A Second Home

Here I am snuggled into bed in my apartment.

On Christmas Eve, I slept here for the first time. I know what it means to be a minimalist now. Borrowed items from my sister's kitchen and the electric skillet I received at Christmas can be used to make my breakfast.  

The rooms are pretty bare, the cabinets and drawers are near empty. Strangely, I feel better here out of the clutter I live in at home. I am convinced that my own home makes me sick. I want to clear out most of what is in my house in the mountains. Much of it will be brought here, but not all of it! During the past two years, I lived almost all the time in my kitchen, dining and living area, and bedroom. When my dining room became my office, the clutter began to grow. I soon was drowning in paper. It seemed that my furniture grew or multiplied and my open space shrunk. One bedroom became a catchall space and no one could sleep there now. Clutter is bad for me, and I will do something about it when I go home.

I have two closets here at the apartment and love all that empty space. I brought some clothes and shoes and will leave most of them so when I come down in the future, I won't have so much to pack.

We had a quiet Christmas Day.

My nephew began to run a fever and felt unwell that morning, so his mother said she thought it best if we didn't come over.  

However it was fun opening presents with Gay and Stu and having our dinner here, just the three of us.

I did not get Christmas cards mailed as I have done in the past. I did send out some Email Christmas letters. I love the cards sent to me by friends and family.

It is so nice to be remembered and to hear from them.

I have a friend on my mind tonight. 

She has been taking chemo for the past year. She is in the hospital now and was under Hospice care at home until yesterday when she was moved to Asheville NC under strong pain meds. She is suffering so much.

That is why I support Compassion and Choices. I watched my sweet husband deal with the horrible pain of cancer and I know, if I had a choice, I would want to have a say in how I want to end my life. I think anyone who has watched a loved one suffer knowing there is no cure, would want that person free of pain more than anything. I know I felt that way with Barry. Unless someone tells the doctor what the patient wants and what the family wants, the doctors will continue to prolong the suffering as that is what they think they are supposed to do.

HOSPICE

My friend, Ellen, a doctor who works in a Hospice Center, says many relatives or close family members will insist they do everything possible to prolong the life of the patient even if he/she is suffering great pain and has no chance of recovering. 

Don't we suffer enough just living with our illnesses and aches and pains, with our losses and griefs? Why make us suffer even more at the end of our lives? 

I am grateful for my kind and loving sister and brother-in-law who do so much for me, even providing a relaxing retreat for me. Lexie is not sure she wants to stay here, but she finally decided, if she couldn't go upstairs with Gay and Smokie, she would stay with me. In her own bed, she is curled up and is sleeping away.

ACCEPT AND MOVE ON

I am trying to look at the positives in my life the past two years instead of dwelling on the things that have been tough, and the changes that will likely be permanent. We must accept those changes and move on in new ways to enjoy our lives.

Hope you have escaped COVID and will have a happy and healthy new year.

 

When Mourning Comes

This past week has been a sad one for me because I have heard bad news from several sources.

One of my dearest friends has been diagnosed with metastasized breast cancer, stage IV. She is elderly and has had two mastectomies. It breaks my heart. She was my "Guardian Angel" when Barry died. She was never too busy to talk with me, to counsel me about losing your mate, she had gone through it, and going on with your life. She has a delightful personality and finds humor even when things are tough. We used to go out for pizza often, and we always laughed. She is a good person, a great cook who shares her wonderful dishes with anyone who needs them. She has certainly fed me many times. If I took her food I cooked, it would be like taking coals to New Castle. 

The husband of another friend died quite suddenly after a diagnoses of lung cancer. He was not elderly. In fact he was running for sheriff in our county. He was a good man and well respected. I saw his wife, a former student of mine, just a couple of weeks ago, and she said his back had been hurting. She was getting him an appointment to see the doctor. I need to take his campaign sign from in front of my house. 

And the third loss was another friend and member of our writers' network. He went in the hospital for a valve replacement in his heart and was recovering from the surgery. But suddenly he suffered bleeding in his brain. A stroke. His daughter said it was due to his being given too much blood thinner. Mistakes happen, I know. But so many mistakes in hospitals take the lives of people we love. I try to avoid hospitals if I possibly can. I lost too many loved ones, including my dear husband, from mistakes by the medical world.

So, I am sorry if I can't write a cheery bright post today. You deserve better, but I have been too depressed to even get dressed to go out. 

