Wheelerswife

I've not been a huge reader.  I went through a couple of self-help stages in my life, but those were really in my 20's.  I went back to school 2 years after my first husband died and I've pushed myself through reading textbooks and other assigned reading, including reading Randy Pausch's book "The Last Lecture" on the day I received my cancer diagnosis.  I struggle with reading, but deadlines make a difference.  I couple times I have tried to jump-start reading with romance-y novels that are short and not-too-complex. 

My husband John was a voracious reader and the fastest reader I'd ever met.  He just inhaled books from many different genres.  Some of his favorites were science fiction and philosophy.  He slowed up a bit after his wife died, but before long, he was reading again.  I wish THAT had rubbed off on me!  Nope.

Maureen

It gave me the option to delete. I deleted it. Did not seem to be a constructive or precise topic. Apologies.

Ah, a valuable discussion was lost.  I think many people found the discussion constructive.  The topic seemed to morph only when the original post was deleted, and since some people didn't see that post, the topic moved around a bit.  Sometimes an idea comes to mind and discussion helps clarify thoughts for a lot of people.  It wasn't offensive and the discussion was civil. 

I'd rather not have the option for someone to delete a thread where others have posted.  If someone wants to delete their own post, so be it.  I've just had 5 1/2 years of my own words eliminated and I don't want to see that happening here whenever someone decides they aren't happy with the direction that a thread moved.

Maureen

I But everything I gained from YWBB is still with me. 

If only this were true...

Maureen

We (western) Kansans are okay with Wichita State shocking Kansas.

Maureen

My chapter 2, my polarbear, died of heart disease, although it was not clinically a heart attack.  I wasn't home with him, either.  Had I been home, I would have awakened to find him dead next to me.  Instead, I was 1600 miles away, at the home of an old friend when I last spoke to him over Facetime late on a Friday night.  I had plans Saturday for a bago at the winery in Connecticut with my "home" bago crew.  John didn't respond to a late morning text message from me.  I didn't try to get in touch with him earlier, because he was in another time zone and planned to stay up fairly late...so I thought he would sleep later in the morning.  I figured he was just separated from his phone...he wasn't someone who always had to have his phone on him.  So...I went to the bago and tried to reach him a few times...unsuccessfully.  I was getting worried, and those who knew me well were aware that I couldn't reach him.  I checked my email and Facebook in case the phone had taken a bath...but no messages.  When the bago ended, I retreated to my car, tried to think of someone I could reach that could check on him, but I ultimately called our local police and asked them to check on him.  It took them an hour and a half to call me back, but by then, I really knew.  I'd been thinking about it all afternoon, trying not to show my distress.  The police chief called me - and I filled in his sentences for him.  He told me that officers had gone to my house...and I said, "And you found him."  He said,"Yes."  I said, "And he's gone."  He said, "Yes."  He told me they didn't expect foul play.  (I had never thought of that.)  I only asked him one question:  "Where did you find him?"  He was in bed.  The autopsy showed he had severe heart disease.  We were completely unaware.  He showed no obvious signs of the severe cardiomegally and cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure that was quite advanced.  As a health professional, as someone who lay her head on his chest every night I was with him, I never saw it.  The coroner told me that hearts like his eventually went into an arrhythmia and he died in his sleep, never knowing what had happened.  My husband hated going to the doctor.  He would have hated surviving a cardiac insult that would have likely left him incapacitated.  He was an active man.  He played handball 5 days a week.  Just a couple weeks earlier, we had been climbing cliffs to and from a beautiful California beach.  He didn't even struggle on the steep paths.  If he was going to die, I suppose this was the best kind of death for him, but it has left me stunned and lost.  I was spared the trauma of finding him myself, realizing he was dead.  Some of you had to witness sudden death first hand.  Still, it has traumatized me and it has triggered anxiety and panic.  Fortunately, that is under better control, but it is still there.  (My dog has done wonders.)

Thanks again for listening.

