Time for hospice and Im really scared
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To KJones and others,
I was diagnosed with cancer and stage four at that in DEC. 13. While I was taking radiation 12 weeks later my much beloved best friend PomPoo went from health to deaths door in 4 weeks. Like all of you I did all I could ..When the vet told me she was in pain and it was clear she was suffering I knew I had to do the right thing.. I had had her for 13 years...She meant so much to me...So my DH said we would wait six months or so to recover. After 10 days, I said to him that it was not going well. I wasn't sleeping, was nervous and was worrying about dying. Reluctantly he agreed and we had another PomPoo baby in a couple of days...Now of course he is happy with her...I will have to say that getting another doggy baby in my case was the right thing to do and quickly...Maybe it would not be for others.. Maybe if I had not recently had the BIG C diagnosis I could have gone longer...All I know is that I am much much happier with my little one who is now 5 months old. Carolyn
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Lindan-n3 I am thinking of you and you are in my prayers. I can't even imagine what you are going through, but I wish you peace and Love. Hugs Cynthia
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Linda-n3, how brave you are! I wish you comfort, pain free, and peace. Enjoy the time with your family.
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Linda--thinking of you! Please keep us updated as we will support you the best we can. Wishing you much peace and love.
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Linda - I am thinking of you and keeping you in my prayers. I hope you are comfortable and are having restful days with those you love.
Sending love and hugs, Amy
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Hi Linda, I hope you have not had any more alarming trips to the ER. Have you met the people or person from your Hospice yet? I hope that they will be able to give you the aid you need to keep you free of pain, if that is what you need, and that you are able to enjoy your home and family without additional stress. Are you able to get outside? Or at least look out windows? I'll be thinking of you and hoping that you are being kept comfortable and can enjoy life in peace. May you have many lovely talks and reminiscences with those you love.
Best wishes, Sarah
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{{{Linda}}}
It is so difficult to come up with words when the right ones just don't exist really. Thank you for trusting us to be here for you and support you. You can rest assured that our love and unconditional support are here. I hope that, especially now, you can feel like yourself. Free to be who you are without worry or fear. There are many around you who love you. I hope that you can rest, pain free, and enjoy the relationships that are important to you. As many have said, in a comfy chair near a window!
You will be always in our thoughts, you have given so much to us.
Virginia
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Linda,
I am so sorry to hear that you have had such a tough month and that you are starting a new phase with Hospice. I am sending some beautiful flowers to brighten your day. They are not from my garden because I don't have a green thumb...and they don't have a wonderful "bouquet" to charm your nose, but think of them as eye candy. Hoping you are able to get outside a bit with whatever help you need from your care providers or your DH. Hugs, Janet
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Hugs Linda. Hopefully things quiet down and you enjoy the weather and family
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Thinking of you Linda, I hope your day was peaceful. Hugs, Cynthia
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Hi Linda
It's been a while since I pm'd you so I decided to just add my voice to the other good wishes for you here. Its difficult for me to express how I feel about this new move to hospice for you. In one way I'm sure it will get your pain and medications under control for you and that you and DH may be able to relax a bit more on that front, knowing you are now in expert and I'm sure loving hands. But it's a difficult thing to be on these boards and become close to the sisters here, following each one down the long road that is this damned disease and then to hear the hospice word, it pulls me up every time. And I get a pain in my heart all over again. I never cease to feel lucky with my own diagnosis and never cease to wonder why me?
I'll be thinking of you Linda and praying for comfort and ease for you. As others have said I hope you have a lovely garden view to greet you first thing in the morning and I hope you are able to continue your lovely paintings. In the hospice near where I live the patients very much enjoy their painting classes and produce the most touching and lovely works - like you do Linda. I hope you can keep your painting going.
Prayers and love. You are always in our hearts x x
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KJones - I hope you are doing better after losing your good friend, that the tears are slowing and the memories of what you shared warm your heart.
Linda - I was thinking about you today as I drove through the heavy tropical-like down pours we had this afternoon. I hope you are feeling reasonably well in body and spirit, and that maybe you spent the day sitting inside watching the rain out of your windows. I heard that most of the US had rain today so I am assuming that you had it too. Perhaps like Teri did when she first entered Hospice, you are filling your day doing paperwork. I know that when the time comes for me to enter Hospice, I am going to throw all of my papers into the air and happily say say, "They are somebody else's problems now." and never look at them again. I am not the organized type and would have no regrets
I will make plans for all of my pets though, - cats, parrot, hedgehog and fish, if I still have them. Maybe leave them a trust fund for their care, like someone did for his polo ponies. When I was 12 years old and just learning to ride there was a very old horse, 40 years old, at the barn who was the last of that man's string of five polo ponies he had left the trust fund to care for. The trust fund paid for the horse's board and care. Actually, I think the amount it sent wasn't quite enough anymore each month, but the barn loved the old fellow and wouldn't have dreamed of kicking him out. I think he lived another two years longer, to 42, which is extremely old for a horse.
