Toxic Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I truly wish that for you all. I’m not jealous of all the warm happy households, full of people eating and playing games, talking and enjoying their visits. I don’t have room for jealousy in my monochromatic pallet of emotion. I can see that enjoyment of life is happening, and I don’t want to spoil it by injecting my lousy pain into your moment. I am writing this knowing full well that it is too toxic to share. I have experienced joy in my lifetime. I have known the ease of a life with few concerns. Not anymore.

It has been a slow, torturous slide for Sharon into complete, unfixable disease. Being bedridden is one thing. Being bedridden and unable to eat or drink or move or even sleep is another. She currently drinks from a Camelbak water bag suspended from the ceiling. She is now unable to bring the hose to her lips. And should it be provided to her she can barely swallow without aspirating and coughing for five minutes. All the food she eats must be placed into her mouth by me. But I can’t chew it for her or make her swallow without choking.

I was barely keeping up with the daily hygiene and meal cooking. And going to work. Then I got myself ill. This year I’ve been going to doctors to try to fix a gut problem. The doctors couldn’t figure it out, so they called it IBS and told me to live with it. Take an  antacid. I’ve maxed out my sick days, vacation days and even family leave. I’ve even reduced my hours to 32, so I can still qualify for their crappy health care. This last week I had a bout of bronchopneumonia and had to do the caregiving with a 102 fever. I took the week off without pay. I’ll be surprised if I have a job to go back to. It is all going to hell.

She wants to die at home. That’s the damn hardest thing one could ever put on someone else. Make them take care of you while you become completely immobile and your body shuts down. Make them watch your decline and do their best to provide care while it is completely ineffective. And then make sure to tell them when they are less than adequate in the attitude department. My empathy gene got skipped, but even my reptilian, narcissistic brain registers that this is sad. So very sad. I don’t feel a lot anymore, but when I do it comes in the form of anger, then sadness and regret. Her illness is killing the both of us.

And the other day she said, crying, “I just realized that it is taking me too long to die.”