Time marches on

Whenever I go for a long time without writing in here, it's either that my life is very good, or.... like today. Today it's finally sunny, after 3 days of rain. I know we needed the rain, but... well, *I* didn't need it. ;)

Things basically suck here, and not in a good way. On Sunday, Michael got ambitious and went for a walk of his own, while I was out for my walk. I came home and he was on the bathroom tile, face down, wet, bruised and confused, but otherwise not hurt. I could not get him up at all, so called the hospice on-call nurse. She took an hour to get here, so while I was waiting, I just covered Michael with a blanket and put a pillow under his head. He was asleep when she got here!

So we got him up and cleaned up, and she changed his catheter. Then she ordered us a hospital bed, which the guys set up in the living room all ready for us for Sunday night. Bed rails! YAY! I had things moved so that the bed could go in front of the window. This enables Michael to at least see trees and sky and stuff, even though he is asleep 99% of the time now. I have not been getting him out of bed - just cleaning him up there. It's killing my back, and ... my goodness, but this does suck!

I do keep reminding myself, though, how fortunate I am that I'm only 50, am just about as strong as I've ever been, and how much worse it would be to do this when I'm 80! Lots of women are in that situation.

The main upshot of all of this is that I can no longer leave the house, unless someone is here to look after Michael. The Hospice nurse from yesterday told me that he could get out of even the hospital bed with railings, though.. I don't think that he could. He has a hell of a time just turning over on his side so that I can clean him up. I am not going to leave him alone anymore, though. That Sunday morning bit was just too ugly.

Today I went walking in the driveway! I got a baby monitor (Carla brought it to me! :)) and clipped it to my belt. Plus I could see Michael when I was on part of the driveway. He just slept, and Maddy and I got a good workout. For those of you who don't know, our driveway is steep and long.

I just can't imagine that he'll be alive much longer. Dr. Kane told me that he would be surprised if Michael lived another week, and that was last Friday (nearly a week ago) when he said that.

We've had lots of visitors, including Michael's kids -- Rachael and David -- and Rachael's kids. David brought Rachael and her kids up here from Florida, which I thought was a classy thing to do. She had a visit with them in MI and then the families drove down here. David brought just Rachael and her kids over; the rest stayed at the hotel to swim, and that was good.

Michael is confused by everything, and is completely unable to communicate, even with me. Breaks my heart to see him try to talk and he just says "bih bih fih" and shakes his head because he knows that didn't come out quite right.

We've eaten out in public for the last time, I am pretty sure. Michael's eating is .. err... LOL... not really pretty enough for company now. When we have anything messy at all, I feed him. He does handle pizza and toast ok, but it's all over his face and his "bib" towel by the time he's done. I give him drinks through a straw, but I have to hold the glass.

I seem to spend all my time on email these days, but that's ok, because it gives me an outlet. And I do love hearing from people! The comments that I've gotten in this blog are really bolstering and always make me smile.