My life has been filled with loss since 1975, losses I had to learn to deal with and had to accept and go on. That year my mother suffered a ruptured aneurysm on a carotid artery, lost her short term memory and was never the same. My sisters' husband, a man I truly loved, died from a doctor's mistake.

Since that time I lost a brother to cancer, two brothers to heart attacks, my mother and my father have died. My oldest sister, June, died from heart problems, and my own beloved died from cancer. 

Each of these seven deaths slammed me to my knees, and I had to pull myself back up and go on. The recent deaths and illness I write about above seem harder because I don't have Barry to talk to, to share with him my feelings and to be comforted by him. 

The men who recently passed away were not that close to me so why do I feel such despair? I feel for their wives, their families because I know that pain of grief that seems to never end. I am more empathetic than most, I'm told, and I feel deeply others' pain. But my feelings for my friend with breast cancer is not only for her and her family, but for me. 

I am sharing a poem I wrote a few years ago. I went to the funeral of a man whose wife I knew. 

For Whom Do I Mourn?

I never met this man who owns

the casket covered in white flowers.

They say he was a craftsman,

hand-built chairs, rivaled scholars

with his logic, his understanding,

though he never finished high school.

.

He entertained his grandchildren,

made funny faces, loved a joke,

was a VIP at church and in his home.

Beside his grave, gray-haired soldiers

fold the flag. That haunting bugle tune

lays him to rest.

Why do my eyes moisten?

Why does my throat constrict?

I cry not for the old soldier,

but for my own, who lie beneath

their stones, under still and leafy oaks

above the pond.

Posts you might want to read:

https://writingthroughcancer.com/

https://profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com/search?q=Hospice+Doctor

The Hospice Doctor

My weekend was bitter-sweet. The husband of a very dear friend passed away Saturday morning. My heart aches for her and the grief she is and will be dealing with a long time. 

I had a house guest this weekend who is also a dear friend of mine. Her name is Ellen and she is a private person so I will not give her full name. We met when I heard her speak the same year I was diagnosed with diabetes. That was 2003. 

I helped her with a Diabetes support group she organized here and then wrote articles from interviews of local people who had diabetes. I heard their stories which opened my eyes and I hope the eyes of those who read about them. At that time Ellen said we had a large number of people in this county who had the disease, but had not been diagnosed. She went on to get the hospital and the health department involved with getting people diagnosed and classes set up to teach them what they need to know to take care of themselves as well as how to talk to their doctors. 

I admired her work and it was not that easy. It is always hard to create change, especially here in the mountains. 

She now works as a Hospice Doctor and I can tell she takes great comfort in being able to keep patients out of pain and letting them die peacefully. Hospice care can be the only place a sick person gets the pain relief they need. Hospitals will not usually give that kind of care. I write from experience. My husband suffered horribly while at Emory Hospital, but once he was in Hospice Care, I insisted he have whatever was needed to relieve his pain.

Ellen tells me the families are the biggest challenge she faces with each patient.

"My son, Mark is coming in from California tomorrow. We want my husband awake so he can talk to Mark." 
Why would you want your husband to suffer in excruciating pain so he can speak a few words to Mark? The concern seems to be more for the son who is coming than for the patient who is dying.

I remember the nice young doctor at the Hospice Center where Barry had been admitted and was finally free of pain saying, "We'll cut back on the morphine today."
"Why on earth would you do that?" I asked. 
"So you and he can talk to each other."
I told him we had talked to each other for 45 years and we had nothing left to say that was worth making him suffer any more pain.

I hope if I am ever in such a state that no one will cut back on the medicine just so I can mumble a few words or they hope I will recognize someone. The patient, at this point, has no interest in others. He is dealing with pain, his own body and mind failing, and has to force himself to meet others' expectations. 

Families that make a loved one suffer in such a way are selfish and have no idea what it is to suffer immense pain. 

Ellen, who was a doctor when I met her, said she chose to become a hospice doctor after seeing and hearing about the horror and pain Barry went through when we could find no help for his suffering with cancer. I admire her so much. She told me her major concern for the hospice patient is that he have no pain. She tells her nurses that first they make sure the patient is pain free. 

I hope all hospice doctors and nurses today make that their first priority. If we have to die, at least let us go peacefully. 

Dark Days Brightened by My Students

The past week has been extremely hard for me. 

