DIY- Home Ostomy

Yep, that's right. I am going to explain how you too, can have your own ostomy experience. Maybe you're wondering where in the hell this came from? Has Forbes lost his freakin' mind?  Well, kinda, I guess. Some of the impetus for this came from conversation Karen and I had last night. Lots of people ask how I am doing with my ostomy but as Karen pointed out, I have never really addressed the issue; I have never really talked about what it is like living with an ostomy. And some of it is prompted by a line from yesterday's journal entry: "Will I ever get used to squeezing my warm shit out of bag stuck to my belly?"

Would you?

So, when I wasn't sleeping last night I thought of how 'normal' people like yourselves, can get a feel for dealing with ostomy, day in and day out. Chances are you probably have most of what you need for your own ostomy at home. I would recommend a trip to your local grocery where you should stock up on lots and lots and lots of those little pudding packs.  You will probably want chocolate and fudge varieties and maybe butterscotch, if you want something that looks like your poo when you have the shits. You may also want to get a bit of double-stick tape.

First, you will have to make your ostomy bag. For some reason these are often referred to as 'an appliance' but that's just med-speak.  Start with a quart size Ziplock type baggie. Lay it flat and trace a circle about 2 to 3 inches in diameter down in one corner of the bag. You may want to use a glass as a template. Get this circle close to both the horizontal and vertical edges.  Then, using a quarter, trace a 1 inch circle in the middle of the larger circle and cut out this smaller circle. This will be the opening for your ostomy.

Now take off all your clothes and make a mark on your belly about 2 inches to the right of, and 2 inches below your navel. This is the site of your ostomy. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. It will be the last time you see yourself with a normal body.  Now, take the double-stick tape and apply it within the large circle on your ostomy bag. Be sure you do not cover up the 1 inch opening. When your are done with the double-stick tape center the small opening over the mark you made on your belly and stick the bag to your skin. Did I forget to mention that you may need to shave your belly first? Sorry.

You want to create a pudding-tight seal so you will have to add some tape around the baggy.You may need some help here. If you used a glass for a template I think I would place the glass inside the baggy, over the larger circle, and apply tape to the baggy around the glass. When you think you have it good and snug, remove the glass from the baggy.  In real life, an ostomy bag has a thick vinyl flange with a strong adhesive that sticks to your skin. The opening for the ostomy is cut with a scissors and a paste, similar to caulking, is applied to make sure the bag does not leak feces or gas.

Look in the mirror again. Do you feel a bit ridiculous with a baggy stuck to your side? Do you think you are sexy and attractive? Wait till the damn thing is full.

Ok, now here is the fun part; filling your bag with poo.  Open the ziplock edge and put about 1 1/2 cups of pudding in the baggy, without getting any in the ziplock seal, and shut the bag. Now get dressed. Underwear, t-shirt, shirt, pants. With any luck at all, you will find your ostomy is right at your waistline. You may find it a challenge to make your pants fit. Now, bend over and put on your socks and shoes. Anything in the way?  Hmmm. This part must be like the early stages of pregnancy

Go about your normal daily activities with your full ostomy. You may find the tape pulling and itching. After a couple hours it can be time to go to the bathroom.  Now, without removing any of your clothes, empty your ostomy into the toilet. Do not get any poo on you, your clothes or the floor. Clean up the ziplock seal nice and clean so it will perform correctly and put yourself back together again.

After about an hour put some more pudding in your bag. You don't have to fill up all at once. The goal here is to fill and empty your bag 4 to 6 times per day.  You may find it to be real challenge to keep everything clean and together. You may find the bag hanging down to be awkward. They do make ostomy support belts that allow an ostomate to wear their bag sideways.  I have one and it makes all the difference in  comfort. You can try supporting your bag with your belt or you can simulate an ostomy belt with several wraps of Ace bandage or maybe by using one of those back support belts. Just leave it fairly loose because you still have to fit your full bag under the belt. If you start wearing a faux ostomy support belt remember, you have to wear it 24/7. You can take it off to take a shower, but that's it.