Maureen

deedee,

Hugs to you!  I know this is hard...really hard.  Torture, really.  I don't know if it can get any harder than it is right now...it just sort of morphs for awhile into a different kind of hard.  One thing about losing a spouse...we all experience things that are the same, yet different at the same time.  My experiences of the loss of my two husbands have been very different for me.  Sometimes, in the early weeks, we find some gumption to get some things done...like all the paperwork and funeral arrangements.  Then, some of us go into a period where we can't do the things we were doing last week, but we can do different things.  Last October, I had the energy to go through things in my basement.  That phase came to a screeching halt and nothing has been moved since.  But...I've taken on more in my school work and a graduate assistant position that could not have done in October.

So...hang in there...and keep breathing and drinking and trying to eat and sleep.  We've all been where you are...and we made it past that point, too.

More hugs,

Maureen

Hugs, Sandi!

Maureen

Chopperette, my gynecologist told me that I would be better off without my first husband, too.  Talk about a kick to the gut.

Maureen

John and I were in Hawaii.  It was the 18 month anniversary of Barry's death, and 2 days before our wedding.  We found a Hawaiian man who had a traditional double-hulled canoe that he had made himself.  We went out on Hilo Harbor with him late in the afternoon toward sunset.  We released 2 leis into the water in memory of my Barry and his Cheryl.  It was our way of remembering them, thanking them for all the wonderful years we had together, but also the recognition that they were in the past and we had a future together. 

I contemplated for awhile  about sending Lauren a message, and I finally did.  Now I regret that I sent the message.  This one line is what I think I needed to say most:  "Yes, we will all survive this transition, but as grief counselors, you should have some sense that this could have been done better."  Lauren responded, but there probably wasn't anything that she could have said that would have made a difference.  Somehow, I wish I'd just kept silent.  That is one of my life lessons I still haven't learned well enough...spending enough time in my anger and frustration before I decide to speak.  Sometimes, speaking just doesn't offer an improvement to the situation.

Sigh. 

Maureen

You might be a widow if....you find out you didn't put the car registration sticker on the license plate...when I nice policeman pulls you over to tell you....and you reach into the glove box with a look of confusion on your face because you KNOW you updated the registration....and there sits the sticker...still attached to the registration paper.  And then...you start to cry....because widowbrain sucks...and the policeman gets all concerned about your emotional well-being...and you have to convince him that you aren't going to completely fall apart over a registration sticker.

Yeah.  That was me.

Maureen

Oh...that reminds me...I have to renew the car registration....

Rob, I just can't picture you in footy pajamas....

Maureen

You like bones, RIFF?  This is me, summer of 1982, studying anatomy.  Bringing bones home from school gave my Japanese roommate the creeps!

Maureen

I'm sitting at my computer, supposedly working on a paper/project on grief support for college students.  I'm wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and jeans and my hair has sand in it from working in the yard earlier.  Looks like I'll need a shower before I hit the sack.  I'm drinking....water....and wishing I had a Cadbury Egg.

Maureen (spelled correctly this time...RIFF!)

Write long posts in Word and then cut and paste.  Word doesn't time out....I spend a lot of time there writing papers....

Maureen

When we talked dork pictures, I think we meant pictures like this one:

With my siblings...I was about 10.  I am on the far left.

Maureen

California beaches...so much more diverse in terms of landforms and beauty.

Hot and sticky from out working in the sun in your yard, or cold with a runny nose from shoveling snow?

Masureen

Peanut butter and chocolate were not meant to be married to each other!  Cadbury Eggs, for sure.

Almonds or cashews?

Maureen

Long ago on YWBB, someone started a post on board names.  What is the story behind your board name?  Some might like to be more generic in describing their name to keep anonymity, but lets tell the stories.  Also...if you have changed your name, why did you do it?

