I always wondered why the divorce rate among people with spouses who were ill was higher than average, but it’s becoming more and more apparent why. Especially after I yelled at my husband last night, telling him I thought I wanted a divorce so I could just be alone. If I’m going to feel lonely all the time I might as well be alone, right? At the time it made sense in my head, but now I feel like a fool for even speaking those words, or any of the subsequent words that were meant to hurt him. This is all seems so unreal, painful, undignified, and just plain cruel that sometimes the emotions associated with all of those things happening at the same time spill over on to the people around me. which brings me right back to thinking I should be alone so I can’t hurt anyone else in my life.
I’m not doing my sons any good; half the time they don’t seem to want to have a whole lot to do with me (I can’t blame them), and don’t get my started on the two daughter in-laws who I’m sure think I’m totally crazy, and want little to nothing to do with me if they can help it. I regret so much and I simply can’t go back and change anything, and I’m not given any leniency for being terminally ill. I think that’s the part that hurts the most. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been sick for nearly six years, that I have a terminal blood disease or need a new heart. I’m still held to the same standard as I would be if I were perfectly healthy, and I just can’t live up to those standards. So, I’m always a failure in one way or another to one, two, three, or all of them…
This all sounds like a huge pity party, and maybe it is, I don’t really care. I’m alone, I’m lonely, I’ve made attempts to make friends, I’ve gone to church, I’ve tried to socialize, I try to stay in contact with people and not just drop off the face of the earth. But I can tell you none of that has helped me make a single friend or find a single person who will come to my home and visit with me when I need someone or I can’t get out. I pray for God to give me patience, understanding, wisdom, peace, and so far I’m still struggling with all those things with no hope of figuring out how to get closer to any of them.
So, it makes sense why people just throw in the towel of their marriage and say they can’t do it anymore. Being the caregiver has to suck, especially when you never know when you’re going to do or say the wrong thing. And being the sick person is like a slow a torture that you can do nothing to make end. You know I often ask myself what I did to deserve all this…
Actually it will be our 11th visit to Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota since September of 2014. Ironically nine of those trips have been between 4/2016 and 6/2018, so that averages out to a visit every 2.888888 months. If you drove, it’s about 825 miles, one way, and if you never had to stop for gas or a potty break you could make the trip in about 12 hours; I think the fastest we ever made it was 15 hours. To fly is a little easier, but in order for it to be affordable you have to fly from CPR to DEN to MSP, then rent a car and drive an hour and 20 minutes south to get to Rochester. One might say…Why fly out of Casper, drive down to Denver and then fly directly into Rochester, surely that would have to be easier and cheaper? <insert evil laugh here> NOT! Oh if it were as easy as you thought. Here’s how it would go…assuming there is no traffic, it would take approximately four hours to drive about 280 miles to DEN, then your flight itinerary would go something like this, DEN to SLC to MSP to RST, and the cost of your ticket would be no less, but you’d have serious parking fees at DEN when you got back, don’t forget about the toll, and you might need some gas along the way.