It's been a difficult week, a difficult year............

I've found it hard to write since my dad's passing.

Dad died on April 16. That was a Thursday. The previous Friday he had had an absolutely wonderful day. He'd been up, had tons of company... he'd even gone into the kitchen and made coffee for his visitors. I knew he'd been worn out, but he seemed so happy to see everyone. He fell asleep in his chair and seemed to be resting so peacefully that I hated to wake him. I let him sleep until we were ready to close the house for the night... unfortunately, when I woke him up, he could not walk. I had to get the wheelchair and take him through the house.

He didn't walk walk again after that.

The rest of the days, he was mainly comatose. I called my brother and we quickly got him a ticket for a 3rd trip. He got in late Wednesday night. Surprisingly, dad roused that evening and wanted water and something to eat (he'd not eaten food in a week)... I managed to get about 15cc of his drink into him, and he was awake long enough to know that my brother was here, and then he was out again.

Thursday morning, we checked in on him early 6am... and he sounded awful... he was panting for breath and was doing what hospice called "fish out of water" breathing. I called the duty nurse and she told me what drugs to give to ease his breathing.... No one left, no one went to work.. we just kept watch. He settled down and seemed mor comfortable. We left him to rest and checked back in about every 10 minutes.

My brother checked him at about 1pm and he came and told me that dad was not breathing. I went in and checked and although he was not breathing, he did still have a pulse and heartbeat. My brother wanted to call 911, but I said "no". Dad had already told me his wishes, and I had his living will and health surregacy. Besides, if I felt it would help, I could have done CPR myself.

I told my brother to just sit on the side of the bed and hold Dad's hand, so that he would know we were there. I cradled his head and kept my fingers on his neck until his pulse stopped. It was only a minute or so, and then........he was gone.

The house seems so strange, so empty. Which is odd, since Dad really had not been here much in the last 6mos (mostly he was in the rehabilitation home)... I guess it feels that way because I know he'll never be coming back.

Charlie didn't help in that empty feeling. Almost immediately he began moving things around. Exchanging our furniture for Dad's. I felt almost as if he were erasing dad.

Friends have said that it's Charlie's way of grieving. But it was driving me insane, and as much as it might have been helping him, it was making me worse.

The first month was a nightmare. Although I did all the normal things... called the Funeral Home, had Dad's body picked up... that's where everytihng came to a halt. Due to him having a surviving spouse, (in a Florida nursing home with dementia)... that made cremation difficult. I had to have paperwork from Florida, signed by a doctor, stating the dementia diagnosis. That took time for me to find, due to dad's office being such a mess.

Finally, after waiting a month, Dad was sent for cremation.

Then the depression set in. And the flu. I just stayed in bed for 2wks and puked or cocooned.

Finally, a foot was applied to my behind, and I was told to "get to it".

I've finally started to crawl out of the gloom. Trying to finally put the structure I've been given, to good use. Making it to bed early (can't count the weekend, LOL)

Yes, I'm eating... and trying to pay attention (for the most part) WHAT I'm eating.

It's hard trying to integrate all of this at the same time, and I often feel like I'm juggling.

I skipped breakfast (common)

I ate a ham sandwich with ricotta cheese and grilled tomato pesto, apple slices, grapes and some additional cheese cubes for lunch... and almost a whole quart of water.

For dinner I ate clam chowder, tilapia, corn and a few hash browns... I was watching the carbs.

SEE?   EATING!   FOOD!

I consider this week mostly a success, for me personally...

Sadly, it was a bad one over all. My husband's best friend from work, died on Monday. She'd been ill for a couple of years with stomach cancer and was sent home earlier this year after being told that there was nothing more that they could do for her. I admired her, she was often more mother to my husband than his own... and reminded me a lot of my own mom in her bravrey.

Shirley Harris, you were much loved and will be missed by everyonel that you touched.

Sometimes, there is no "why".

Sometimes, there is only what "is".

Sometimes you find wisdome in the oddest places, when you least expect it.

Who knew I'd hear that particular explanation in a movie about go-carts?

It explains so much... when there is no other explanation for things and how they are.

We just have to figure out how to accept what "is".

My father has asked me that question so many times in the last few years.

Why his life has turned out the way it has.. the loss of two wives to cancer. His current life might as well be lost, as she has no memory of any of us in her dementia. He felt he must have done something in this life, (or another life), that was so terrible that this would happen to him.

I've tried to tell him that he's actually been a lucky man... to have had 3 good women in his life, when many people never have even a single one.

I've asked the same question of my self. Why I would have to lose both parents to such a horrible disease? Why did they both have to suffer so badly with cancer? Why couldn't they both had just passed gently in their sleep.