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Sarah,I am with you on the paperwork. I don't even really get it done now either.... but I do feel kind of badly about the burden it will place on others - so I am thinking that maybe I will hire someone to do it for me, maybe make a little fund for that. I am having a lot of trouble confronting end of life stuff so I find that I put off making appointments to do things like update my will, my power of attorney (medical and financial) which are 20 years old and technically still valid but I have been told it would be better to refresh them. I got as far as getting a recommendation for the right kind of lawyer (the one I used was in a different state 20 years ago) and contacting them (twice) by email but somehow I just balk at making the actual appointment. I know it would be better to do now than to wait until I feel lousy but I just can't seem to make it a priority. Does this fall in the category of denial??
Janet
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Linda,
Thinking of you and hope you can find peace of mind where you're at. Know that we are all here for you to lean on.
((((((♥)))))) Karin.
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20130502 - So funny! Yes, absolutely it falls under denial. But, it would be a good idea to redo them sooner rather than later. Get them done, and then don't think about them again.
I have been putting off redoing my will for a while too, although I have redone my health care proxy a number of times when I have been in a hospital. My husband is worse. He won't even think about redoing his proxy, which is simple to do. He hates thinking about being sick, dying, death or most end of life issues and won't discuss them. As we need to redo our wills in parallel, I haven't been able to even start; however, he did call our lawyer about it not long ago, so I know he's starting to think about it. I feel like such hypocrite as I am always telling people to redo their proxies, write detailed health care directives and get their wills redone.
I am my mother's Executrix (what a silly word for a female executor) and I have been dealing with her estate for the past four years. Her house finally sold and I spent today on its accounts as I have to bring them to the lawyer, so I am very familiar what end of life and its clean up entails. I intend to organize my affairs, but so far have been busy dealing with Mom's, and also with all of the fun things that come with our illness - my excuses for not having taken care of mine yet. If I can get my mother's matters settled, then I can turn to mine. Writing a will is going to be a piece of cake compared to cleaning out my cluttered basement. Sigh.
I am not afraid to die, I just can't seem to get around to doing all of the things I need to be doing to prepare for it. I think I will leave the bills to the accountant and any problems to the lawyer. I'll be gone so I won't care
and leaving it to the professionals will make it easier for whomever is left.I told our kids to take anything that they wanted once my husband and I are gone, and send anything they don't want that's valuable to an auction house, then hire a house clean-out business to empty the house, and not to regret doing so. They didn't want to listen, but I know they heard me.
One thing I especially want to do is to write a clearer Health Care Directive and put it where it can easily be found. I do not want to be on life support - no tubes or hydration for me. My current ones say that, but I also want it to be clear that I want good pain management, which means people paying attention to the timing of pain medications. My mother had a Do Not Resuscitate directive and I was upset to find her in pain because a stupid young nurse decided a DNR meant no pain medication. I raised hell, scolding the nurse for her idiocy and lack of empathy for someone's obvious suffering, and got my mother the medication she needed. I tried to be sure she was given it regularly after that. Lesson learned. Everything has to be spelled out.
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Hugs to You Linda, Cynthia
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I'm new to this thread and want to post more later, but in the meantime just wanted to send Linda a quick note to tell her I'm thinking of you and glad you are surrounded by friends and family. The comfy chair with a nice view that someone mentioned sounds perfect, so hopefully that is exactly where you are.with love,
Andrea
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Dear Linda,
I was drawn to this board as always but I hadn't read anything in awhile so I was so very sorry to read that you have been going through such a difficult time and have now entered hospice. I always enjoy your quotes and wonderful questions and advice on the lymphedema boards. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers and hope you are relatively pain free.
Michele
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Thinking of you today, Linda. I hope you have all the support you need or want, and loving family around you. May you be able to get outside a bit to enjoy this lovely summer.
Best, Sarah
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Good Morning Linda. Hugs to You and your Family!
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Good morning! It's a beautiful sunny day here in Virginia without our usual sweltering humidity. I hope you have sunshine too.
Yesterday, on the way home from dinner-out, I spotted the deer family which spends evening in the field next to our yard. There were two, new, additions to the family. They were smaller than any I've seen before - not more than a foot tall. While Mama watched us carefully, these youngsters were oblivious to my husband & I parked so close-by. It was a perfect moment. The light was just right. The babies were frolicking as much as their new knees allowed. I found that I was holding my breath.
I thought of Terri and her menagerie, so happy to be together again. And I thought of you all who share a special appreciation for unexpected moments of happiness like my moment. Times that take us out of constant awareness of ourselves! I hope I'm explaining so that you understand my meaning, but I'm not too worried. You usually "get it!"
Special love to you, Linda, and to those who are caring for you so gently. I hope you can share moments of peace today.
To the rest of you, big hugs! I hope you can be 'unaware' for a little while too. It helps keep us pushing forward! Doesn't it?
