When Gary's father passed away I started to gradually see a little bit of change in her. Her tone of voice with me wasn't as biting and the criticisms, at least to my face became less. But I still was having a struggle to even want to forgive her. Again, I had to go back to the lessons I had learned earlier and realize that I was only harming myself with this anger and bitterness. I started praying and asking God to help me to forgive this woman. Today I can honestly say that I've forgiven her. She calls once in a while and we even e-mail each other. But I resist any pull to get closer. I guess after being hurt so much its hard to pull down all the walls that you've built up for protection.
I'm working at learning to trust people. That I think that will always be a problem I will have. Over the years the only one I could count on to protect me was me. I know in most peoples minds I didn't do a very good job, but I did the best I could the only way I knew how...I have to let it go at that.
Ever since I was 13 and needed to have surgery on my back, my back has been weak and I'm prone to muscle spasms. When I would feel them starting, life would go on the back burner for a week or two until it was under control. Then I would rejoin life and continue on.
Well, I was on the back burner again. Except this time it had been dragging on for more than a week and it was getting worse not better. I kept trying to do what was only absolutely necessary, but when with the aid of my walker I could no longer even get up out of my chair because of the intensity of the spasms I knew I was in trouble.
Alice showed up one day and saw first hand the condition I was in and immediately called an ambulance. She told me later she knew it was definitely the right decision as I didn't argue with her. I had a habit of even when I was barely conscience arguing that I didn't want to go to the hospital! When the paramedics got to the house they started me on morphine right away, it was the only way they could even move me, and even then I was in terrible agony.
I was admitted right away. Most of the times when I had been admitted, it was to the Maternity ward because that was the only place that had a vacant bed! The first time I had been admitted to that ward I remember feeling very out of place until I saw an elderly gentleman walk by my door in a housecoat...I didn't feel so much out of place after that! One time one of the men in the church had been visiting Gary in the Psych unit and brought him over to visit me. Gary's paranoia increased measurably that day when he found out what ward I was on! However, I was so happy to here this time. Two ladies from the church, Hilda and Sherry were nurses on this floor and I knew I would be well looked after.
The first night there Hilda helped me up to go to the washroom, I was crying in pain. Before she could get me back to bed my knee's had buckled with another spasm and I was trying my hardest not to scream. Dear Hilda wrapped me in her arms and started to cry right along with me.
I needed help with everything. Mom showed up the next day worried sick about me. Because I knew I wouldn't be home for a while, she went to the house and cleaned out my fridge, freezing what she could. She also made arrangements with Anne to take care of my budgie Sunny. That afternoon she helped me wash my hair in the sink in the bathroom, what an ordeal that way!
That night I couldn't sleep, I was upset and in tremendous pain. Hilda told me that she was going to give me my night pills early and maybe I could get to sleep. She brought them and I took them without giving it a second thought. A couple of minutes later the phone rang and it was my dear son. We had only talked for a few minutes when he told me that my voice was beginning to slur. I told him that I had to hang up, I couldn't keep my eyes open!
The next thing I knew it was morning and Hilda was shaking me awake to take my vitals. She asked me how I had slept and I looked at her. When she started to smile I asked her what she had done. She admitted to slipping a sleeping pill in with my regular pills, I hadn't even noticed! I still tease her about being a "drug pusher"!
One evening a nurse asked me when I'd last had a bowel movement. I told her, then as an afterthought I said that it had just dawned on me that I hadn't peed since the morning before...and I had been drinking a lot of water. She looked at me quickly and made me go to the bathroom and try. After sitting there trying for 15 minutes, she opened the door and asked if I'd had any luck. I said no, and she told me to come out and get weighed. They knew what I had weighed when I was admitted a week earlier. I stepped on the scales and I had GAINED 5 lbs! The room exploded into activity! My vitals were being taken, the IV started again, the blood lab came up for blood work, I just laid there trying to push away the fear that was starting to build. Finally I was told that my kidney's had stopped working! I was stunned, then I panicked.
I had been told two years earlier by a specialist that unless the neuropathy slowed down, I could possibly be dead in 3 to 5 years due to complications it would cause. Kidney problems are one of the complications he had mentioned. I wondered if this was to be the start of the end of me.
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