containers, whatever.  Then I began to tackle the back, which will take awhile.  It's about 10 x 40 and I got 10x10 cleared today but it was the easiest of the area and took two hours to drag out all the pots and the sheets of corrugated plastic he used to cover the beds we weren't using (once upon a time).  And even more tomato cages (I think he saved every tomato cage we ever used).  I filled up the back of the truck with trash.  Then out with the flame thrower and cleaned that small area.  

I figure I have 8-10 hours to go to finish the back of the garden and that will be it for this year.  I might even put in a few plants.

It feels good to do hard work, because I'm coming up on the worst part of 2020.

I keep a dream journal - just to jot down any random or weird dream.  A few months ago I had one where Bob and I were in the bedding section of a furniture store.  We were lying in the bed together.  There was a long table beside the bed, and various salepeople kept coming by and putting stuff (accessories, body care products, random items) on the table, then someone else would say "well, maybe not" and put something else done.  The next day I was puzzling over this dream, and then undersood it.  Towards the end, Bob had developed a septic infection in his blood, which caused his blood pressure to drop dangerously, which in turn made alarms go off continuously (and they could not be turned off).  And his kidneys had ceased to function, which meant that he needed dialysis.  Not only to cleanse his blood, but to try to protect his lungs (which had a fungal infection by then anyway).  The same fluid buildup that was causing those huge blisters on his legs was also leaking fluids into his lungs.  But dialysis causes blood pressure to drop - and his was dangerously low already.  Enter the Catch-22.  The usual way to raise the blood pressure is with IV fluids - which you can't do safely to someone with non-functioning kidneys and a dangerously high fluid buildup.

Hence the parallel with salespeople bringing us items.  I woke up one night to several people gathered at Bob's bed, discussing the problem.  Basically - what could they put into him to increase the blood pressure without putting in too much fluid.  Something thick.  Maybe a few more pints of blood?  A few pints of platelets?  Maybe albumin?  Anything?  Anything that wouldn't do more damage, that would let him have some dialysis (which, by the way, he really hated).  And all I could do was sit up on my couch and listen.  

So, garden.  Absolutely beautiful day outside today.  Tomorrow after work I'll stop by the feed store and pick up some herbs and tomato plants and maybe a few peppers.  Get some of those cotton seeds in the ground.  

The Great Friend Diaspora

 Looking back on my post of Jan 5, the list of things I wanted to get off my chest.  One was what I have thought of as the Great Friend Diaspora.

Bob and I never had much of a social life.  Somehow, we were enough for each other.  But we did have a small group of friends that we'd see a few times a year.  More important, they were friends that gave you that reassurance that someone has your back.  The friends you could call if you needed help, if you had to stay out of town unexpectedly and you could ask to go feed the cats.  They could call if they needed help moving something.  They were *there.*

And now they aren't.  Well, Gill is still here, but medically incapacitated.  In too much pain for a visit, and too much stiff British upper lip to want to be seen anyway (and cautious to the point of paranoia about Covid - I don't blame her because it would do a number on her).  We talk on the phone, but I haven't physically seen her in almost two years, when she drove by to bring me some scones when I came back home, but she didn't even get out of the car).

Kim moved to Arizona.  Nancy moved to California.  Rob got a job in Tennessee.  That one had me clenched up.  Rob and Jeff are married.  Jeff is one of those extroverted introverts.  Claims to be an introvert, and is, except that he's also people loving, and there's something about him  - charisma - that people gather around him.  Rob and Jeff would have gatherings a few times a year - potluck, fire pits, conversations.  With people you only saw at those gatherings.  It was fun.  I've also been friends with Jeff for over 20 years.  We drifted apart after we stopped doing the Howl, and they got their own place on acreage so didn't need to come see us to get out of town and relax, but still friends.  I often called him my "foul weather" friend (as opposed to the cliche of a fair weather friend) because he never had time to have lunch, or hang out, or visit - but if need arose, he'd be there.  He was my security blanket.

The plan was for Rob to test out the new job for six months.  So it was in my mind that somehow he would decide to come back.  He didn't.  Jeff wasn't too sure at first about quitting his job (although he'd been unhappy in it for the last decade) and moving - but it's hard to maintain a long-distance relationship.  I kept hoping something would work out.  He decided that it was time to put the house on the market, figuring it would take a month or two to sell.

