T-2

Saw my therapist today, the regular one not the Hospice one....We tried to recreate the lst days of Chris. What was happeneing. I saw her the day before Chris died, was still hopeful about Florida. I shared that I wished she had pushed me more to have important dialogues with Chris, not about pragmatic thing but about what he was feeling, what he was thinking about his life and his possible death. I am looking for some sort of statement or statments that could have served to guide me during the next 365 days. But those conversations didn't happen.....I was left a drift without an anchor. Adrift to navigate the seas of loss and grief.
It is almost too much to bear. it is not the ripping, tearing, searing pain as it was not so long ago, but it is an allover pain. A dull all over ache that weighs me down....will it be lifted on April 3rd? who knows.

T-3 and counting

3 days til one year. A whole year without you ....unbelievable and I survived....barely. Oh ok, I survived, but didn't thrive. I came out the on the other side. I hurt, I miss you but I still had time for friends occasionally, I went to a few social things (Jack and Sammy's birthdays).
It is a roller coaster, one minute I am level the next minute I drop down, down, down into the vortex of pain. My hip feels slightly better so I can feel more emotional pain, just in time....are you lifting the pain so I can feel my heartache more?
I wished I had written more about that last week at home. Some parts are clear, others foggy. I was frightened of losing you, and yet you were slipping away. I thought the lactulose would help you wake up, but it didn't make you vibrant.
I feel heavy with sadness, yet hopeful that the dinner will bring some lightness.
I talked to Lynne tonight. we talked more about the dream. We are very close and I feel you through her. She knew you so well, so much better than I did in some ways. You truly were like minded. How funny that we are such good friends, now. I remember when we were first dating, how important it was for us to meet. And how we were instant friends,,,,,,how nice that she is here for me. A special gift.

and what will you do with all those Oxy's????

I met with my therapist today. I told her about wanting to remember Chris' last week and wishing that I had written more....we tried to recreate parts of.....Hospice admit, Spread sheets of meds and times, a horrible trip to Bank of America. All that.
I shared that I had a bad appointment with the pain doctor and that he gave me a Rx for Oxy's....which I took and filled despite having all of Chris leftover pain medications.
She asked me why I took it....I was offered. I didn't get it at first, but she was worried that I might do something with all these pills around.....

FML

I Hate My Life. Hate Hate Hate. Pretty Hate Machine. Can you tell this is a bad day? Immense pain all day, cry at my desk nears tears all day kind of pain. Searing hip pain, limping crushing mind altering pain. Took an Oxy -no relief. Want to end my life so I can't feel this kind of pain. Too bad I had to borrow my son's truck or I would have driven my car over the Annisquam bridge.
I cried on and off all day today, the pain, the helplessness the what do I have to live for. FUCK. I am done. I have had enough. Maybe I would feel different if I didn't hurt so much. But I can't do anything. The tulips are up but they won't last long covered by leaves. I tried to rake the leaves off and was rewarded by pain running up and down my leg. It's too much.
I am doing everything I can to help myself
My therapist thinks the pain is from my grief.
The medical intuitive thinks it is from carrying Chris' cancer.
The chiropractor thinks it is from sublaxation.
The acupuncture thinks it is my gall bladder
My PCP thinks it is my back.
The back Doctor thinks it is bursitis in my hip
The orthopd thinks it is arthritis.
Can't anyone agree? Can't anyone help the bereaved widow take care of her emotional pain which is severe being sublimated by this physical pain?
If I have to deny my grief process much longer..............
you make this all go away, you make this all go away.
I am down to just one thing and I am starting to scare myself.
I just want something I can never have.......
My
Life
Back.
Grey would be the color if I had a heart.