When you want to share an intimate moment with your loved one be sure to empty your bag first and keep the support belt on as well. Nothing says "I want you" more than making love while wearing an ostomy belt. Keep at this for a few days or weeks.  For fun variations try going out of town.  Fill your bag, put on some nice clothes and drive for three hours. Then find a public restroom and empty your bag without making a mess of yourself or your clothes.  Hopefully your bag didn't leak along the way and if it did, hopefully you planned ahead and brought a change of underwear and jeans and enough supplies to replace your 'appliance'.

For you outdoor types, here is something fun.  Go for a long walk in the woods.  This time of year is perfect. Cold weather means more clothes.  After an hour or so, about the time you have to pee anyway, stop and try to empty your bag. Remember, try to keep all your clothes on and out of the way. You may find that squatting just doesn't work anymore. I really miss the days where I could squat in the snow and I never minded using snow instead of toilet paper.

I really hope some of you try this at home. What can it hurt? You will be dealing with pudding after all, and not the real poo.  You may find that in the middle of the night your nose will detect the sweet odor of leaking pudding and wake you before you mess the whole bed. If you make it that far, you have arrived. O, I left out the part about using disposable gloves. I use them all the time to protect myself when cleaning the opening to my bag. I figure it's bad enough to have to mess with my own shit. I don't want to wear it or smell it on myself.

Hope you enjoyed this little exercise and got a feel for what I, and lots of other people, deal with everyday. As the late Jim Reeves used to sing "Welcome to my world. Won't you come on in?...  Miracles I guess, still happen now and then."

Peace and love from the DYI Ostomy World Headquarters,
Mike

How do you spell 'exhausted'?

I cannot remember the last time I was this tired.  Maybe it was when I was in the hospital. Sometimes I find it difficult to believe I have been 'out' for a month.  Today is a repeat of yesterday- cloudy, foggy, damp, dark; too dark for me right now.

We made a trip to Duluth yesterday and visited with the genetic counselor.  It should have been a fun trip; most of our road trips are, but I hadn't slept well and I had things on my mind and I forgot to bring the sunshine I needed to sustain  me. I felt bad for Karen, who had been looking forward to the trip, as I had been, but I just wasn't very good company. I am sorry, baby.

We drove in rain most of the way. I kept looking into the wet empty woods wishing I could just walk and walk and walk. Somehow that seemed like the best thing I could do for myself and yet, it was the least likely to actually occur. Dianne, the genetic counselor, asked me questions about my family history and I tried, I really did try to answer them, but Dad's side of the family is just a big void in space and time. To this day, I never really know what happened. I just know that Mom never talked about my dad or his relatives.  We had our short interview, discussed some of the questions and then they drew a vial of blood that will be sent to Mayo for analysis.  In three weeks or so, we may know whether the genetic factor I have is limited to me or is inherited throughout our family.  If the syndrome is inherited, then at least the specific gene will be identified and then my children and siblings can have that looked at without having to do the whole sequence all over.

So now we wait. The girls are inside, keeping me company, dozing on the floor. I think today is a major nap day. Right now, I have all I can do to stay awake. When I am more coherent, I will try to post something that is a bit more upbeat.

Later,
Mike

Almost Feels like the Tipi

Today is quiet. The morning started out that way; light fog, no wind, not even much for frost. This is so unlike a typical late November that I can't help but feel we are being given a gift. I welcome the gift and I am thankful.

We have not done much today and that has been good. Karen is sewing, the joy of complete concentration and happiness fills her face. I walked for three miles this morning and put up a rude platform bird feeder. Then I froze some Italian sausage we had made from the doe I shot last week. The radio is off and when the breeze can muster enough energy the wind chimes sing and hum.  Otherwise the space around us is one of stillness and peace and feels like the old days under the canvas. All we are missing is stew cooking on the woodstove.