It sold in four days.  Decision was made.  He was leaving.

I was gutted.  I couldn't stop crying for days.  I'd find myself doing something else, maybe working in the yard, and whispering "please don't leave me."  Begging.  Pleading (damn - he's been gone for three months - and I haven't heard a word from him, but I'm crying again just remembering).  I glad I had the strength never to say it to him, even when he actually came to see me (first time since Bob died) with pizza and to pick up a couple of Bob mementos.  I leaned against him for a moment to snap a selfie - feeling the shock of leaning against another human being, along with the feeling of deep loss, all in the couple of seconds it took to snap the picture).  He'll never know how much I wanted to hang on to him, to the idea that someday there would be gatherings and potlucks and laughter and seeing a group of people that I knew only though him.

And trying to make new friends is hard at the best of time, and even harder during the pandemic (no "getting out and meeting people").  The first time I tried, she died.  The second time (Adrienne) - well, we had one great brunch together last October but she's developed some serious health issues and it's painful to talk or do much of anything so any other get-togethers are in the undefined future)

Add to the five friends the four cats and four peacocks (I'm down to one), a couple of chickens, and the last of the goldfish (and the new ones I was going to give a better life to didn't make it either) and it's just one helluva vacuum.

This isn't a pity party.  My friends at work - Suzie, Shelby, Laura - will have my back in a heartbeat should I need it.  So will Bob's friend Danno, who still calls to check on me.  Rob and Amanda are on call.

But it's the times that I'm not in need that can feel a little empty.  And - knock wood - so far things are going OK.  I haven't been in need.

OK - that's dumped.  Maybe I can move on.

Family visit

 Amanda and Robert like to come to Tallahassee from time to time - partially because they worry about me (sweet of them, and I appreciate it) and partly because Lynn Haven, even 3 years after Hurricane Michael, doesn't have trees.  They miss trees.

It was spring break, so Zeke was out of school, and they thought they'd bring the RV and stay at the campground a few miles away from me for a few days.  Don and Della have a new RV and they decided they'd come too, to check it out.  After they had time to come in and get settled I drove over there to join them, sit around the fire pit, have a cookout.

It was fun, and the campground is on the lake, which is pretty.  But it felt strange walking up to the family gathering without the keystone of the family - the person who linked me to them. Della's brother, Amanda's uncle, my husband.

Don and Della left a day before Robert and Amanda.  On their last day, it was raining, so they came over to hang out at the house.  They had taken Zeke to the mall (realizing that between their mall being destroyed in the hurricane, and Covid, which kept them from going indoors anywhere, that Zeke, at the tender age of 8, had never been on an escalator.  The mall was as good as DisneyWorld to him).  They had picked up Cinnabons at the mall.

I was putting them on plates.  Robert looked over, and asked "why are you putting out five?"  There they were, five plates, five Cinnabons.  For a moment I was blank.  I mean - it was obvious.  Two for us, two for them, one for Zeke.  Only there is no "us"-  only me.  I muttered something about brain fart, put one bun back, and somehow kept my act together.

Now, back in 2020.  I threw away my diaries from that time - but we were in one long waiting nightmare.   Every night Bob gets blood drawn for testing.  Every morning the nurse writes his numbers down on the dry erase board.  We hold our breaths, waiting.  Neutrophils: <.1 (because for some reason they can't say "0."  It's the neutorphils we're waiting for.  When they start showing up, it means that the transplant is working and all the trash that Bob's body has been accumulating for the last two months will start to be cleaned up - and he'll start feeling a little better.  They were supposed to show up within a week from his transplant.  They didn't.  Well, it's been a long haul for him, so maybe 10 days.  That didn't happen.  Tomorrow will be two weeks.  I notice that they doubled his dose of the daily shot that is designed to drag the neutrophils out of the bone marrow into his blood.  At two weeks, well, maybe a few more days.  Three weeks at the absolute outside.  After the doctor leaves, Bob raises himself up on his elbows and cries out in frustration "They keep moving the damned goalpost."

By now it's been two months since they killed off his bone marrow, leaving him without an immune system.  The neutrophils are like little Rhoombas, going around vacuuming up trash.  That hasn't happened, so infections are setting in - fungal, viral, bacterial.  His kidneys are shutting down.

