This is a long post, but if you thought you had a rough year, it bears reading at length.
2005 was not a good year for me. As a matter of fact I would have to say that it was the worst year that I have had so far in my thirty some-odd years.
January of 2005 saw my Father and I being told that my Mother had terminal colon cancer. In the beginning they did not know if it had spread to other organs of her body. A PET scan revealed that it had. At the time, she was not as sick as she became a month later, and I enjoyed my last really good Mother and son conversation together, waiting in a room that they had put us in while she drank a bottle of the dye that they give you when they are going to run tests. It tasted like orange ice cream, and she let me taste just a little of it. That's what Mothers do.
She had three done that day, and we were in a city 50 miles from home because it was a clinic that could run ANY type of test that can be performed. That was their niche. It saved us having to go to three places to have all three tests done. It was very helpfull.
Febuary of 2005 saw me hear a thump on the floor and rush to my Mothers room to find her passed out with her head against the wall. I laid her down, and called the paramedics. At the hospital her heart actually stopped beating and they had to defib her. She spent a month and a half in the CCU(Critical Care Unit) where I could only see her for an hour four times a day. That is when I knew that her health was beginning to decline. When her heart stopped, it did something to her brain and she was never the same.
March and April saw Mother in and out of the hospital about every week, with Home Health Care visiting in the interm.
May 31's in room 530 of Gadsden Regional Medical Center at 8:45 PM saw me hold my Mother in my arms when she took her last breath. It was devastating, and haunts me to this very day.
Today(I started this thread on January 1'st) is Mothers birthday.
I also was thankfull to Dar for lending a ear(or screen) while I hashed out my grief, even though we had to stop mid-way through.
June saw me loose my Cat of 16 years that was like a child to me. I had been using him to comfort myself in my time of grief.
July saw me loose a good friend and former co-worker to a massive heart attack. He had told me what a rough year I had been having with losses close to home. He suggested starting to go to lunch once or twice a week to get me out of the house. He died the morning that we were to go to lunch the first time. He didn't call me to say when and where to meet him, so I thought that he probably just had something come up. I was at his funeral two days later.
I do have some things to be thankfull for.
I still have my Father, so I am not parent-less yet.
I have my health(although I wonder sometimes.)
My job allowed me to take as long as I needed and come back when I wanted to at the same position and pay.
I took out supplemental health insurance on Mother and paid for it myself so that my Father would not be stuck paying the other 20 percent that Medicare does not pay. The total bill was over 300,000 dollars. My Father only had to pay for the first two hospital admissions. He does not owe a dime now.
I am an only child, so I inherit my parents estate without the hassle of having to fight it out with other children. It consists in part of 3 houses, other property, and whatever cash is left, so I could probably be assured of problems as everyone tired to get their piece of the pie. Mother would not have wanted a fight when the estate would have to be divided.
So it is a mixed bag, but still the worst year that I have had so far. I'm glad to see 2005 gone. Hopefully it will be better in 2006.
What events shaped your life in 2005?
-FF
1986 Fiero 2M6
Happy Birthday, Mother - January 1st 1939
