I think it is time to use this platform as more of therapeutic writing space for me, since I am quite sure no one reads this anymore, and if anyone does its most likely not anyone that will really care about anything I write, this can kind of be my space..... but just in case...
Our family is Good. Adam and I have a fantastic marriage and are closer than ever, we just celebrated our 22nd anniversary, we got through all the hard things, and we did it together!
Our kids are all grown up, most are out of the house and living their own lives. Zander still lives with us and is going to our local community college. He is a fabulous person with a huge heart, he still loves to snuggle, he is always rubbing my back when he walks by or just putting a loving hand on my arm or leg. he doesn't quite know what he wants to do moving forward so taking classes at community college seems the most logical next step for him, and Adam and I are find with having him at home, he is not the kind of kid we have to worry about breaking rules or going out to wild parties, so all of that is working out just great!
Aidan transitioned about 9 years ago and is Nicole now. She is happy and married living in Canada. It turns out a lot of her teenage angst came from not knowing who she really was. It took a lot of therapy and support but she is living her best life with her wife Andi, they have been married for 6 years now and have a wonderful relationship. It is an amazing thing to see your children grow into happy adults. We are very close and talk tons, and last summer Zander, his cousin Tristan, and myself took a trip up to Canada to visit and it was awesome!
Dylan is doing fantastic, he has a great job as a millwright in Bakersfield CA and is actually here in Pinetop for a month long visit right now that will end with him joining us, along with Zander and Adam's mom and her long term boyfriend on a trip to Eleuthera Bahama's in May! Dylan has come so far in life and we could not be more proud of him. The relationship he has with his dad is just gold, the 2 of them truly never stop laughing when they are together. Dylan just brings such a light and fun energy everywhere he goes, we all love it when he visits!
There is unfortunately some sort of a breakdown where it comes to Aiden T. and Lyndsay with our family, I think they have taken whatever pain they had from their parents divorce and also taken on a lot of their mom's pain from the divorce and don't really have much of a relationship with us. It is heartbreaking, but it is also out of our hands. Hopefully some day they will see the light and see the love we have for them and things will go back to normal.
Ad for life this past 6 or so years it has been hard.
July of 2019 I lost my mom. She had survived brain cancer for 18 years and slipped one morning getting into bed and broker her neck. She could have had a stroke or heart attack, we are not sure. My sister and I were out of town at the time with all the kids on our annual girls trip, mom normally went with us but that year she had decided to stay home with our dad because he was not doing great. That left a big hole in both my sister and I.
4 months later in November 2019 I lost my dad. He had been struggling with prostate cancer, and to be honest he lost his will to live when mom died. He lit a cigar with his oxygen on and the fire melted all the tubing, burning his body as well as down his airway. He lived in agony unable to eat or drink for 11 days after that. That widened the hole.
In January of 2021 one of my closest friends, Kim Camp choose to take her own life. She was a wonderful and dynamic person who had a lot of demons. The parts of that grief hole that had started to heal opened right back up.
Some time in the summer of 2021 I was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. At first I was told the survival rate was 20% over 5 years. I later went to a specialist that said those odds were for people in the 70's and didn't apply to me at all. I was able to keep my blood counts to acceptable levels using natural remedies until late 2024 when I had to start chemotherapy (which has worked well and I am now only on a maintenance dose and my numbers are right where we want them)
the absolute worst thing and probably what a lot of my writing will be about is that in the spring of 2023 my sister, my sweet sweet baby sister got sick, we found out that she had started drinking heavily since our parents died and she tried to quit on her own, that led to hallucinations and seizures and a trip to the local hospital where they really did nothing except keep her for a few days and sent her hom with a prescription for anti seizure meds ... This is when I started seeing the true nature of her husband coming out, he didn't care, he had their 16 year old, Tristan, totally in charge of her care. In charge of her meds, in charge of bathing her, by this time she was too week to get from her bed to her couch without help and her whole body was turning yellow. Adam and I were over to be with her on a Sunday and she was barely conscious. Adam brought up the fact that she didn't seem ok, and maybe we should take her back to the hospital, he husband said absolutely not. He was a drunk and just didn't want to bother with it. We went home that evening and called her adult daughter and made a plan. As soon as he was due to go to work Monday morning I went over there and sure enough Tristan and I could not wake her up for anything, so I called 911 as planned, I took a picture waiting for the ambulance of Tristan holding her hand, her body looked like and orange. It didn't take them long after getting her to our local hospital to make the choice to life flight her to a level 1 trauma center in Scottsdale. I did call her husband and tell him, he did come down to the hospital but didn't stay near her room so she gave me the authority to make decisions for her. I had to authorize them to intubate my baby sister, which he was then mad at me for....They sent her off in the helicopter and Adam gathered me and all of her kids and Zander and we rusher down there in case she didn't make it long. They originally didn't think she would. That first day he was intubated and we were all around her and the Dr. came in and said that they were looking for some sort of meaning full reaction from her, more than just basic opening of her eyes or reflexes. Adam was holding her had and said Angie if you can hear squeeze my hand and she did, the Dr. said it was probably just reflexes, so he said if you hear me to it again and she did! It was hope and it was magical. We stayed the night with the kids and then went him with her in pretty much the same condition but I just grabbed a duffel bag of clothes and came right back to her, Adam said if I didn't he would! By about day 3 she was still on the vent but she was aware enough that she wanted out of the restraints and she wanted to communicate! I was able to get a letter chart and I could take 1 of her hands out of the restraints and she could point to letters and spell things out for me and ask basic questions. Her husband did come down to the valley and leave his 3 kids home alone but never spent much time at the hospital. I just moved in to her room, the chair was my bed, the nurses loved me because I helped out. I think after about day 5 she got off the vent and was doing better, they started dialysis and she seemed to be improving. We talked a lot, She ended up being in that hospital for about 5 weeks, I stayed with her pretty much the whole time, and I am so thankful for those times we got together. Unfortunately she always had weak heart and lungs and could not handle the amount of dialysis that she needed and on July 19, 2023 she passed away. All the holes I thought were left in before were blown wide open and much much bigger. Loosing my sister has been the hardest thing I have experienced in my life. Its been close to 2 years and there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about her, miss her, often cry for her.
But I think this is about enough for today
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