Grief

Bigger break than expected

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

I never intended to be away this long from the blog and I can’t promise that I will get back into regular posting any time soon. However those of you who have followed me for a while deserve an update so here it is.

Over the last few months Mr Myasthenia Kid and I have been sorting out his late mothers estate ready for probate ( this is a thing we do in the UK, it just means that the will that has been left is legally binding and that inheritance tax is sorted if the estate is worth more than a set amount ). We have also been winding up her accounts and any payments due. At times this has felt like a full time job, every day off during the week Mr Myasthenia Kid and I have had to make various phone calls etc with some company’s being so inept even when dealing with a bereavement team that multiple phone calls have been made, letters to CEO’s have been delivered and on a few occasions we have been awarded compensation due to the mess they have made.

It seriously feels like we haven’t had a day off from this in months and now whilst probate has been granted and the last little bits and pieces are getting done, we now have to sell our home of 18 years. 

Selling a house is stressful, combine that with the loss of both of your husbands parents and the stress levels rocket to something you have never seen before. When I do get a minute to call my own, which is really bloody rare currently it is mainly spent zombie like due to exhaustion. I am waiting for an enormous crash, my health has taken some really dodgy turns over the last few months. On a couple of occasions I have almost called 999 for an ambulance as I have had bowel adhesion pain so bad I have passed out. I have had week’s of non stop migraines triggered by occipital neuralgia and that has then impacted my sleep. At least once a week we travel down to the new house to ensure that everything is ok and that is also adding to my levels of fatigue. I have got to the point of just wanting the whole silly game to be over with and we only had the photos taken by the estate agent this morning – I am writing this on Wednesday.

Our home has had to have some decorating done and some tidying up in places. It is hard work scheduling everything in when you have so many different things to deal with. Finally things are coming together and we are in a position where we can put our happy home up for sale. Which I never ever thought we would do as after moving here in 2003, I categorically stated I would never, ever move house again! 

I know that we are really lucky in the fact we can move our belongings into the new place and not have to do a mad one day move that is the norm. I can’t wait to have my bed down at the house as the bed that is there at the moment isn’t very comfortable. It is always the same though isn’t it? There is nothing like your own bed. Although Mr Myasthenia Kid reckons he sleeps better at the new house than he does here.

Our current home is now just a shell, all we have left to move down are the white goods, my bed ( including mattress) and some bits and pieces. The rest is either being left for the new owner or given away via a local group on Facebook to families in need. I often go to put something away and realise that I no longer own it or it is down at the new house. It does feel like we are constantly living in limbo not quite belonging here but equally not 100% belonging there.

My emotions are all over the place, I go through regular waves of overwhelming sadness at losing my in laws, leaving this house, leaving my home town of 26 years, leaving my friends and valuable support network. To then being filled with excitement at the new adventure before us, coming up with plans for the garden and colour schemes for the rooms. At times it can feel quite wrong to be pleased about the new house because it came at such a high price. There is just so much to process that I just don’t have any desire to write either blogs. I need a break from everything but I can see it being a few months until we actually do finally feel grounded again.

So due to this my blogging maybe sporadic as it has been since October. Sometimes life just gets in the way. With so many changes happening in a small period of time, I simply can’t keep all the plates spinning like I did when life was a tad quieter and simpler.

Keep everything crossed for us that the house sale goes smoothly, we could do with a bit of good luck for a change!

Back from my blogging break

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / 2 Comments

I am sure regular readers will appreciate why I had to take a break from blogging. Well I am back, my health is shit, which I fully expected with all that has gone on. Something had to give so since I last wrote I have endured a hideous kidney infection that almost saw me hospitalised, a flare up of gastritis that has stopped me sleeping as it has been so painful. Then add in vertigo and a couple of migraines that has been my last few weeks. I needed to take a breath and just focus on my boys, my little family and get through this awful time. 