Tomorrow we go to Duluth. I contacted a genetic counselor last week because I want to follow up on the implications that come with my Lynch's Syndrome.  I don't know much about the syndrome and even less about what we will find. I am expecting blood work that will be used to determine if my mismatched genes are limited to my tissue, (my tumor) and hence, not inheritable; or if the whole thing is systemic, meaning it can be inherited by Justine and Meredith and may already be in my siblings. I dragged my feet on this for awhile, partly because I was just trying to recover from my own surgery and partly because it was just another medical hoop to jump through. I am glad I have started on the process and hope most of it will be covered by insurance and be done before I start my new deductible next year.

Chemo went alright this week. I am tired today and Erin said that would happen after the steroids wear off. But overall I am doing well.

Time is so slow today. The sky is light with a haze of cloud that makes the afternoon endless. We are living in a dream and I relish this peace. It is good to feel the tipi again.

Peace and love to all of you.
Mike

Deja Vu All Over Again

It begins, again. Karen and I barely sat down in the lobby before Erin grabbed us for the first of my last rounds of chemo. Shoes come off and I step on a scale and she records my weight.  We follow her to one of the treatment rooms and I take my place in a recliner where I will sit for the next four hours. Normally the process won't take this long but there is protocol to follow. We go through the meds I will be receiving and the wonderful side effects. My port is accessed and flushed and a dextrose drip is started to go with one of the drugs that will help combat nausea. Orders for my chemo are sent out to the doctor and we wait. The actual chemo drugs are administered over a two hour period, followed by a 10 minute push with 5FU. And then we are done. For this time, for the next two weeks.

Really, when you think of it, the compounds, the drugs and medicines we receive are pretty amazing. The medical community can take your pain away in few moments and yet, sometimes anti-biotics can take a long time to have an effect, and occasionally, they don't work at all. A half hour ago I just finished throwing the ball for the girls; (Anna and Sadee) and I was feeding the rabbits when I noticed a tingling in my left arm. The sensation was similar to when your arm falls asleep in a big way; the kind of pain that gets your attention when the blood flows back into your arm. And then I felt the same thing in my right arm.

WOW!! I knew I would probably experience nerve tingling because that is one of the major side effects, but I did not expect to experience it this soon. But... this afternoon when I touched a cup of cold pop my fingers reacted with kind of mild burning. And when I was out for my walk the cool evening air felt sharper on my cheeks than would be justified by a temperature in the mid-30's. I ran my gloved hands below my eyes because I thought I could feel tears on my face.  An increased tendency for tearing is another thing I will have to live with this winter.  When winter really comes I was told I will have to cover my mouth so I don't take in the cold air because it can make me feel as though I cannot breathe.

So, here we are at a sort of beginning; a beginning of what I hope will be the end of this particular part of my journey in life. My pump buzzes every few minutes, giving me my dose of chemo. For the next few days I will be juggling the pump, and my ostomy, and then on Friday, the pump is removed. But the chemo goes on and on.  This is our life now, but it will not be our life forever. I am thankful for the staff that help us, for the friends and family that give us their love and support. And I am thankful for Karen. I could not do this without her.

I heard winter will arrive next week. Get out and enjoy the weather while you can.
Peace and love to all of you,
Mike 

A Bucket That Doesn't Leak...

Yes, I do like peace. For many, many years that is all I wanted. Peace was the one thing I always asked for when I stepped out and looked up at the night sky before turning in for the day with the hope that tomorrow would be better. Peace...

I think it fair to say that my life is more peaceful now than it was, even a few years ago. I have worked hard; Karen and I have worked hard, to bring more peace into our lives. Without that basic foundation in our lives the past six months would have been much worse. It is a case where the harder we work, the luckier we get.