Just getting over some malady that kept me in bed a week and then being diagnosed with a light case of shingles, I pushed to get myself ready to teach a Creative Writing class beginning June 6. 

The days leading up to June 6 were dark. I could not focus on anything but the health of Kathryn Byer, who was in the hospital, first in ICU, then on the oncology floor and finally I was told she was in a Hospice Situation as cancer raised its ugly head, and she was too weak to win the battle.

I don't know if the fact that Kay had Lymphoma made it harder for me. Barry had that kind of cancer. He was told by the local oncologist, "If you have to have cancer, this is the best one to have. We can manage it with chemotherapy but you can enjoy your life."

Our Poet Laureate Emerita, Kathryn, was told the same thing. When she told me that a few months back, my heart sank. Those words frightened me more than you can imagine. I wanted to say, "Go to Duke where they have done new and outstanding research on Lymphoma. Don't do what we did."

But I didn't want to frighten her or over-react to her diagnosis. After all, I was not there when she spoke to her doctor.  After Kay's passing I saw where her sister-in-law posted on FB that the family was reeling with the shock of her death so suddenly when they had been told just what Barry and I were told. No one was prepared for her passing this quickly and with no warning.

As much as I hate cancer, I hate the way some oncologists make patients feel that they can fix everything with the same basic protocol used on everyone. I remember one of Barry's doctors, not an oncologist,  saying to us when we expressed that we felt we were rushed into chemo before we knew the options we had, "That is his job. That is how he earns his living, by giving chemo." 

Just as Kathryn's family says on Facebook, I say don't be passive about your care and your treatments. Ask for a Pet-Scan to see the progress being made or not made during your treatments. Don't rely on the doctor's word that you are doing OK. 

Barry had a Pet Scan after he finished his round of chemo and the doctor said the tumor was very small now and he was 98 percent cancer free. So they would not do any more chemo at this time. Barry was dismissed for three months and during those three months the cancer grew so rapidly that it killed him. I wish we had insisted on tests each one of those three months. I wish we had gone where research was being done on his kind of cancer, and I wish we had checked more carefully the local doctors. 

As patients we learn but seems the doctors never learn. They do the same things over and over again. 

Tuesday was a brighter day for me. My class is delightful and filled with writers who are motivated. Some of them are in the midst of writing books. I was told by a new person to my classes that I was a good teacher and the class was very interesting. I needed that. I felt I was only half a teacher as the other half of me was just not here. 

Today I see many wonderful tributes in newspapers and on Writers Digest online for Kathryn Stripling Byer. Such an outpouring of love everywhere you look makes me smile for her. It somehow lets in the light - just a little bit.

Read some of them here:  http://www.thesylvaherald.com/top_stories/article_0fb40cb2-4b99-11e7-ba0e-37db9e581985.html

http://www.thesylvaherald.com/columns/commentary/article_ece280f0-4b94-11e7-8a4e-6355154639a0.html

Assisted Suicide or Aid in Dying and Why

Barry Beall, strong and athletic

Aid in Dying  is not assisted suicide.

Every time I see a discussion or article on the subject of human beings having a choice in how they die, I think of two people: My husband and my aunt.

I remember standing beside my aunt along with my sisters and my sister in law, holding the hand of my 98 year old favorite aunt. She had developed pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital. When her breathing became difficult, she was placed on a respirator. After a day or two, doctors declared it was time to remove the respirator. It wasn't long before the elderly lady began laboring to breathe again. She  was asked if she wanted to go back on the respirator and she said no. I don't think she had any fear of dying and said to me that she had lived out her life span. But she didn't choose to die struggling in panic with every breath. I will never forget her pleading eyes and her whisper. "Help me. Help me." 

I am sure she was begging for someone to put her out of her misery. I could not look her in the eye and I couldn't speak because of the tears and the lump in my throat. I prayed that she would die soon. She didn't deserve to suffer, this kind and beautiful soul, but she laid on that white pristine bed as her lungs filled. If she had been in a river and begging for help, someone would have come to her rescue. But no one helped her in that hospital. 

If we had an animal on the farm that was injured and in pain and if that animal could not be put back on his feet, he was "put down." He was put out of his pain because the kind thing was to stop his suffering. My aunt had no choice in how she was to die. She drowned in her own fluids, slowly, as her loved ones watched the monitor hoping each breath would be her last.

There are things worse than death and only if you watch someone suffer unceasingly, or if you are the one suffering, can you really understand how important it is to have the choice of dying with dignity and have aid in dying peacefully.  

