Thursday, November 9, 2023

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. Mattie was getting admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit that day. I can tell because he was wearing real clothes. Mattie only wanted to wear pajamas when he was living in the hospital. Given all that he had to contend with, I went with his preferences! That day, we went to the child life playroom and they were decorating pumpkins! As you can see Mattie painted and decorated the pumpkin in front of him. Mattie was a big pumpkin fan and thankfully loved to create. As these artistic activities helped all of us survive the long hours, days, weeks, and months in the hospital. 

Quote of the day: Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature's way of letting in only as much as we can handle. ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

For the past month, I have been having trouble sleeping. I am highly anxious and feel like I am having some of the same feelings and difficulties that I did when Mattie died. I contacted my doctor yesterday and she re-prescribed medication to help me sleep. It worked in 2009/2010, but it had no effect on me last night. I was wide awake and feeling like I was in a panic. I think I finally fell asleep at 5am, just in time to get up at 6:30am. 

In any case, when I got up, I opened my bedroom blinds and was greeted by a street full of dump trucks. In addition, several of my neighbors text messaged me telling me that this chaos had begun at 5:30am. 

My neighbor, directly adjacent to me, is renovating her house and it will be quite extensive. On top of the countless other stresses in my life, I would add living in this neighborhood as high on my stress list. I haven't had a moment's peace here and living next door to a construction zone adds to the frenzy. Neighbors are upset about this construction, so no matter where I turn I am dealing with issues. 

Mid-day I took my parents out for frozen yogurt. The lady who manages the store is so nice to us, that she gave my dad his yogurt for free! While chatting over yogurt, my dad thought it was April. I tried to re-orient him by looking at the trees. He observed that they had changed colors and some had fallen off the trees. Therefore, it must be Fall. Within the last month, my dad's decline has been noteworthy. He seems more exhausted, more disoriented, and is appetite is declining. All NOT positive signs. 

At around 4:30pm, after prepping dinner, I took Sunny for a walk. Sunny has been on a hunger strike all day and refused his medications as well. So I know going for a walk helps to reset both of us. Sunny moves slowly, but I am okay with that. It gives me time to catch my breath and observe the greenery around me. 

Can you see the three deer watching us as we were walking?

This fellow was beautiful. His fur was practically a cocoa color. There was something about him that reminded me of Bambi. This was a movie I saw multiple times with Mattie. Of course neither Mattie nor I liked the part of Bambi's mother dying. It got us every time.