Today is sunny, breezy and for November, unseasonably mild. More of the same is forecast for the rest of the week and I cannot say I am disappointed. November is typically the cloudiest month of the entire year and I do need sunny days. I know there are some people waiting for snow. Sue and John would like to have snow because then people would want to buy skiis, and many hunting brethren would like tracking snow for the rest of the deer season, but I will take days like this as the gifts they are.

Deer season has been a success. I was lucky enough to receive a nice doe; very fat and evidently fond of corn though Jeff and I do not know where she found corn up in the woods around Hines.  Maybe someone has a small field of corn, or maybe someone is baiting deer, which is illegal. Either way, she came to me and now she has joined us for the winter. We are thankful. I still have a tag for a buck and will probably hunt for at least part of Saturday with the idea that any further luck that comes my way will have to go to someone else's freezer. When I finish this blog I will take the remains of the doe back into the forest, to a nice place with a good view, arrange her as respectfully as possible, say a few final words of thanks and leave her to rejoin the earth. I cannot abide the thought of throwing the remains of deer I kill into a dumpster or garbage bag. I cannot dishonor the spirit of the deer in that way.

The other night Karen and I were taking a shower and running out of hot water long before Karen was ready to be done and she was mightily pissed off. So yesterday I went to Fleet and bought two new elements for the water heater and we played plumber last night. I always enter these type of projects expecting the worst- something is going to break, or leak, or the parts will be wrong, etc., etc. Turns out the most difficult part was getting the water to drain down fast enough. But we did get the project completed. No one got yelled at, nothing got thrown, we don't have any leaks and now we have lots of hot water again. It was only after we were done that I wondered why we didn't call my plumber nephew down in Arizona for advice.  I am still convinced the most reliable plumbing is a five gallon bucket that doesn't leak. I can say that, having lived without running water for two years. For me, simpler is often better.

I took advantage of the hot water this morning and enjoyed a long hot shower, completely naked. That is, without my ostomy bag on my belly and that was wonderful. My little rosebud behaved, no pooping in the shower and the hot water felt so good on skin that is often completely covered for days at a time. We are, I am, still learning more about the day-to-day management of my ostomy. We went on line yesterday to the United Ostomy Association of America website and perused the pages for advice on a couple of concerns we have. Theses people, these ostomates, represent a huge wealth of knowledge and experience and their contributions are invaluable.

Tomorrow I start my next, and I hope, my last round of chemo.  We always knew this was coming but many people who have followed us in this journey, are surprised to hear I have to go through chemo again. I thought we had always mentioned this last bit of chemo, so we are surprised that this is news to so many people. I have some anxiety about this round of treatment. I will have a two hour infusion and then go home with a pump attached to the port in my chest. I will only have to wear the pump for two days at a time. I can only imagine the fun I will have managing the pump and ostomy at the same time. This cycle of infusion-chemo pump, will take place eight times over the next four months, meaning I have the treatments every two weeks. The break between treatments is designed to let my body recover before the next round. That is the part that makes me nervous.

But hey, how bad can it be?  I mean, I should be ok with potential side-effects such as an increased sensitivity to cold, especially in my hands and feet. And temporary numbness in my fingers. That should  be great, too. Especially if the numbness makes managing my ostomy or use of my hands, difficult. What the hell, right? Winter is coming after all, complete with cold and clouds and shorter days and longer nights. But we do have hot water.

And we do have peace and that is worth any price.
Peace and love to all of you,
Enjoy these days and the love of friends and family,
Mike

He's not all hunting all the time, sometimes

He's about peace!

Oh...and squirrels.

News Flash from the Forest

Mike shot a nice doe....all fat and corn fed. Details to come later!

Peace,
Karen

Another postcard from Recovery Camp

It has been awhile since I last wrote but I have been a busy boy. I have a better understanding of people who are retired and too busy to get anything done. That is what life is like for me these days. So many things to do and so little time to do them, even though I am not working.

I paid a visit to work last week to check in on the boyz. They were happy to see me because I brought donuts. Nice to be appreciated. And I spent part of another day in town getting groceries and a new chimney cap. My whole grocery shopping experience took place in the dark because that section of town lost electricity about the time I was making my way down the produce aisle.