My husband of 45 years had lived a good and fulfilling life when he was diagnosed with B-Cell Stage 4 Lymphoma. It was found when his  leg became so painful his doctor did an MRI and found a tumor just above his knee. A biopsy at Emory Hospital in Atlanta led to a diagnosis. He handled radiation and chemo like a champ. He drove himself to his treatments and believed his oncologist who said if you have to have cancer, this is the best kind to have.

After six months of treatment and enduring constant pain, he was told he did not have to come back to  see his doctor for three months. The PET scan showed the tumor 98 percent gone. We were told the cancer had not spread. But something was not right. The swelling in the leg was severe, and the pain grew worse and worse. The oncologist prescribed Oxycodone which barely knocked the edge off the pain. After our pharmacist called his office and said Barry needed better pain management, the doctor prescribed morphine. Still, he was not  told to come in and no one in the office seemed to think his condition was unusual.

Thinking  his cancer  was gone, we searched for other causes for the pain and swelling. We found a lymphedema therapist who said she could help reduce the swelling. She had a good track record. His pain grew worse and his leg soon broke out in huge sores that looked like bad burns. 

Barry was in bed more than he was out of  it and said sleep brought him the only respite. One day he told me he wished he could just go to sleep and not wake up. Watching him suffer and having no way to stop it broke my heart. He had to make the pain medicine last so he could not take it more often than prescribed. 

When we finally saw his doctor, the man was horrified when he saw Barry's leg. "My God, Man, what has happened to you?"

I wanted to scream and say, "I thought you  were going to 'manage' this 
disease."

From that day until two months later, my husband suffered the worst kind of pain. 
I had to beg doctors at Emory to admit him. He had to have some pain relief. Our local doctor was not affiliated with Emory so he and the doctors there didn't communicate with each other.

That was when I learned of the competition between medical companies. The patient doesn't matter. Emory doctors would not call the local doctor who was with Georgia Cancer Center to discuss Barry's past treatment. I called his local doctor who said, "If they want to call me, I'll talk to them."

I cried in frustration and felt like a lamb being led to slaughter. So much for our wonderful medical system, the so-called best in the world. Capitalism at its worst. These two medical businesses were no different than Ford Motor Company and General Motors in competition with each other. 

It was apparent to me that the doctors at Emory considered him hopeless and were cold and as impersonal as they could possibly be. One even sneered at me when I pulled out my daily journal of Barry's care and treatment that I had kept meticulously trying to be sure we didn't miss anything or forget anything important.

Once in the hospital at Crawford-Long, a hospital owned by the Emory conglomerate, the  nurses were fantastic, but doctors spent two weeks trying to diagnose what was going on with Barry's leg. At first Infectious Disease was called in. He was bombarded with antibiotics for every disease they could imagine. I knew  it was the cancer. Why didn't they  know? Finally a dermatologist made the diagnosis. It was B-Cell Lymphoma. 

Meantime, wound care came in and began treating his leg as if he had third degree burns. Sadly, only they really knew how to clean, medicate and bandage his leg from knee to ankle. The nurses on the floor had no experience and found it hard to do. Some were heavy-handed and some could not bear to hurt him while they pulled off skin and flesh, spread a white cream over the raw muscles and tendons, and wrapped his leg again. Eventually, he asked the nurses to  let me take care of  his leg, and then the nurses watched as I carefully removed the bandage and cleaned his leg. They stood by and handed me what I needed. 

Days turned into weeks. Doctors came and went and I didn't like any of them. Only one woman physician seemed to have a heart. She apologized one evening because Barry had been in so much pain that day. She said it was her fault and it wouldn't happen again. But it did. 

All during these sessions, twice a day, he suffered. But he was a trouper and sang hymns to keep himself from screaming or crying.  

He was on heavy morphine every four hours, but it seemed the cleaning and dressing period came just before he got his injection or just as the medication was wearing off, the break through pain that all cancer patients know so well.

For more than a month, Barry stayed doped up and tried not to complain. 
He didn't want me to know how much he hurt. His condition only got worse and when it was clear to  the doctors that our choice was either more chemo that would likely cause heart failure, I was told it might be best to check into hospice. He had one twenty-four-hour chemo treatment that greatly weakened his heart. That resulted in his having two battles to fight - heart disease and cancer.

