Side effects.

For me the grief has side effects. The biggest problem for me right now is anxiety. During the first week after Mike's death I phoned everyone, I felt in control and confident. The second week became more difficult as time went on and now as I enter the third week I am so terrified I struggle to answer my own phone, even when I know who is calling, I don't have a hope of making a call out. 

People have started asking me my plans. Am I going to take a holiday? Am I going to get a job? What are my plans for the house? Hang on I'll ask Mike, oh I can't. PANIC!!!!!! You wouldn't believe there is a strong independent woman in there somewhere, she seems to have left the scene along with her beloved Mike. I know people mean well with their advice, but the reality is that I need an adult to take my life over for a while. I feel like a scared child lost in the woods, surrounded by big trees that all look the same. I am anxious about leaving the house, but anxious about being alone. The person Mike thought would help most is dealing with their own grief in the way that best suits them (carry on as if nothing has happened) and they very much expect me to stand on my own two feet when I can barely stand. I've asked them to help me but they say they can't. 

Mike would know what to do.  

Wishes

My darling, 

I had planned to write to you explaining myself, and then I realised I never have to. You always understood me, without me having to explain. Instead I will address this note to the world.

My tears may be drying up, but that doesn't mean I don't miss Mike.
I may laugh out loud, but it doesn't mean I have forgotten Mike.
I may seem to be over my grief, but you will never know how much I miss Mike.

Mike's last wishes were that I wouldn't be too sad, that I wouldn't grieve too long and that I would be happy. 

I'm not there yet, but I am on my way darling.

Lorna x x x

Tears of a Clown

My darling  Mike

Over the last week I have had visits from my kids, Mike C., and Ros took me out last night. Whilst people are around the tears stay firmly put, it is only when I am alone that the torrent begins. No matter how kind people are, the reality is that only you could ever hug my tears away, that it was only ever you who I could truly sob with, without fear of being judged.

The words of the song say it all. I miss you.

Lorna x x x

The dream

My darling Mike

Last night I had that dream. The dream that I assume everyone grieving has. The dream where you weren't really dead. You arrived on the doorstep, furious that I hadn't realised you were still alive. Angry that I had started to cancel payments and tell people you were dead.

I woke up sobbing, a mixture of sadness and hurt. 

I miss you darling

Love Lorna x x x

Grief

Anyone who has lost someone they loved will know what I am going through. The house seems so quiet without his voice and at the same time so full of him and his things that wherever I turn I am jolted by the grief of seeing his shoes, his coffee cup, his coat, all without him. My phone makes a sound and I check to see if it is a text from him. I see something interesting and I turn to talk to him. I want to tell him how Toni was doing her doggie smile as she chased squirrels. I want to hold his hand as we walk around the park. I want the tears to stop, but at the same time it feels like that would be a betrayal. Too soon to stop grieving, too soon to stop wanting him back.

I thought I would leave the blog behind, but a very dear friend suggested I continued to write. The journey isn't yet over. Mike still has a part to play, if only for others to know they are not alone in how they feel in the years to come. 

Goodbye darling.

Mike passed away peacefully holding my hand last night. My emotions are so raw and overwhelming that I wonder how I will survive the pain. I know many have gone before me and survived. I know that many more will follow. In this moment though, it is only ever one's own emotions that matter. 

Goodbye soul mate, I'm now again missing the jig-saw piece that I found when I met you.  

Crazy man

For no good reason other than I can, Mike at our first picnic together. Is is wearing my sun hat and it makes him look like Huckleberry Finn! 

A week on / off.

Don't panic, I'm not about to bore / horrify you all with gory details. No this post is merely an update and a musing on my part.

Mike is almost exactly the same as he was, the only change from the week before is a slight nausea. I'm not sure what we were expecting would happen, the professionals certainly didn't seem to know, we asked everyone we spoke to, and we're still asking. Their reassuring "we've helped patients before" is rather mute when they won't even say anecdotally what is likely to occur.  

The various protocols around who prescribes and who is allowed to collect or deliver the drugs is frustrating at best. The paperwork seems endless, a stock take is done at every visit (I do know why).

Meanwhile the limbo has now spread to my brain, I look at things, and I know I need to do something, and yet I still just stand there staring, waiting for something to tell me what to do. It is a mental paralysis. I have a constant headache that stretches from the base of my neck at my left shoulder to the front sinus on the left, right over the top. 

Life for Mike pretty much continues as before, with me waiting on him hand and foot. I'm left wondering if I might just pop my clogs before he does.

Where's the guide book?

The district nurses are fabulous, but they don't give you a handbook. Call us if you need anything, but how do I know when the right time is? As the hospice nurse said yesterday, "we would all like a crystal ball". If I had one I would know in advance that I needed their help with Mike's nausea or agitation. A handbook would tell me if there is a magic drug that would ease his itching. They are great, but things seem a bit open-ended if you understand what I am trying to say.

Soldiering on. 

Nearly there.

I just thought I would update you all on what is happening. Mike has decided that Sunday will be his last dialysis session. The dialysis doesn't make him feel any better and his body continues to slowly shut down on him. 

Is there anything left to say? I can't imagine that any of you would want to read all the gory details of what happens next week, and so it only remains for me to return to the blog once Mike has gone. I'm sure there will be funny tales about the funeral, insights into the craziness of family and the inevitable turning up of bad pennies, (doesn't every family have at least one?).  I hope you will all humour me for a while after the event, I think I might need a bit of moral support.