My Life for Better and Worse

I didn't write this for anyone to feel sorry for me. I just wanted to write this because it happened in my life and that I got through it all. I am remembering the past in my life.

My life has always been kind of a mess. I seemed to always be struggling with my relationships with everybody and I still am to this day. When we were first married, we were very poor. We lived in a small one bedroom home that we rented for $20 a month and we could not even afford to pay that. We had a fridge my grandma gave us, an old rickety table, an old stove, a bed with squeaky springs, a lumpy mattress and manual washer. I had to hang clothes out on the line and they would freeze in the winter and be stiff.We could not even afford to heat the house. I had to turn on the oven and keep the door open and sit in front of it. We ended having to move out of the house into my parents home and if it would not have been for them, we would never have made it. Alex eventually got work and a home at a dairy farm which was hard work with little pay, but at least we were on our own for once. And he finally got good job and we moved to a better place.

The rest of my life was spent raising kids and working hard for our family. I loved being a mom and canning and cooking and our garden. Alex and I enjoyed square dancing. But with that came other things, Alex drinking and my trying to keep things together while this was going on. My health was bad a great deal of the time. I suffered from ulcerative colitis and it nearly killed me the first time I got it. I had bouts over and over again through the years.

Alex did stop drinking eventually and things got better. He has always been good to me and his drinking was demon he had to deal with. Also, my baby Matt was born with a heart defect.Fast forward to 2002. I suffered very bad herniated disks in my back which kept me in extreme and constant pain. I spent most of my time lying on the bed with an ice pack on my back curled in a fetal position. The pain was so bad that I spent a great deal of time just crying. I still managed to go to work and I don't know how I did that but it was through sheer determination. Then my knee went out and the bone was rubbing. So in that time in late 2002 and early 2003, I had another episode of colitis and two back surgeries and a complete knee replacement.At that same time, my mother, who spent most of her life being sick, was put in the hospital with bowel obstruction and she got pneumonia and died in 6 days of being hospitalized. I was still recovering from the knee surgery. I then had episodes of extreme depression and crying spells. The Dr. had to get me on something which didn't work and so he tried something else, and it was better. Then in late summer of 2003, I had a hard time walking and was dizzy all the time and extremely tired. I had an MRI and was told I had MS. I had to go a neurologist. I had to take shots for it. Then in Sept, my dad died suddenly. Another death to deal with. But I still had my Alex to help me through this, but it was very hard all the same. And also, my cousin who just turned 60 died of cancer in 2003.

Alex had suffered bad sleep apnea for years. We did not at the time know how bad it can be on your health. He also had bad arthritis problems and had to have both knees replaced. And if that wasn't enough, he had to have it done again due to the fact the knee parts were bad. The 2nd time he nearly died and I was at work knowing that he might die any minute from a bad infection he got at the hospital.Well, he eventually got better and he retired and Iworked. We were hoping to travel when I finally got to quit working. I had asked him many times to do something about his sleep apnea but he just never would. All of his physical exams came back with flying colors. He had lower cholesterol than I did.One the morning of April 9, 2009, I found him on the floor dead. It was so sudden and was just numb for a while. We had a trip planned with Marty and Cherise. The autopsy showed he must have had untreated high blood pressure for many years which had damage his heart and probably cause it to go into a dangerous arrhythmia. When that happens, the heart shakes and doesn't beat and the body is starved of oxygen. The Dr. never told him he had high blood pressure so maybe it only happened at night when he was sleeping. I know his sleep apnea contributed to this because every night he would gasp for air.After burying him and going back to work, I had to deal with people who just did not understand death and all the things I was going through and they said they were tired of looking me being so sad and I should just get over it. This was really hard. And then the stupid irrigation water came down and flooded my basement and I had to pay a lot to get it drained. I did have Marty and my kids to help me through this. And in August of that same year, my Sparky got killed in the road.During the months before and after Alex death, I had to deal with all of my mom and dad's issues. I had to take care of their insurance, the finances, calling agencies to report their death, having to do this at work because the businesses were not open when I was off work and I did it during my lunch and I still got in trouble because I had to use the phone at my desk and manager didn't know I was on my break.

I had to deal with a crazy sister and try to keep the family together and from fighting and keep up getting money from the shop my dad sold and then try to get the owners to pay it off so I didn't have to deal with it. I had to do my parents income tax and work with Realtors and listen to family back fight and be rude to each other. I had to have the plumbing fixed in my dad's house when the pipes broke. Some of this I dealt with while Alex was alive, but I was dealing with a lot things after his death. I had to do this while I was still in mourning and having family and co-workers and everybody on my case. I had to take care of getting items that belonged to my parents split among my siblings and having them complain that they didn't get what they wanted etc. Somehow I got through and I am sure the Lord and Alex himself (yes I felt his spirit) was with me or would not have made it. Somehow it all got worked out.Then the loneliness really came. I was busy before that I didn't time for myself or even to think. My MS seemed to have gone in remission which was good, but I had shoulder problems and many headaches to deal with and more surgeries.My kids went with me on vacations that helped me with some of the loneliness I felt.

I joined SR Citizens and went places and that helped a little but most of those people were much older than I was. I went places with aunt Beverly. I got high speed Internet to help me with my loneliness and to pass the time. I met Randy and things are much better now. I still have to deal with family things and I guess I always will but Randy and my kids have helped a lot and I only hope they know that when things get bad but I can usually work through them and I hope our family can try to get along better. So my life has never been peaceful or without conflict you see. I guess that's what life is meant to be.