- An article on MSNBC titled "When it's time for Grandma to stop driving".(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27051758/)
This article tackles the sensitive subject of when and how to confiscate the keys from someone who may have become a hazard to themselves or others. For those of us living with our beloved Parkies, there will be some dip into reality at some point in the game, whether they recognise it and cede the driving duties to their loved ones, or whether it has to become the game of 'how to hide the keys from Grandma'. There's a little video attached to the article which promises to be useful, although I was not able to view it from my computer here. One more thing to contend with...
- Another article from MSNBS titled "Never to part: Devoted couples share life; death" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26980587/)
If this article doesn't make you cry, you don't have a heart. I've spoken before in earlier posts about B and I, and this love we share. I do truly believe that God sent us to each other... that we were each the rope for each other that stopped us from circling the cosmic drain. Many times as we spend quiet time, snuggling, hugging, lying silent in the dark waiting for sleep, we are amused to find that our breathing has synced, like a soft stereophonic melody... metronomic. Comforting. But perhaps there is a biological reason for it. This is excerpted from the article (but by no means the most poignant passage. Do go read it for yourself)
"The more spiritually minded believe that the bond between some couples may be so strong that when one soul departs, the other chooses to follow....
...But there may be other forces at play as well. Research shows that in some cases, one person’s heartbeat can affect, even regulate, another’s, possibly acting as a type of life support.
In one such study, Rollin McCraty, research director at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, Calif., looked at what happened to six longtime couples' hearts while they slept. Heart-rate monitors revealed that during the night, as the couple slept beside each other, their heart rhythms fell into sync, rising and falling at the same time. When the printouts of their EKGs were placed on top of each other, they looked virtually the same. "
Statistics say that I will be a younger widow, when the time comes. But like Virginia, in the article, crying "Where is Aurlo?" I would be unmoored without my love. Death is a horrible, unthinkable topic filled with a terrible beauty. There is no way I can get my mind around a life without B. There is no romanticism to this story. This is no Romeo and Juliet teenage drama, fraught with sturm und drang. Death is a wonderful gift.. a natural process. A passing over to a place of wonder, of no pain or disability. If you have faith, then you look forward to it - the going home. Is it a small wonder that I can't imagine the thought of wandering here aimlessly after B is gone, trying futilely to darn the gaping hole in my heart that the loss of him would leave, crying "Where is B"? Or instead, lie still like an autumn leaf in the corner, waiting for the wind that would blow me to his side?
- The third neat thing was that I logged onto the blog to find that B's 'other-coast counterpart' had left a really cool comment for me! (http://shaakysworld.blogspot.com/ )
He's the husband of my blog friend Mary (http://lifewithshaky.blogspot.com/), and they both keep informative and insightful blogs about this life with YOPD. I do my best to both blog and email, but life keeps getting in the way somehow. Still, each time I have the pleasure of reading one of their posts I find that they seem to touch on subjects that are both tough and pertinent, with an amazing sense of sensitivity and accuracy. It seems like they, as a couple, are going through this journey in roughly parallel places to where B and I are, with a few minor differences. I can't tell you how relieving it is to be able to hear from someone who is in the same place as you... someone who understands that this life is both the greatest gift we've ever been given, and one of the most challenging things we'll ever tackle. My hat is off to them: parents of young children, activists, devout foster parents, and YOPD strugglers. When I visit my blog to vent and cry and shout with joy and generally try to make sense of it all, these are the people who understand. :-)
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In other news, I asked the Walk-in clinic last night if they issued frequent flyer miles. I had to take the boy in last night for what looked like strep throat (but is being called just a virus, pending the culture). This makes three out of four in our family that has been in to the walk-in clinic over the last week. Three family members... three different diagnoses. One has to wonder what weird and wonderful thing *I'll* be stricken with. Whatever it is, it'll have to hit in the next two days to make it four-for-four. LOL (If I don't get sick, do you think I should buy a lottery ticket??)
I started seeing a massage therapist yesterday evening for my poor crooked neck. I had an old on the job injury from about 2000 (ruptured disc) that has been hurting for about the last six months. I finally got to the point where it's been making me crabby due to all the pain, and the chiropractor isn't cutting it, so I tried the masseuse. She found the spots, all right. There was a lump the size of a walnut in my muscle that she worked on for about half an hour. I still hurt today, just from the work. Three days a week for an hour a day, for a month. We'll see if it works. She did order me to go home and soak in the bathtub for 20 minutes. HA! We laughed about that on the phone today when she called to see how I'd done. She said "Yeah, you're a mother. I figured you wouldn't make that one!" :-D I told her I'd try to do better this week.
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