I think I can speak for both me and Mr Myasthenia Kid that we have been blown away with all the cards we have received, messages etc. People contacting us to ensure that we were ok, dropping my medications around, offering to take Dembe out, getting shopping for us. We needed that help and it was very much appreciated.  Whatever they could do to help, nothing was too much trouble. 

I also want to say a huge thank you to those of you who made charitable donations to MND, on Rogers behalf that was exceptionally kind of you.

Grief is such a weird thing and what Jay and I were really shocked by has been just how very tired we are pretty much all of the time. Most days when Jay is day off work we can be looking at each other at 6pm and asking if we are going to bed. What we forget is for about 6 weeks prior to Jay losing his dad things had been pretty stressful. Whenever his mobile went at an odd hour – very early morning, late at night my heart would stop. I would dread whatever the news was that we were about to receive. We realise now how very draining the situation was, how we were constantly living on our nerves. Both of us are having issues trying to get  back to a normal state. After weeks of sleeping lightly we are both still waking at the slightest sound. I am sure given time we will start sleeping better.

At the moment we are just making our way through each day as best as possible. All I can do is be there for Mr Myasthenia Kid, take care of the small stuff so he doesn’t have to worry about anything else. Both of us have developed the attention span of gnats and memory spans of a goldfish. It makes things tough and it would be quite easy to get angry about the others lack of attention but we know that the anger is also another part of the grief.

Mr Myasthenia is struggling but putting a brave face on. I know that he wants to be strong and in control but I do worry that at some point in the future this approach may bite him on the ass. He has always been one to bottle stuff up and I don’t want to become a nag continually asking him how he is doing. He will speak to me when he is able.

I do understand with living away from his parents how he can insulate himself from the reality of what has occurred. He doesn’t have to deal with the issue because he can pretend that it hasn’t happened. He isn’t confronted with the reality every day. In some ways that is good and in others I worry that it will prolong the acute stage of grief as he will keep pushing it down and not dealing with it.

He has been very keen to have some photos of him and his dad around the house. I framed the order of service from the funeral so that he has that  and I managed to find some wonderful photos of Jay and his dad at the NFL match at Wembley that watched in 2008. One of his brothers also found a really lovely one of him with Roger so I have got that in a treble aperture frame.

During the bank holiday weekend we were lucky enough to go down and visit Mr Myasthenia Kids mum. We held the meeting outside in the garden. In the sunshine it wasn’t too bad and the garden is very sheltered. It was nice to be able to pay my respects in person, although a two hour visit wiped me out for the rest of the day. It has been around 6 years since I had a proper visit, although we had a flying one in December last year. Dembe certainly enjoyed the garden and being chased around by Jays brothers new puppy.

Things have been all over the place in the last 4 weeks or so. Most of the time I am struggling to remember what the day of the week is let alone anything else. I am now trying to get back into a routine so that things feel more settled. 

Having Dembe has been a godsend, he has instinctively known on the days when Jay is struggling and spent the days squidged up to his dad on the sofa and at night sleeping in his room.

Health wise I am waiting for a neurology appointment. The hospital rang a few weeks ago but I had to decline as it was the same week as the funeral. I wasn’t ready for the added stress of seeing a neurologist and I didn’t want Jay having any added pressure that week.

I received my second Covid vaccination on Tuesday 4th May. We are still waiting for Jay to get called for his but he has a few weeks yet before the 12 weeks is up. I am happy to report that I have had absolutely no side effects from the second vaccination. I was expecting that I may end up floored by it like I was with the first one but nothing at all. Not even a sore arm. Fingers crossed that Mr Myasthenia Kid gets called soon.

We are taking a break from Dog training for a bit as we both just don’t have the mental capacity for it at the moment. We are both crawling into bed most nights just after 7pm and asleep not much later. We have also been sleeping until at least 8am when Jays shifts allow. We are just so very knackered. It has been like 100 life times has been crammed into the space of a few months and currently physically and mentally we have nothing left to give.

I will try to blog regularly again but it maybe hit and miss for a little while longer.