Widows group-homework

We were to write a letter to our dearly departed.
Here's mine:

Dear Chris:
Where are you? why can't you contact me? What happened when you died? were you afraid? I tried to not let you be frightened. I am frightened and sad and so so confused. Do you know that? Can you see and and are helpless to help me? Does that upset you or is this one big cosmic joke? Are you sitting somewhere watching me struggle, knowing that this is my journey because yours is complete.
I talked to Lynne last night. She had a dream with you in it. It was amazing. Are you in her dreams because you can't get into mine. In her dream you were standing by the water on a beach......P town or St. Thomas she was not sure. I was with her. We knew it was you from your profile. She wanted to approach but I was afraid and couldn't move. She went toward you, you had Buddhist robes on, you were enlightened. She put her hands around you not touching but near you outlining you, absorbing your energy. she brought all that energy to me and gave it to me.....
Is that it?
Are you enlightened, and Lynne can see but I cannot. Is she the passage to my enlightenment? or just the messenger? Am I supposed to understand now that you were here only for a short time to help me learn the many lessons you taught me?
It seems like that is what is happening. I just want the dream myself............

overwhelming sadness

It is barely dawn, dark with a hint of light. i lie in bed looking out the window at the pink and gray of a new day. Isn't that were I am supposed to be? coming out of the darkness? It has been 345 days, 11 months and 11 days. 20 days from now it will be the " death anniversary". What a term. Maybe it is because it is the weekend and although I have to go to work and group I don't have that jump out of bed urgency. I miss him. I miss Chris. I miss having our lives to share with each other. It is a sadness that is very deep. It is in my bones, deep withing It has changed me, it has altered my DNA.
I cannot fathom why he was taken from this world. What is the meaning?Is there a meaning? Why was Lindsay's fiancee taken from her? They were so in love, so perfect for each other? Is there any order in this chaos? Why did Chris just finish the kitchen, the last renovation of the house only to die 16 months later? What does this all mean? My mind feels confused and yearning to know. Why did I meet Chris? We met through an online dating service back in the day when such things were a novelty. What compelled me to write to him? Meet him? Marry him? Is it as the medical intuitive thought that I am drawn to those in need....Chris, Bob, Dave? Is that my lot in life eternal caretaker, giver, helper?
I thought Chris was my reward for all those years of suffering in bad relationships beginning with my childhood. I had endured a hellish upbringing, a bad marriage, a broken heart and here was this man loving me in a way that I had never known. thanks for loving me, because you are doing it perfectly.....what do you want from me? a line from Adam's single on the radio now.....what does life want from me, now?
Should I take that job in Provincetown? Move away from everything related to Chris, leave his masterpiece of a house and start over in our favorite place?
I am paralyzed still, I show up to life as it is listed on my schedule, I go to work and social events as indicated on the PDA. But I am not living, I am sleepwalking through life. And I don't want to do anything to change it, that would take me away from my grief, the only connection I have with my husband.....

Will Rogers Follies

Tonight was my friend Lauren's son's (Aaron) play "Will Rogers Follies". I dreaded going, the people I might run into who I haven't seen since last year's play (Copa Cabana.)
I m a huge Aaron fan though and wouldn't miss it. I haven't missed one of his performances since he was Chip in Beauty and the Beast (they brought him from middle school to be in a high school production.) He has a great voice and presence and he like all good performers, takes you out of yourself.
Ultimately I am glad that I went. Aaron seemed genuinely glad that I was there, hugging me and chatting after the show. I ran into a former high school guidance counselor "Madonna"---the nickname my then 2 year old have given her on his many trips to the high school while being cared for by my friend Lauren (yes we have been friends that long). Madonna (her real name is Donna) hadn't seen me, and expressed her sympathies. I wasn't upset that she did,it was the right thing to do. But it numbed me out. I just shut down. I felt like I have been given a drug. Everything feels heavy, deadened, anesthetized, detached,remote. Everything I hear and see seems far away. I feel as if I am watching myself. After the play I have to grocery shop for the Shrayer/Huth dinner. A quaterly event in which I buy and cook food with the Huth girls and I schlep the food over to Huths's the Shrayers show up and in 45 minutes, 5 hours of work and a 100 bucks is gone.
I shop I have a list I am robotic. I feel nothing, I don't care if I am here or home, nothing sinks in.
In the car Adam is on singing "Pick You Up". One of my favorites because he laughs at the end. The song seems to penetrate me, but it the only thing that penetrates. Even writing this now seems surreal. I see my hands hitting the keys but feel so detached. Some one pick me up......

waterr bowl~widows group

this is our third meeting. This group is different, the leader has less control and there are times when some group members talk more than others and the social worker in me gets tense, wanting to help the group move along so that everyone gets enough time, but that is not my role here. The group tonight has an activity involving a bowl of water that we add food coloring to, to represent our feelings. I add purple, because it was a color favorite that brought Chris and I together. I am missing him and one of his favorite colors represents that. After everyone puts in their colors, red for anger, blue for sorrow, the water is black. We then add drops of bleach to represent our coping, mine is this blog, others have family, friends etc...I do too, but writing is the best for me because I don't have to feel like it needs reciprocating. The water lightens....the lesson here is that with time, we will have clearness back, tinged with the color of our grief but not so black. It is a different experience, this art stuff. It takes away some of the intensity, although I feel that it resonates within everyone.