Friday we ventured to Roger Maris Cancer Center to visit with Dr. Shahidi, my ocologist.  My new chemo regimen may begin on the 18th of this month. I will be receiving an infusion which is a two hour procedure and then get hooked up to my friend, the portable chemo pump. I only have to wear the pump for two days at a time. My chemo will be every two weeks, not every week as I had thought earlier. I am a bit worried about the infusion. Something in the way Dr. Shahidi explained the process leads me to believe this infusion is going to kick my butt in all sorts of evil ways. What is kind of ironic are the side effects I will experience.  This past summer I had an increased sensitivity to sunlight and heat.  Now I will have an increased sensitivity to cold. This should be fun with winter coming on. Plus I may experience tingling and numbness in my fingers and toes. Hopefully that won't get bad enough to affect my dexterity and the ability to use my hands and fingers. These side-effects are supposed to leave when the treatment is over.

Friday was a long day for me. Lots of sitting and that can still be difficult for my rear end. But Karen and I had a great time. She was very patient with me and shopped extra slow while I tried to nap in the van. I was beat when we got home.

I made a late-morning appearance at Brother Wiebe's deer camp on Saturday. I did see 4 deer but had no shots. I even got up way too early yesterday and went again. No deer for me but Jeff got one. When the rain came in the afternoon I took shelter in their sugar shack. Cindi had us up for dinner along with Mark and Wendy, and Tommy. Mark and Jeff sure like my Tullamore Dew. I took this morning off and slept in and I am glad I did. This morning is just beautiful and would have been so even in the deer woods but I feel better for staying home.

Last night in the shower, with the benefit of lots of hot water I discovered why I have been uncomfortable down in my groin. My left testicle is about 50% larger than my right testicle. I presume this swelling is an aftereffect of the surgery and related to the pain I have had in my abdomen. I thought that pain was related to the drain that had been in my belly. The whole thing is vaguely reminescent of a vasectomy and I hope that it can be resolved easily. I put in a call down to Fairview to let them know what's up so we will see what they say. My man junk still works but the moment of ectasy is somewhat diminshed by the twinges of pain that are not part of your normal intimate experience.

I know Karen blogged about beauty and it is true, my self-concept of beauty is marred at present. I expect that will diminish over time. What I have read from other ostomates indicates that before long you come to accept yourself and don't even think twice about your ostomy and the visual aspects of a bag on your belly.
Karen has been very supportive and keeps telling me I am beautiful. She also searched on-line and found a support belt for me. The belt allows me to wear my bag horiznontally. This means I can wear most of my pants just like before. I sometimes wear a belt, depending on how my belly feels but a belt was a real problem when the bag hung vertically.  I have taken to wearing suspenders because they help hold my pants up if I don't want the tightness of a belt. Now that part of life is approaching 'normal' except that I have this bulge on the right side of my belly and the bulge grows until I empty it.

The bulge is my ostomy bag and serves the same purpose as your colon, rectum and anus for those of you with all your parts intact. I have to empty the bag several times a day and it is another aspect of my life that will take some getting used to.  It is a real trick in the woods but that can be a different story for a different day. I have no regrets about my surgery though I sometimes find myself wishing my life and body could just be normal like everyone else. Or what passes for normal these days. I am not naive enough to believe everyone is normal. I know some of you better than that.

Today will be a walking day and a day to get caught up on some things that have been put aside in the past few days. John and Sue will be coming over for supper tonight and tomorrow we have Homz. And I will keep walking and taking myself out into the woods on nice days when I feel strong. I am trying to keep up on correspondence and emails but I am notoriously inconsistent when it comes to making myself check the computer. The  visions I had of working on small projects while at home is not even close to my reality so far. Like I said, I have a better understanding of what retired people mean when they tell you they don't know how they got anything done before they quit work.