I look back at my posts from last year, to see how I was handling March.  Well - no posts between October and May.  At least this year I'm examining things.

I won't write too many details for Next Year Self.  There are things that I will never be able to forget.  But just to say one thing, a small example at things that I had to handle at the time, calmly and with equanimity, and now at a safe distance I can look and react.

When the kidneys quit, fluids build up.  They want to find a way out.  And they ooze out through the skin.  He developed huge blisters over his legs - 4,5 inches across, an inch high.  And, of course, they'd break.  They wrapped his legs in gauze, and kept absorbent pads underneath so he wouldn't soak his sheets.

One night, I woke up, realizing that there were two nurses in the room and they were trying to help him stand.  There was still some kidney function at that point, and he had to pee.  They wanted to catch it, to measure output and quality - and it's hard to use a urinal lying down.  But he was so big, and so weak, that it took both of them just to help him stand, so I grabbed the urinal to take care of that part.  (I still cringe - it's hard on a man's dignity when three women have to help him pee).  Then it happened - I felt a flood of warm liquid pouring over my bare feet.  Of course, I thought that I hadn't held the urinal correctly.  But that wasn't it.  It was the fluid pouring out of his legs.  The gauze couldn't hold it - so after that they got heavy packs from the burn wards for his legs.

And it got worse after that, and I won't write about it.   

So now it's 2022.  I've been spinning some cotton, and in getting it out found a bunch of cotton seeds.  Thought I should plant some, which leads to one of my Guilt Areas.  A Guilt Area is where there is something I know I should be doing, but just let it slide.  Last winter I cleaned up the garden quite a bit (which we hadn't had time to deal with since Hurricane Michael).  Even planted some tomatoes and peppers and cotton.  But then it got hot and nasty and I lost interest and I finally just closed the gate and never went back in.  That was about 8 months ago.

Today I tackled it.  The main thing was to dump out the pots with the dead pineapple plants.  Bob was so proud of those - it started off with discarded tops of pineapples and he put them in large pots and even harvested a few tiny pineapples, which made him so happy.  The pots were large and very heavy but I got the plants pulled out and dumped on the burn pile, and the dirt dumped in a garden bed, and the pots piled up to go to the dump.  Of course, everything was pure weeds, but I fired up the flame thrower for a couple of hours and got an amazing amount cleaned out.  So I'll put in maybe a few tomato and pepper plants and a couple of beds of cotton and maybe this year I'll even take care of them.   We'll see.

Help Me

 The most painful moment for me in the entire 3 month ordeal of losing Bob was around this time - maybe in another week or so.  He was sitting in his recliner, looking out the window.  He looked at me, scared and a little lost.  "Annie . . . help me."

Of course.  What did he want?  Blanket? Water?  Turn the TV on?  Anything, anything.  "I don't know.  Just help me."

That almost broke me.  I would have done anything, given him anything.  Blood, kidney, my heart, my soul, my life.  But there was nothing I could give, just stroke his arm.

That was the closest I came to just leaving.  Get up, walk out, get in the car (I could see it in the parking lot from the window) and just go home, because I wanted to do everything and there was nothing I could do.

It would be repeated.  He would call for me in the night, because by then he was too muzzy headed and his hands didn't work and he couldn't press the call button for the nurse.  He would call for me and I would wake up and go over and he would ask me to call the nurse.  I would ask what was wrong.  He'd say - "I don't know.  I need help."  And I'd try to calm him down.

His hands.  He had such huge hands but could do such delicate work.  Usually he stayed strong in front of the nurses, polite, nice, talked, tried to joke.  But one day he broke, cried, holding out his shaking hands.  "I'm a modeler!  I build things!  What can I do without my hands???"   I tried to soothe him, use science.  I even gave the name of the drug that he was one, the one to try to keep his new stem cells from recognizing that everything in his body was an intruder.  That when he stopped taking the drugs he would get his hands back.

OK.  Deep breath.  It's 2022.  Nice day outside, not as clear as yesterday, might rain tomorrow.  I have yard trash to burn, but I might not.  Someone in Panama City burned yard trash, and now there's several square miles of wildfire, houses destroyed, people evacuated.  It's been very dry recently and there is still all the debris from Hurricane Michael to be burned.