DISCLAIMER

This is a tough time for me. the feelings and emotions that are expressed in this blog are just that. It can be dark and painful to read. I am not planning anything.I am just out of my mind. I promise to come back someday. So please don't send the white coats over here ok

NIN

March, the month of the big slide when Chris began his descent to the the other side. Yesterday was so bad, I cried all the time, losing it here and there, culminating in a massive melt down at a YOGA class. I was so gone. I called Laurie hoping for some insight into why I was losing it in such a big. Bogged down with boyfriend problems, she doesn't hear her phone or chooses not to answer or listen to my message.
I go home....Not wanting to drink beer (gasoline on the fire) I opt for something different.... I HATE Riesling....a white wine, a favorite of Lynne's. It is ok. I start googling "how to make suicide look like a natural death" oh I am serious. I have had it. I see the road ahead. I know it's bad. I don't want to relive it I know how it ends......I google it for awhile, mostly message boards full of hope for the poor saps like me that have had enough...and I have had enough. It's like ok I have lasted 11 months isn't that enough? I did my best. I suffered through all the holidays, the anniversaries. I made it. I coped so what did it prove? Not a fucking thing. That I can suffer I guess. That I can cry and rail and rant and rave. and still go to work and do amazing things and be a great therapist, a great placer of the unplaceabale. a phenonm. and yet when I get home I am ugly, rageful, sorrowful and insane. two people or just one crazy person. surely i am not the only woman who was in love with her husband to the point of painful only to have lost it all. Did they all go crazy did they all enter the nether world at night?
I want to leave this life.....take a job in P town, California? (my other google obsession) or just check out.
My therapist checks in with me....do I have any plans for the future( an indicator that I am not all that serious). Yes I am going to Phantom of the Oprah with Dave,I have a legit hotel reservation in August for Carnival and I have a son.... I wouldn't put Max through anything this grotesque. He is the only thing that keeps me from driving my car off the bridge. (one of the recommendations from the sight).
My sister calls. Adam on Leno. I did dvr it but the dvr cuts off before it is over...of course.
Last year we were at the Brigham took the ambulance in, his crit was down to 15 (12 =death)he was admitted. We spent the better part of 2 weeks there.It was up nd down. I read the caring bridge today.I am icily calm in my writing. technical without being too graphic. Just the facts.....some humor but short, unlike the longer entries over the past 5 years. 5 FUCKING years that I tried to save him....yeah I know I am not an oncologist, but whatever.
Is this the apocalypse? do I only have to get through this then I can die too?
AsI sit here the pain flows through me like hot waves, over and over.
Though it all looks differnt now I know it is all the same
Everywhere I look you're all I see
Just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be
Who we used to be.

one year ago......

From Caring Bridge.....
Monday, March 2, 2009 1:43 PM, CST

Well after a tough weekend (Chris is still short of breath and bascially bed to bathroom and back) We were glad to be going to Dana Farber for a scheduled Transfusion (hereafter known as Tfx). I had the drive way all sholved, the car warmed up....we were good to go at 5:15---out appoitnment was scheduled for 7 AM. Chris asked me to wheel him out on my desk chair because he was felt a little weak to walk from the bedroom to the stairs (don't know what we were going to do at the top of the stairs).... LONG story (ok medium) short... I called the good boys at Lyons. (ambulance) and for a mere???? thousand dollars they drove us in in record time (how does 1 hour and 40 minutes sound?

so we got here Chris 'crit was 15, he needs 4 more buckets of Tfx bags. AND they admitted him (penthouse of course!). So I am on the 16th floor with my hubby waiting for the gastro boys to plunder his esphogus looking for bleed