So, that's it from camp. The counselor is beautiful and I have a crush on her. She likes it when I bring her coffee in the morning.  Thanks to all of you who have supported us. We have no doubts about the positive effects of all the prayers and good wishes you have sent our way. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones and know that Karen and I send our best to all of you, wherever you are.

Peace and love,
Mike

Beautiful....just Beautiful

There was an man named Michael Finnegan,
He had whiskers on his chinnegan,
Along came the wind and blew them in again,
Poor Michael Finnegan. Begin again!

Whiskers grow back. Every time you shave them they begin to grow again starting over from the root. Certain plants are this way; prune them back to the terminal bud or cut them back to the ground, feed, water and give them sunlight and the bloom again. Of course they go through a short unattractive period where they are all foliage and nub. Still the beauty is inside the plant hiding, waiting for the right conditions to blossom. It all takes patience, nurture, care and intimate knowledge, on the part of the gardener, who knows the secret of what is held within barren branches

Mike is not feeling especially beautiful. He's feeling a little pruned and barren. He's not feeling especially attractive as a result of cancer and surgery. Dr Madoff and his team took more than a colon and cancer out of Mike; in six and a half hours they undid what took me eight years to accomplish.They saved his life but they took his sense of self beauty. And now I am having a difficult time getting Mike to see that he still holds beauty in his heartwood. While I think he wants to believe he will feel beautiful again he doesn't exactly trust it. Mike feels unbeautiful.

When I first met him I was drawn to Mike's ability to see beauty in extraordinary places and his ability to write so succinctly about those observations. He was a broken shell but there was an inner light which seeped out through cracks in his shell. I wanted to touch and be touched by that light. I thought, if I could bring that beauty outward, if I could show Mike how beautiful he was inside, if I could get him to believe in that beauty he would, well heal and bloom. And he did. Beautiful!

It took eight years. Eight years before he finally came to believe he was beautiful and when he did he unfurled like a flower bud in warm morning light and became even more beautiful. Other people began to notice. Family and people who have known him for years began to see his beauty. I finally could tell him I thought he was beautiful without his eyes darting away to look for what? affirmation or permission from the cosmos to take the compliment or believe it? He came, after eight long years, to look at me, smile and say, "thank you" instead of "I just don't see it Karen. I feel broken."

Mike is still beautiful. Inside and out he is beautiful. Nothing has change there. Not for me. Not for many of you who have come to know Mike; who have watched him grow as a man and watched his long suppressed beauty unfold. For Mike, however, things have changed. His outward appearance is a little altered and it's hard for him. So much of our society is based on outward appearance. Our acceptance of self and others is tied up in what we look like. We base our concept of beauty on what we see with our eyes. Mike sees his entire sense of "beautifulness" as linked to his outward appearance. This is a normal reaction to an altered appearance. It's grief.

As I laid my hand upon Mike's chest the other evening I reminded him that beauty comes from the heart. What makes a person truly beautiful is not the outward appearance but what is in and what comes from the heart. I see Mike with my heart first and I still think he is still beautiful. He is still so very beautiful. I know there are others in our lives who see Mike with their hearts and believe that he is beautiful. We just have to care and nurture Mike until he sees it again. Until it's time for him to flower.

There was an man named Michael Finnegan,
He had beauty in his heart again,
Along came a storm and pruned it back again,
Poor Michael Finnegan. Begin again! 

Bloom again!

Peace,

Karen

Jaques Cousteau and Heartburn

It's midnight o'clock and do you know where your kids are?

This kid is dead dog tired and battling a case of mondo-grosso heartburn. Gimme a break already!

The week has been pretty good. I'm back to work and Mike is doing just fine home alone. He's feeling better every day. I am impressed by how well he has done and how well he is handling his stoma. He seems to be accepting of it which is huge. I know there are still some image issue for him and that with time and patience it will resolve.