Virginia
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linda
wanted to send you some hugs and hopeing you are resting pain free and surrounded by family.friends and lots of love .hope you get to enjoy some nice summer weather .thinking of you . love chris
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Baby deer are so adorable, especially when they are newborn with their fragile little legs and darling white spots on their backs. We have a pair living on our property and have been watching them grow up for the past six weeks or so. It happens so fast. They have already tripled in size. We just came home from dinner at a restaurant this evening and our two were sleeping under a tree along our driveway. They hopped up in alarm and went bounding along ahead of us with their little white tails in the air as they tried to figure out where to go. First they shot down the hill, then they changed their minds and tore back up and bounded through the hedge into the garden. They probably are in the orchard behind our house right now. My husband loves the way they always stay together.
I understand what you mean about special moments. Watching these fawns, when we are lucky enough to see them, brings us such pleasure. I find I am enjoying little things like this more than ever before. Just sitting in my garden weeding in the sunshine can make me suddenly feel very happy, silly as that sounds. Listening to a catbird warble in the bushes, seeing a butterfly land on a flower or hearing a hummingbird's wings whir as it goes to the feeder is delightful. I might have missed those small things before.
Somebody was grumping about lots of unimportant things the other day, including that she had to be checked once year for the possibility of breast cancer (she doesn't have it), and I told her what a wise woman posted here not long after I was diagnosed, "Nobody ever promised you tomorrow". I explained to my friend that she's very lucky to be well and able to enjoy today because we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, or even if there will be a tomorrow. She looked surprised, then thoughtful. And, she stopped complaining.
Linda - I hope you are feeling as well as possible and are resting comfortably at home. Perhaps you have a window you can look out to watch the birds outside. With luck, you have a feeder by it so you can see their antics as they vie for the best spots to snatch their favorite seeds. It can be wonderfully entertaining, especially when housebound.
Sending (((hugs))) to you.
Sarah
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Good morning everyone. I saw this pic and thought of our Teri!
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Dmacw,
What a FABULOUS looking Unicorn! We don't get them often in Virginia! For some reason it makes me think of a bit that I heard recently. It was Stephen Colbert giving a Commencment address. He told the graduates not to think they were a failure if they didn't grow up to become what they had always dreamed of, "It's OK. To change your mind." He said. "After all, if we'd all frown up to be what we first wanted the world would be full of Princesses & Firemen!" I've been thinking of it for days and wondering why it stuck in my mind the way it did.
Anyway, here's to goats who dream of being Unicorns!
I want to ask for special positive thoughts this weekend. I had my quarterly tests this past week and see MO on Tuesday. The Radiologist thought he saw some new activity last quarter so this set of scans will determine of it's time to switch AIs. I know that many of you all have braved through this change many times. While that gives me lots of hope and helps me not freak out, I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. Thanks, sisters.
Hugs to all.
Virginia
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Hello everyone ,I am having a peaceful day with my 3 dogs. I am by myself this week and it feels a little strange not to have anyone home with me. I am looking out of my window at the lake and the animals and people on and near it. I Love this view. Hoping everyone has a peaceful, happy day. Hugs to You Linda. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
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I am relatively new to cancer and stage iv cancer (both came at same time). I think, after the initial diagnosis, the scariest time was when I had progression in January. I felt scared and out of control, like at the beginning when they were staging me. I ended up using the transition time to research clinical trials and discovered that for me, the timing was right to try one. I totally hear you about being scared and I will be crossing my fingers for good results. If you want an ear - pm me. My kids are away and I have lots of time right now.
Thinking of you and came across this which of course made me think of Teri.
The article is long - about the history of goats on the internet....but the person who posted the link had a quote that really was what reminded me of our hunt for Deuce.
"I can not imagine my life without goats. They give me so much joy it really is unexplainable. I love them. I love sharing them. I love how they make all of us smile."
The weather here this weekend is perfect - verging on fall - cooler and not hot but bright sun. Today I took my puppies to get their nails cut and for once they were calm and well behaved. Almost a miracle. Groomer asked me what I was feeding because one has brittle nails (they don't eat the same food because one belongs to The Seeing Eye and they dictate what she gets) and suggested I supplement with a product called Missing Link. I am wondering if maybe I should be eating it myself? (It is NOT very palatable though, a brown powder that smells a lot like yeast extract).
Hope you are comfy and have lots of quality company that knows when to just be there and when to chat.
Janet
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Virginia - Good luck and courage to you today. I hope your meeting with your doctor goes well.
Linda - I have been keeping you in my thoughts and hope that you have been encircled with love and good care, and that you are as comfortable as possible.
I love the funny pictures of goats that people post. I can never seem to find such cute ones. Teri would have enjoyed them.
I wasn't able to get a picture of them, but a few minutes ago I heard the oddest noises coming from just off my front porch so I took a flashlight and peered through the door in time to spot a mother raccoon with three half grown babies all looking back at me. Mom stood up on her hind feet to get a better view, then not liking what she saw she took off around some bushes followed by her oh-so-soft looking fluffy babies. I got to see the whole family again a moment later when they scurried across our front walk as they fled the area. They dig up my garden looking of grubs and things, but they are adorable looking.
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Good Morning all, Linda I hope your day is filled with Love and Peaceful thoughts today. I notice that I am looking at the nature surrounding me lately. It gives me such peace. I have a bird feeder and a hummingbird feeder on my deck and Love to watch them feed. Hugs to all.
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