My name has been Wheelerswife from the beginning of my time on the board.  My first husband used a wheelchair for mobility and used the name "Wheeler" as his screen name.  I, therefore, became Wheelerswife.  I've never changed my name before...when I got married at 30, I'd been signing my name professionally for 8 years and I couldn't identify with a name change, so I kept my maiden name.  When I married John, I didn't change my name either.  In keeping with my tradition, I haven't changed my board name.  I did have another account on YWBB that I used for one thread only when I was about 5 months out the first time.  I needed to vent about something very upsetting and didn't want to let on that it was me.

John's board name was polarbear.  John was an Arctic climatologist and had spent a significant amount of time in the Arctic, especially when working on his doctorate.  He loved polar bears and winter and all the snow and cold....hence his name polarbear.

Maureen

Big planes take you to better places! 

Train or bus for traveling?

Maureen

Crunchy cheetos. 

Smart car or big SUV?

Maureen

Me, too!

Maureen

This is harder than I wanted to believe it would be.  I talked about it with my counselor on Wednesday, and he smiled at me when I said I had pretty much gotten past my initial anger and was accepting of the reality that the board was closing down..  He could see right through my wall, I guess.  It should be my decision as to when I bury my dead, right?  I wasn't ready.  I'm in tears as I sit here typing.  It feels like another nail in Barry's coffin, another shovel of dirt hitting the casket with a thud, watching as shovel after shovel of dirt fills the grave, making it ever more clear that he is dead.  It brings back memories of seeing John's body on a funeral home gurney and then signing cremation papers.  He wasn't supposed to die like this!  John was my second chance at love and happiness...and I can't just go and drive by the place we met and reminisce any longer.  The place has burned to the ground. 

I ache today.  I know that many others do, also.

Maureen

Sigh.  My heart hurts.  I did spend some time this week and went through every single one of my 2500+ posts and copied what felt important to Word documents, but still, the loss feels enormous.  It is like books and photos went up in a bonfire.  All of those contributions of wisdom and support...no longer retrievable.  Sometimes it was the shortest little response that made all of the difference in the moment.  The closing of the board has taught me some lessons, though.  For one, it isn't just what you say, it is how you say it.  How they did this...just wasn't good - or good enough.  We deserved more...more explanation, more time to digest, more time to reminisce. 

Maureen

My first husband had a rare genetic disease (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) which eventually caused him to have chronic respiratory failure, which set in motion a cascade of critical scenarios when he became acutely sick.  I knew of options for my husband that most critical care physicians and pulmonologists we unaware of, as they pertained to a small segment of the population.  We had recently consulted with a ventilatory management specialist.  Trying to get doctors to communicate with an "ultra-specialist" of sorts was a nightmare.  I was the only one holding onto hope for my husband, when the doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists were telling me to be realistic.  I finally asked to talk to the whole group at once.  They gathered several people together and I told them to stop telling me to be realistic.  I WAS realistic and I knew that a host of things could kill him at any moment, but meanwhile, he was alive and we were going to hold onto hope that he could pull through and I told them what our goals for survival were.  Eventually, I put my foot down and made them airlift him to a hospital out-of-state where this expert practiced.  That physician and his team were able to pull my husband through and we got another 16 months together.  We were in the local large teaching hospital/trauma center's ICU two more times (it is where my husband died) and I got a lot more respect for my fighting spirit once they realized that I actually had valuable input into my husband's management.  As a matter of fact, the doctors didn't want to admit my husband for his last hospitalization because they didn't think he was sick enough.  I insisted...and insisted further that he be put in a step-down ICU bed.  A few hours later, he went critical.  The docs were glad they had "given in" to me.  My husband, after becoming so critically sick again, made the decision to pass on more aggressive care at this point.  He died within a week. 

I guess my point is we need to be advocates for ourselves, but we also have to put our care into the hands of fallible people.  It is a tricky balance, and I feel for people who don't have the capacity to advocate, question those in "authority" of sorts, and may be left to the care of those who may not make the best decisions for that individual.

Maureen