Still around … Just not enough hours in a day … but that’s nothing new, right?
Was it really just three short months ago – if even that much – that we were celebrating the arrival of warm weather and hot sunny skies? Now I’m pulling out a jacket as I run out of the door. Good thing I had gloves in the pockets, when it suddenly turned cold out on the fields while waiting for soccer practice to finish!
My mind these days is in constant scrambles and rambles. We’re dealing with the sudden and unexpected illness? of an aunt, and suddenly facing situations and decisions that we normally don’t think about. She’s in a coma, resulting from a brain aneurysm, stroke, heart attack … We have no idea about DNRs, powers of attorneys, wills, how to pay her bills, transactions … My uncle has pulled me in to help him go through her papers, belongings, anything that might give us any information, and very, very reluctantly, I looked through drawers, all the while thinking that I was intruding. The hospital has been bringing up the topic of family discussions on what to do … long-term care? where? how? Or the other option, which is that if she never wakes up from the coma, how long do we want to keep her on life support? Or, what if she recovers but she cannot function at all? What to do? The siblings – eight of them – will need to sit down together and discuss, and come to an agreement. And I suspect that I will have to sit there with them and … do what? I don’t really know what. Provide support, explain what the doctors are saying, what the hospital wants, what possible actions to take next … Right now, prayers is all we have, until we’re ready to take that step.
From a lifetime of aunts and uncles looking out for me, it is now my turn to look out for them. And while we had discussed these topics informally before, it’s one of those discussions that nobody wants to really deal with, and so the talks move on to other things … Except in times as such as these, when in hindsight now you know that you should have sat down and gotten things in order first …
Which has also led me to thinking about what to do in our family … so that the boys are not left feeling lost and stranded, that the floor has fallen out from beneath your feet and not knowing what to do or how to start or where to start … So as a start, we’re going to have to get a power of attorney soon … Then work on the will ….
This was going to be a post about the end of summer, my doodles and other lighter subjects, but has evolved into more serious matters … I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I needed something to get my thoughts back in order …. doodling to distract from the current stresses, and writing to put my mind back on track …
Thanks for listening, and enjoy the last weekend of summer!
A little bit of this and that ... 