No more winters…or I’m getting too old for this shit.

The past year or so I’ve been spending a lot of time browsing homes for sale in warm, beach areas.

As of the blizzard of 2016 and 31.9 inches of nasty white stuff, I am looking with all the seriousness one can have when one is ready to get the heck out of Dodge.

I told The Curmudgeon it is time. We’ll fix up the house to sell and find a new life somewhere where I can thaw out and play on a beach for what life I have left.

I will not suffer through another winter.

 

Another Curmudgeon update

Looks as though they plan to send him home on Monday. I wonder if I will have my car out of the driveway by then. (Tuesday or Wednesday would be easier…)

If not G’s car is plan B. Anyone volunteering to get him and bring him home is plan C.

Just my luck, Monday is also the day the guy wanted to start work on the porch. Plan C is looking better every minute.

 

Word of the day

As defined by Google:

o·ver·whelm
ˌōvərˈ(h)welm/
verb
past tense: overwhelmed; past participle: overwhelmed

bury or drown beneath a huge mass.
“the water flowed through to overwhelm the whole dam and the village beneath”
synonyms: swamp, submerge, engulf, bury, deluge, flood, inundate
“advancing sand dunes could overwhelm the village”
defeat completely.
“his teams overwhelmed their opponents”
synonyms: defeat (utterly/heavily), trounce, rout, beat (hollow), conquer, vanquish, be victorious over, triumph over, worst, overcome, overthrow, crush
informal: thrash, steamroller, lick, best, massacre, clobber, wipe the floor with
“Canada overwhelmed the U.S. in the hockey final”
give too much of a thing to (someone); inundate.
“they were overwhelmed by farewell messages”

Escape from snowbound street imminent

Another day or so and we might be able to get out of here.

However, getting my van out of the drive may not happen for a week or so.

Good thing G has a 4 wheel drive vehicle so we have a way.

A trip to the grocery store, farmers market, and Target are on for tomorrow.

Diary of a crazy lady: Day three after the blizzard

The street is still blocked.

Idiots parked cars in the middle of the street blocking the snow plows from clearing it. More idiots shoveling more snow in front of my driveway. Maybe I’ll get out come spring.

Cabin fever set in. If G hadn’t stopped in, I may have gone completely around the bend.

The Curmudgeon called and we argued. Seems we do that a lot lately.

Think I’ll go cuddle with Lucy on the couch. She’s waiting for me.

 

How one gets ready for when the ambulance arrives

When the other one has MS you have special ways to get ready for the ambulance after taking care of a very ill him for hours and, for the third time, he’s climbed out of bed and collapsed to the floor, this time you can’t get him up.

First, directly after calling 911, you must print out his medication list, a copy of his living will, and copies of his medical insurance cards.

While those print out you crate the dogs.

Turn on the porch light and unlock the door.

Then you must remove the baby gate that keeps the dogs downstairs.

Finally you run back upstairs to make sure he has clean dry clothes on then dash back downstairs and wait if they haven’t arrived yet.

When the paramedics arrive, you tell them he has secondary progressive MS, you hand them all the paperwork, and lead them to him answering their questions as you climb the stairs for the fiftieth time in the last twenty minutes. (The millionth time that day.)

When they leave with him, you collapse in exhaustion and debate following them to the hospital or getting some sleep first.

Sometimes I follow them in, other times I get some sleep. Guaranteed it will be hours before he’s admitted.

He’s still in the hospital. There’s no way he’s coming home until he’s better and the roads are cleared.

I yelled at this doctor telling her they sent him home three times still ill, they’d better keep him until he’s well this time.

The driveway is now cleared, the street is not. I think tomorrow I’ll try to clear off my car.

Deep snow

OMG snow

We had a record snowfall of 31.7 inches. I can’t even clear enough space out the back door for the poor dogs to go poddy. Neither dog is amused by this turn of events.

The Curmudgeon is happy to not have to deal with any of this.

If it isn’t one thing…

The news on The Curmudgeon isn’t great.

He has C-diff now. http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/clostridium-difficile-colitis?page=2

In my opinion he probably had it since he landed in the hospital the first time in October, but they didn’t catch it with the tests. And yet even with him still suffering with the runs, they sent him home each time, every month since, saying it’ll clear up with the probiotics they told us to buy.

It didn’t.

Now we have a blizzard of epic proportions according to all the weather reports. A snow emergency is on so I won’t be in to see him until after things clear up a lot.

That’s okay though because since we had a clogged chimney and the back blow from the oil furnace covered the entire inside of the house in oily soot, I have plenty (more than plenty) of work to do.

 

The kindness of strangers

We only met with Mike once.

For two years I’ve been trying to get our porch fixed so The Curmudgeon can safely go up and down the steps. No one would do the job. “Too small a job, lady. Not worth my time.” Everyone I called responded in this way.

Not Mike, he willingly gave us an off the cuff estimate to be followed by a more accurate one after he talked to his cement guy. He is very concerned about how unsafe the steps are, especially for one whose mobility is so limited.

Last night he called to tell me, because he has a few LEOs in his family, he was attempting to get the FOP involved and see if he could have them pay the repair costs because he knows the price we’ll have to pay will stretch us thin.

Now, I don’t know if he’ll be successful, but the mere thought that he went so far as to try this broke me down into tears.

On another note. I talked to The Curmudgeon’s doctor and from the way she’s talking, he will be in the hospital at least over the weekend, most likely longer.

The Curmudgeon is back in the hospital

I went to see him and he’s just a couple of doors down from where he was last time. Dropped off his MS drugs, specialty drugs they do not carry at the hospital pharmacy, he can’t stop taking them for the time he’s there, so I have to supply them.

His first day there and he was not as out of it as he was for several days the last time he went in.

I have no idea how long they will keep him. I hope long enough to resolve some of the problems they sent him home with last time.

MS so effing sucks

The Curmudgeon did well for the past week or two. Then yesterday it all fell apart.

I had to get help to get him off the floor and into bed. He’d pissed his bed and clothes. So I had to strip him of his wet clothes, dress him, and wash all the bedding and his clothes. I did this after I hurt my back again trying to get him up.

He’s been out of it all freaking day.

Therefore, I had to deal with the guy that came to clean the furnace, Something he usually does, even if it is just sitting on the stairs while the guy works.

The Curmudgeon doesn’t want me here. He wants a mother, I am not his mother, I am no one’s mother. I do not have a nurturing spirit, that died with the 8th miscarriage.

All the wine or martinis in the world aren’t enough to make dealing with this, in any way, easy.

“The lifetime divorce rate is roughly 50 percent; for chronically ill people, the rate is 75 percent.” Are where the statistics stand today.

Am I surprised? No, not one bit. I think about it EVERY day.

However, because I quit jobs so many times to take care of my sister when she had cancer, and because now I’m over 60 years of age and out of work for so long, I am unemployable.

In other words, no one wants to hire me because I’m too fucking old.

I have no way to leave and no place to go. I feel as though I have a gun to my head making me stay. I am beyond exhausted both physically and mentally.

I have no joy.