I am struggling. With grief. And it makes things harder. There, I said it. There is some sort of weird pride thing inside me that doesn't want to let that out. Or, maybe I just figured it out...I am kinda slow on the up-take sometimes. It is so strange that now, of all times, I have to admit it. Life has been way more hectic than this before, I tell myself. I have had babies, toddlers, kids, jobs and stress all at the same time and functioned better than I am now. (Although still not that great.)
I tell myself a lot of unhelpful things.
Writing used to be one of the ways I processed things...notebooks (literal notebooks) full of writing. I was one of those nerds who loved writing essays, research papers and the like. Now, I like to read what someone else has put the thought and effort into writing because I am exhausted. But, here's goes nothin.
During my Dad's last days on this earth, his day to day care was mentally and physically draining. Let me just get this off my chest, hospice care wasn't nearly as much help as I thought they would be. Don't get me wrong, though, every nurse, nurse's aide and administrator that we talked to was caring and intelligent and did their job well. The people were great. The actual physical help they employed was bare bones minimum at best. They could assess his health, tell us what to do in certain situations, prescribe meds, order supplies big and small, but me and my brother were the ones changing catheter bags, cleaning him up, moving him around via a provided hydraulic lift (even with that, maneuvering a 200lb man is challenging) giving daily meds, eventually feeding him...you get the picture. I was under the impression that they had his quality of life at the forefront of their mission, but honestly, to me, it seemed there was an unbalanced focus on pain medication.
At one point, he had been prescribed oxycodone, fentanyl, atavan, and roxynol which is liquid morphine. An opioid overdose waiting to happen, I am not 100% sure that wasn't the true cause of death. I know he was indeed dying of cancer. However, it seems everyone else besides my dad feared the pain so much that we , rather, I... I can only speak for myself...I went against my gut telling me the pain medication we were to give was too much, too soon. And now he's gone. And now I have guilt.
I just hated recounting the events of the day when I would get home. It was hard enough to witness his rapid decline step by step. Was it really the disease weakening him day to day, or was it the pain medication? The initial doses really made it hard for him to communicate or swallow, so he could no longer take pills or eat or drink and that might have helped him live longer. Why am I not a quick thinker??? Why am I just now getting clarity on that???
It is too late.
And I may be completely wrong, too, so why even torture myself?
So, now I feel like I am functioning daily in a fog. I am living my life as usual, but there are no vivid details.
The grief is not so strong that it is debilitating, nor is the sadness overwhelming. It is just part of my new personality. Unfortunately, joy and happiness and general life enjoyment seems to have a lower ceiling...it is all meeting in the middle. Averaging out. Bringing my average down, mind you. Oh, hey...this is sounding familiar. I think they call it depression. Well, then,...depression is a *bleep*.