At that point, I knew what he wanted. We had talked about this possibility, and he wanted  me to make the  decision. If there had been an Aid in Dying Act in Georgia, I would have brought him home where he wanted to be, where he could see his dog and lie in his own bed. He would have had the choice of taking prescription medicines that would help him go to sleep and not wake up - just as he had wanted.

We  did not have that choice. We could not stop his suffering because the doctors in the hospital would not or could not prescribe enough of what was needed to stop his pain. By this time his dignity had been lost. My proud husband could not bathe himself, he could not walk or stand without help. He could not go into the bathroom. This was a man who had always been athletic. He played tennis when he was younger and played golf until cancer struck him down like a blow to the head. When we first married he taught me to ride dirt bikes and I taught him to ride horses. He was  physically strong until this disease took everything from him.

He hated losing his  quality of life, being cared for like he was a baby, and he knew he was not going to  get well. But he was left to  suffer. I chose a Hospice center near the hospital. I insisted to the doctor that they do everything possible to stop his pain. That was my only request. They stopped dressing the leg. He developed a fever which meant he had an infection. If he continued to live, the doctor said he would suffer more from the infection, probably MRSA, which attacks the most vulnerable. Barry was certainly vulnerable and a likely candidate for this disease that is resistant to antibiotics. 

I could not bear for him to feel even more pain. I wanted him pain free even if it meant complete sedation. I just wanted him to have peace. The staff did what I asked. I will always be grateful to them.

When you go through something like this and see that death is not to be feared, but welcomed, you advocate for Aid in Dying. It is not assisted suicide. The patient would rather live. Aid in dying is for a terminally ill person to hasten the end instead of suffering a long drawn-out dying process. It relieves the  patient and the family from traumatic suffering. 

When I talk with older people about death, they almost all say, "It is not the dying I fear, but the process of dying." I understand. 

That process and the suffering that often goes with it, like that of my dear aunt, is what we all fear. If palliative care is the best alternative, I haven't seen it. Even hospice care at home is not the answer for a suffering patient and his family. The suffering continues day and night when the  pain medicine no longer works. Family members often don't know what to do. They give the oral drugs as they are told. They are not trained in pain management, and the nurses only come when they are needed. 

Some private care hospice workers are good and some are not so good. A friend of mine had home hospice care for her husband who had an inoperable brain tumor. His pain became so intense she could not keep him in bed. But the local hospice doctor would not increase his pain medicine. One day she sat on the floor with him after he fell and she could not get him up. She said she pulled a blanket over them both and she held him as hours passed before anyone came to help her.

The only way to end this kind of suffering is with physician aid in dying. I hope all the states will eventually pass this law as five states have done.

Other articles on this subject:

Steve Johnson, a 72-year-old Helena cancer patient, welcomed the decision, saying he has talked with his doctor about ending his life: "I am very concerned about the intense pain and loss of dignity," the lifelong rancher and veterinarian said at a press conference at the Capitol. "I've accepted my death. I approach the end of my life with a clear mind." 

NYTimes article

Her child's pain is over, my friend begins the long journey of grief

I attended a funeral today. The service was for my dear friend's 50 year-old daughter. Although we have been friends for two decades, and I've heard much about her family, I didn't meet her daughter until a few weeks ago.

At the time, she was under Hospice care and living with her mother who was 24/7 caregiver. Although Penny was taking morphine for pain, still she had suggested to her mother that they begin having a friend over for a light meal once a week. I was the first friend invited. Sadly, as it turned out, I was also the last friend to come over for a meal with Penny and her mother.

But I will cherish that evening. The food was good and I always love being in my friend's house, but that night I really enjoyed getting to know Penny, the strongest and most determined person I have met in a long, long time. She had been fighting cancer for seven or eight years, working and raising two children. She also cared for her husband who is disabled until she could do no more. That was when her mother brought her home to live out the time she had left. 

What I learned about Penny that evening is that she had no qualms about talking about her illness and right away she made me comfortable. We discussed what she had been through in a matter of fact way with no emotion from her. She had endured some of the most embarrassing moments and periods of indignities, but she took it well.  She had a wry sense of humor and I am sure she kept the nurses on their toes when she was in the hospital. She had been dealing with this so long that she could tell them what she needed and when she needed it. Her doctor had told her she had a few months to live and she said she told him she would see him next year. That was the kind of attitude Penny had about living. 

