New Stage

 We're getting closer to the end.

He's now 124 lbs.  His eating is down to hard candy and juice.  He will take a bite of a cookie or popcorn, two former favorites, and then leave the rest.

Hospice Nurse Karen came on Thursday and said that we're in a new stage.  She told me about her plan - that as he gets closer to moving out of this world into the next, she will up her visits to twice a week and then the last week will be with me every day.

I would prefer that he just drop dead in his tracks rather than face the long, slow, death by starvation, but I'm ready for whatever happens.

I am strong, I am invincible, I am a non-bionary person (of a certain age hold that note.....!)

So.  Keeping ahold of my sense of humor and doing some yardwork today as it will only be up to 88 degrees today.

Leaving you with a cooling sea shanty.

 

FUCK GRIEF IN THE ASS

https://www.fireengineering.com/commentary/drawn-by-fire-gallows-humor/#gref

Our beloved dog and my co-carer Birdy couldn't stand up the last Saturday of June and I wound up having to put her down.  A week of knee shaking, nausea-producing grief ensued until I got her ashes and streamed a live service for her on Facebook.

Last week Will was down to 125 pounds.  This morning he was wandery and as always in the morning, partially there and partially not.  He has been incontinent in bed a couple of times and that's new for him, having a really big piss in the bed and not being able to get to the bathroom.  Also some fecal incontinence.  He's very thin and wobbly and still saying that he is okay and refusing to use his walker.

Last week, as I told my friends Bill and Dave, I just decided to "fuck grief in the ass" and see friends and  not hurt so much.  I'm trying to hold onto that -- trying to hold onto my dark humor.

Thank God, literally, that our church opened back up for in person 8:00 am services on July 4th.

How Things Are Right Now

He sometimes eats real food, sometimes doesn't.

Mostly surviving on cookies, juice and hard candies.  

Sleeping or in bed most of the day.  When awake he just sits in one of the wingbacks with the standard poodle sitting across from him in the other.

When I took care of his feet on Monday, I saw they were swollen.

(c) David Byrne, Talking Heads

His skin is dry and flaking.  He pics at it. Because he is sometimes very whiny about any changes to his body, I haven't been as nursy as I should have been.

He's incontinent, urine wise.  I have the pjs and jeans on a regular wash cycle.

When he talks, he sometimes makes sense, sometimes doesn't.

My greatest fear for him is that he will be frightened while I'm out of the house.  But Birdy is always there when I'm not, so she can comfort him.

I am listening to old New Wave music on SiriusXM First Wave in part because it takes me back to the first time I ever lived for real on my own -- Salt Lake City, 1984.