Mom suffered from hers for 5yrs. But she made the most of the time she had left. Cody only lasted a year, but I attribute that to her avoidance any treatments. Dad has hung on for 9mos. Hospice told me in January that he had 3-4 weeks left... and he's outlasted the prediction. But I'm afraid he won't last much longer....

He's not able to walk for the last 4 days. He can barely stand long enough for me to move him around the bedroom. I'm not sure he's going to be able to get out of bed any longer. He has brief moments of clarity and can have a lucid conversation, then he lapses into incoherency. He's started doing things that I know are signs of the final days. "Plucking".. pulling at the bedding and in the air. Talking to people that aren't there. Those "eye's wide open" sleeping moments.

And just today, I asked myself  "why"?......................................

Dad was supposed to come home this past Friday. When I called him, he was complaining of "that cough" being back... I asked for details... then called the nurse. They did a chest x-ray, and he has pneumonia. I had to break the news to him, and he was MOST unhappy. They said that they thought it would be Monday (tomorrow) but after seeing him tonight, I highly doubt that he'll be home tomorrow. He was sick, and puking tonight. He was just miserable. Then to top things off, the site where his pump is attached had come loose. It wasn't leaking that I could see, but there really wasn't anything holding it on to the skin, either.

The nurse came in and checked it out, and decided to remove it and move it's contact spot.... small problem... they had no more attachments. They called the pharmacy to send more, but in the meantime, he had no pain meds and was still puking.... they called the on-call physician and he ordered some backup pain meds until the pump could be attached.

I felt so helpless, he was miserable. He kept trying to find a comfortable position to rest, and he just couldn't. I'll be checking in with everyone in the morning to see how he stands and what the plans are. I'm just glad that they caught the pneumonia before I brought him home, otherwise it would have likely meant another trip to the hospital, and he would have hated that.

I still have a ton of paperwork of his to wade through, so I'm off to do that.

It never fails.

The ONE prescription that you need, is the one that they won't refill.

I have an appointment Monday with the "partner physician"..... I've never seen this woman in my life. I've been told to avoid her because she's "difficult"... and I'm depending on her to refill this script. It should prove to be an interesting day...............

Dad is making me crazy. He wants to "take a trip". He can't walk from his room to therapy, and he wants to take a trip... *bangs head against the wall*

I talked to his girlfriend today, and gave her a heads up... I didn't want her to feel pressured by him to go and babysit.

I still need to find out what the rehab's opinion on release is... and find out what is holding up hospice.

So far, hospice is hinting that he no longer qualifies due to being in rehab and improving (due to drugs)

I guess hospice can't handle improvement. (insert sarcastic comment here)

Today was one of those days where I couldn't get enough to sleep, yet it wasn't restful sleep.

It was filld with odd dreams and nightmares, mostly of claustaphobia. There were several attempts to get me awake and up, but all failed... I finally got myself up and moving at 10p

This usually happens when I've an extreme bout of insomnia.. but I've not done too bad with the insomia lately.  Once again, I'm giong to try and get my schedule turned around to normal days.

Cutting back on the Toprol also seems to be helping. My pulse is much better, closer to the accepted normal range.

I guess I'm going to have to play around with dosages again. My pulse is getting too low, possibly too much Toprol...

I've felt bad all day. Something intestional. I slept most of th day, and could sleep again now.

Went to see my dad and mother-in-law. Took them both a shake from Steak/shake. I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but it drives me insane when I call him and ask what he would like, I get it, and then he tells me he doesn't want it.

Nothing was good enough tonight. We brought all of his laundry back clean, and he was upset because he said he didn't need "that many clothes". Like he's not going to be there that long. We were there about 30min and started to leave (we hadn't eaten dinner yet) and he got EXTREMELY upset that we were leaving... then got upset over the cell phone (we didn't bring back the charger) then was upset over the TV... that the remote oporates both sets in the room. (there is NO roommate, so what's the problem?)... then didn't want to have to read the paper to find out what was on.... *bangs head against the wall).

At that point I sarcastically commented that I could look at the paper each day and make him an adjusted scheduee of all the channels and shows that I thought he'd be interested in.. and he agreed, thinking I was serious.

Dinner was a different fiasco.... we went to Friday's..... and it took them nearly an hour to bring us food that wasn't cooked right. Surprisingly, I did not go balistic, I was calm. I calmly told them I wouldn't eat it. And they agreed that it was well-done, rather than med-rare... BIG DIFFERENCE.

BUT, they re-cooked it, brought another free appetizer (that I couldn't eat and brought home) gave me my meal for free, AND gave me a 15.00 gift card for the next visit.

For once, I think being quiet and calm was scarier to them than yelliing.... or maybe just being nice made them feel bad, LOL

Ok, so skip the Rock and Roll...

It's now all about avoiding stress and abiding by structure.