She said she had the best Mom in the world and when I asked what growing up with her talented Mother was like, Penny said she was just an ordinary mom, who kept house, took care of the kids and was always there for them. "She didn't get into painting and all the other things she does now until after we were out of the house."

Seeing the struggle Penny had over the past few months and the heart-wrenching pain of a mother watching her child die, has affected me in many ways. How do you do that day after day, month after month? How do you sit with her and do something so mundane as play chess and then put her to bed and  try to make her comfortable with the morphine required to stop the "sawing pain in her legs?" 

How do you have any semblance of a normal life when your child is lying in the next room and any moment could be her last? You don't. But you have to find a way to live with it and continue to take care of her the very best you can. My friend said something I will never forget. She said she had stopped thinking "what can I do?" She stopped thinking of the sadness and pain and turned her mind to appreciating the joy of every moment they had left together. She tried to make each day as good as possible and to let herself think of how good it was to still have her there.

How do you ever rest when all night you wait for her movements that mean she needs more chemicals to block her senses. My dear friend cared for her husband until he passed away, and then her father who was diagnosed with cancer and died soon after with her lying on his bed beside him. Now her child is gone. Today at the funeral, which was such a loving and lovely service, it hit me so hard I could not talk to my grieving friend without breaking down. Within two years she lost three loved ones she had devoted herself to caring for. 

Within four years, I lost my husband and three siblings. All that pain came rushing back to me when I looked at her sad face as she walked down the aisle carrying her daughter's urn cradled in her arms as if it were a baby. Yes, it was her baby girl and the last time she would ever hold her. 

I pray for peace for my friend and all her family. They are loving people who will be there for each other. One day all this pain will lessen and one day she can smile and feel normal again, but it is a long journey and I hope that in some way I can be there and help her along the way. 

Another post you might want to read. It is the most popular post on this blog.

http://profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-do-you-want-to-be-remembered.html

Going on with Life after the First Year

July 21, 2009 is a day I'll never forget though I can barely remember most of it. I awoke from sleeping on the fold-out bed in my husband's room at Embracing Hospice in Cumming, GA.

I had made the hardest decision of my life. A kind young doctor had told me he could do nothing else for Barry, but we could go back to Emory for more chemo. My husband's heart was failing from the one chemo treatment he'd received at Emory before being dismissed. Weakness left him barely able to speak. The unrelenting pain in his left leg where the lymphoma had returned was like a raging lion tearing the life out of an antelope, bite after bite.

"No," I told the doctor. "If he can't get well, I don't want him to suffer anymore. The chemo is a poison that slowly kills his body while fighting the cancer."

No one would tell me, yes, he is dying anyway. They only said we can still try more chemo.
I had been told that at Hospice he would receive the pain relief he could not seem to get anywhere else.
We had come there on Saturday afternoon, late. On Monday morning I demanded the doctor give Barry the IV drip that would let him sleep until his body gave out. I was assured that he would not be in pain anymore.

I don't know where the strength came from to sit by him every hour watching him suffer and then watch him die. That is the part I will always remember. Those last minutes.

I have now lived through the last of the firsts. There was my first birthday without him, Thanksgiving without him, Christmas, and Easter, his birthday. Then Memorial Day came. That was the anniversary of our move to the mountains, to this place we love so much. June 14 was our wedding anniversary. Fourth of July was the anniversary of our first date. And July 21, the anniversary of our goodbye.

I'm told by those who have endured this journey that the first year with all the "first anniversaries" is the hardest and that one day these will just be like any day in my life.

I accomplished a great deal this year. I decided I was going to live and live the best I can from now on. My health is my priority, my writing and work are next. But I've also made a new commitment to enjoy life, to laugh, to dance, to travel, to make play dates with my friends. I'll invite them to lunch with me ( at a restaurant of course. I don't want to cook) I am looking into interesting places to go that aren't too expensive. I want to surround myself with people I enjoy and people I love.

This week I babysat a puppy. She made me laugh. I remembered how little things used to make me happy and make me smile.
Like George in my story The Trillium, found in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, I will look for happiness in little things. Like Tipper who writes on TheBlind Pig and the Acorn, I want to explore more, learn more and relish my experiences.

All those firsts are behind me now. I am a different person from the one I was a year ago. Old friends will have to understand if I don't enjoy the things I once did. I am moving on in my new life as the half of a couple, but the living half who has to learn what she can do and what she wants now, and who is learning, every day, to be grateful.