I finished sorting the lovely black Finn wool I got recently, and it's soaking.  Did laundry because I go to work tomorrow.  Used my new rowing machine,  Some time this afternoon I'll make coffee, eat a few of the biscotti I made a couple of days ago, sit on the back deck, and read my book.  Spin yarn for a weaving sample.  Play music.

It will be a good day.  I'm OK.

Row Row Row

 Bought myself a new toy.  A rowing machine.

Like most people, at some time in the past we had an exercise bicycle.  And, like most people, we used it mostly for a clothing rack.

Sometimes I actually used it.  I found that when I had a cold, using it until I was breathing hard would help me clear my lungs.  And after Vincent Lamb Gogh (our one-eared sheep) got attacked by a dog and we had to let the wound clear from the inside out - and keep it clean - and we had fly strike - so Bob would hold Vincent down and I would get inside and clean out the maggots . . . well, sometimes I had stress energy and would get on the bike and work it off.

But in general, I don't like them.  It seemed that before I could get a good workout, my knees would really hurt.  Back in the early 2000's, when sometimes I would go to the gym, I preferred to used a rowing machine for my warmup.  I like the all over body workout, the bit of stretching, the gentle rhythm.

I knew that March was going to be rough (not that things haven't been rough since the holidays started).  During the day, if the stress of remembering gets to me, I can get outside and do yard work, or at least walk.  Not so much at night.  Or, too soon, it's going to get hot (the mosquitoes are already out).  But I need to work off the stress.   Let me see - it's March 4.  In 2020, we're through with the daily IV of the chemo poisons into Bob's system.  Today was his second transplant, stem cells this time, instead of the theoretically gentler bone marrow.

So last week I looked (on Amazon) on basic, simple rowing machines.  And selected one.  There was a moment's hesitation.  I had spent 48 years looking at anything as to how it related to Bob size, from yard chairs to cars.  I didn't want a rowing machine that could connect to the internet, show me videos, be my best friend, whatever.  I found this basic one.  The reviews looked good.  It looked like what I needed.  I checked the specs.  

I almost passed it up.  Because the weight limit was 220 pounds.

I weigh 130 pounds.  I'm going to be the only one using it.  Weight limit doesn't matter.

So far, I like it.  At the moment it's at the lowest level until I get used to it.  Then I'll crank it up bit by bit until I'm actually getting a workout.  I can listen to music, or maybe an audiobook, or maybe just look out the window.  But start slow.  I keep thinking of my beloved friend Jed, who got himself an elliptical trainer for Christmas, was proud of how he could push himself on it, and on New Year's had a heart attack and died.  Think I'll start slow.

Well, that digressed a bit.  The idea is, if I feel stressed, or that I need to move - it's there.  Don't have to change out of pajamas, or put on shoes.  Just sit down and move a bit. 

Little Fishes

Still living (and accept that I will be) with one foot in 2020 and one in 2022.   This time in 2020, we were on Day 3 of Bob's second round of chemo.  What we found disturbing the previous time, and even more disturbing this time was the precautions taken by the nurses.  They would wheel the IV bag and paraphernalia in on a cart, and then prepare themselves.  Two gowns - the usual one, and a thicker one.  Face masks.  Some also wore face shields.  Two pairs of gloves.  All this to protect themselves from the stuff that they were pouring into Bob's veins.

But now it's 2022 and I'm buying goldfish.  As I wrote in an earlier post, my plan with my current downsizing was to wait for the fish to die off, then take down the aquarium.  But I decided that I actually like having the light, and the sound of falling water, and the fish swimming about.  But not enough to faff about with it.  So I kept up Bob's legacy and rescued another half-dozen feeder goldfish.  And a pleco for good measure, because I think they're cool looking fish.  I even got some fake seaweed.  I did have to laugh at the sign above the tank of "because of the delicate nature of feeder fish, it is not advised to keep them as pets.  There are no refunds or exchanges on feeder fish."  I asked the shop owner about this - do people really try to get a refund on a 17-cent fish?  She shook her head.  "You'd be surprised."   And no, they're not that delicate.  But stick in in a goldfish bowl with no aeration, and let the water go stale, and yeah, they die.  And then people want their 17 cents back.

The last couple of years have been a stream of things and people going away.  So it feels a little strange, and maybe even a little good, to bring something in.  Give these guys a better life than being food for a bigger fish.