I've been given my rules, and if they are not broken in any fashion by either side, then in 30 days minor privilages will be returned.... of the vanilla communication variety.

This was the best I could do... and short of becoming annoing and possibly loosing all chance, I had to take this offering.

I will say this now though... I may be stepping out of my place... but if either side decides to create problems for the other, I will vanish. I will do this of my own free will, I will pull everything off the net. I will leave NO way to trace me. I know how to do this.

I'm not worth anyone ruining anyone else's life over, or causing misery over... and I will simply disappear.

There is no good way to fix this problem. This is one of those that someone is going to get hurt.

I've chosen the route that some say is insanity... but I said it once and I'll say it again. All problems aside, He makes me feel safe. Like I could crawl up inside him.  He's asked me to never use his name in my blogs again, and I won't. I also won't list any traceable locations. I learned my lesson the hard way from the psycho and the explosion that used to be his life.

He's been accused of not being honest. but by the same scale, I've not been totally honest either. I was given specific rules and guidelines to follow and I failed. Had I been successfull in that,a lot of that might have been avoided.

What started out as simply a meeting of like souls, has turned into an emotional mess with so many other innocents involved. I wish I could remove the hurt, but I'm not sure that is possible... maybe in time.......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was going to take my blog down. but it has been such a part of my life even if only intermittantly lately.... I decided to leave it up. If someone is that interested in what is going on in my life, even in my using these vague referances... then it gives them some solace to at least know that I'm ok.  (this is not intended to find a way around th rules, but there are vanilla friends that also read this and have been poking at me to start it up again.

In closing, all I can say is: if it's meant to be, it will be.

 Life is full of twists and turns and you never know where you might cross paths back again, and some things come full circle. I do not say this to create false hope.. and I wish that there was a way to not hurt the innocents... but this is a choice that I had to make today, and now I have to stand by it and and be the best person I can be.

For everyone that was involved in this, I apologize.

Also, I will continue to post my numbers so that my progress or decline can be seen... even with all of today's stress, my numbers were good. But I have cut one of my BP meds in half since there have been days when it dips almost too low.

The day had all the earmarks of going as bad as possible. I tried to do all the right things, ACTUALLY got sleep, set the alarm, etc. But I tried to reset the alarm and that's when it went down hill. I fell couldn't make sense out of the buttons on the clock and fell asleep holding it. Had it not been for the phonecall, I'd have been late. As it was, I had no time to waste if I was to get there in time.

Today could only be called an "Intervention".

I'm still processing all the words that flew at me today. On one hand, I see and understand their concern. I know my silence was probably taken mistakenly. It's not that I was not listening, I was. But I also felt that they had determined my fate and therefore nothing I might have had to say would have made any difference.

There were so many points to think about. I guess I'm not done yet, there was already a "talk" planned for Thursday, and now he knows I have a topic to discuss too. I know MA and S are not happy about this meeting, that it might mean putting myself in T's hands again, and they want to avoid that at all costs.

S asked me today, what drove me to this?.... MA already knew the answer.... fear/danger. The badboy image. S got seriously intense with me once we were alone, nearly removing my ponytail.... making me look him in the eye, asking me if I needed to be "afraid". He said if that was what I needed, that he and MA were more than able to provide that in a safe manner... and he proceeded to show me what he meant. To someone watching, they would have never seen anything. The best way to describe it, is like a hypnotist. He truely scared me... the tone of his voice, the change in his touch, and as he said.... that was just a taste of where he could take it..... and then he took it away.

I'm not sure where this "need" came from. S never scared me when he was my Dom. He demanded a lot, but never scared me. D sometimes scared me... he often would write " *smiles* but smile doesn't reach his eyes". And then there were the things he would carry around with him and leave out for me to see..... and I know he did it for effect. I think T gets off on the fear thing... and is more than willing to bring that to the table.

To be honest, I'm having trouble with this...... this intervention. I know MA has toyed with the thought of forcibly removing my collar and I hope he doesn't do that. I KNOW that the collar of a Master, especially a Gorean Master, is of the utmost importance. I know that in a Gorean environment, it identifies the slave. I understand if I don't have MA's collar on when he takes me out, that the one I currently wear is for all intents and purposes..... invisible ....in the Gor world. And that is a bad, bad thing.

There have been bonds of one sort or another with all my Masters... some stronger than others. I never wore D's collar on a daily basis, it was too obvious and would have caused too many questions in my vanilla life. My current one fits into the vanilla life fairly well.

I know that MA has said it's difficult if not impossible to serve 2 Masters. If I could have a wish granted, it would be for us to try this as is. I had a IM marathon with T last night and some of this activity in question was discussed. I feel that we've not yet finished with it, but if iti's any comfort, I did express my concern over the activities.

He also said that he was not giving power to me..that I was merely the vehicle

...to be continued........................