The stoma is actually a bit of a fascination for me. I know how strange that sounds but really it's a little miracle. I mean there is part of his small bowel, an internal organ, functioning as it should on the outside of Mike's body. Pretty cool. The stoma is also kind of neat looking and reminds me of soft sea creature, I once saw on a Jaques Cousteau show, blooming on his side. It's not gross or disgusting nor is it shocking it's just simply there changing every day, becoming smaller and duller in color.

In the days preceeding surgery I was saddened by the fact that Mike's beautiful belly was going to be altered by the stoma. I felt the same way about the port and the pump (which we will be getting back shortly). But really, it's not that big of a deal. I mean in one respect it is, this is true, but really, it doesn't change who Mike is and what he means to me. Except for ocassionaly bumping into the port with my cheek when I'm hugging or snuggling with Mike, I don't even see it anymore. I suspect with time the ostomy will be the same. It will be no different than the scar on his belly or the one on his shoulder. I just won't notice it so much.

The worst of the heartburn is over now. My wind chimes are singing a sweet bedtime song and I think I can go back to bed and snuggle up to the lovely warm skin of my husband and sleep.

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.

Peace,

Karen

Expectation Revisited

"Expectation is premeditated disappointment."

The best advice I received about this cancer journey came from my husband on the day he was diagnosed. He said, "People in our lives will behave in ways we don't expect. Some of those close to us will move away and those we least expect will step up and be there and help in ways we never would have dreamed of."

That is exactly what has happened. We have had some of the people we thought we were closest to step back into the shadows or disappear all together from our lives. No phone calls, no visits, no nothing. I've heard things like: "I don't know what to say." "It makes me uncomfortable." "It makes me too sad to think about it." "It all hits too close to home."

On the other hand, we have had people we've kept on the fringe and people who have just recently come into our lives, be there in some very unselfish ways. These people have stepped into the void left by those whom we "expected" would be there for us or more to the point whom I thought would be here for Mike. I am VERY thankful to those who have given freely of themselves and I look to them as my own example. I just don't get the rest and their reasons for bailing on Mike he needs them most. Seems cowardly.

Maybe I'm being a critical, mostly I'm surprised and, ok, disappointed. It just seems selfish to not be able to put your own uncomfortable feelings aside and be there for your friend or family. I don't understand it; makes me mad actually.

The surgery is over. Mike is alive and home.Chemo re-starts in a few weeks. Mike is still healing and needs a good deal of rest. He can't do much because of a 10 pound weight restriction. That means he can't lift more than a gallon of milk.  He can't do any real chores around the house. He can't really do any yard work. It means he can't haul gear out to deer hunt. He can't gut a deer by himself and he can't drag it. What it means is that on my days off I will go with him if he wants to hunt or wait here while he hunts alone (walking with a light pack and his gun) and then go back to the woods and help him gut and drag a deer if he gets one.  Oh, sure, he could call one of his "buddies" and ask to hunt with them but you know there is a little pride left in Mike and he doesn't want to feel like a burden. So, will he call....I say no.

Why wouldn't he call you ask? Let's reverse this a little:   Would you call and ask for help? Would you ask if you could tag along on a hunt if you were in his shoes? Why? Why not? Why would you not ask for help? Is it hard to ask? Do you have too much pride? Would you feel like a burden? If someone showed up and said let's do this or fix this or go do this???? Would that be different? Asking for help is a difficult thing now isn't it?

*sigh*

Well, now do I feel better for taking a few people to task? Not really. I should be happy for all the new and beautiful people in my/our lives and I should be "cleaning house" and making room for them in my/our life but I'm having trouble letting go of those of you who have been in our lives for a long time. I'm having trouble understanding your actions and reactions. I mourn for old friends and family who are not "available" who for whatever reason can't be there, especially for Mike. I don't understand you and "holy pre-meditated disappointment" I keep expecting you will change.

*dope slap*

Clearly this is my problem...sorry for putting the expectation on ya! I sure have a lot to learn.

Peace,

Karen