Moments of Life

When your loved one is really sick it’s heartbreaking. It’s even more heartbreaking when they have to go in to hospice. When my Grandma Rose was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, we knew that it was time to say our good byes. My Grandma Rose had many heart problems. She had two open heart surgeries sixteen years apart. My grandma was 88 years old. She also had Alzheimer’s disease. Her health had been declining over the last few years of her life. She was in the hospital on and off. We knew that she would need hospice care. She was in assisted living before she went to the hospital but with the new diagnosis and her age, there wasn’t really much the doctors could do. My Grandma Rose was a very strong person. She was a fighter. There were times that we were told by her doctors to say good bye before surgeries. She always made it out unscathed. My family felt comfort knowing that since she was in hospice that she would be taken care of and made comfortable. My Grandma lived such an amazing life. She had a loving husband, a great family, many friends and she helped anyone she could. We knew we weren’t giving up, we were just making the last days of her life the best they could be.

You sometimes know when it’s time for them to go to Heaven. As much as you don’t want it to happen, it does.  She had family visiting with her every day. She needed medical care but, being in the hospital wasn’t something she liked. Being in the hospital was not ideal, it would have been too heartbreaking and difficult for her to be at a family member’s home, because she needed extra care that we weren’t trained to do.  It was challenging with her Alzheimer’s, because she didn’t know what was going on at all. We made sure to find a great hospice program for her. It was affiliated with the catholic hospital which is important to my Grandma Rose. Her faith was number one.

I will never forget the last time I saw my Grandma Rose. It was so hard for me because she was my best friend. When it was time for me to leave, I said I love you Grandma. She said I love you more. That was our special thing that we had been doing for years. I feel like God gave me a special gift because it was like there was no Alzheimer’s disease. There was no who are you or what am I doing here? It was just us. As soon as I walked out of the room, I started bawling. It was such a hard and sad moment and on the other hand something that I hold very dear to my heart. She was able to be herself to every family member that day.  I knew she was in good hands. The day my grandma passed away, we knew that she was probably going to heaven that night. I decided not to be there when it happened. I was not taking this well. My mom and aunt were holding her hands when she took her last breath. My mom called me and there was an ocean of tears.

Sometimes when your loved one goes in to hospice, they still have a whole lot of living to do. There isn’t a time limit for them. There is no expiration date stamp. There is a misconception with hospice as giving up, it's not though.  Hospice can enrich their lives. They can learn new skills and be always greeted with a smile. Sometimes in the hospital, the staff doesn’t always have a smile on their faces. People who work in hospice want to be there. They have a passion for their patients. Many times being at home is not possible without medical training.  Most people hate to be in the hospital or even visit them. With hospice it’s like home with many caring people by their side. 

Moments of Life

The goal of Moments of Life: Made Possible by Hospice is to educate the public about the choices we all have when facing a life-limiting illness, and how choosing hospice is not ‘giving up.

 

Optum

Optum is a leading information and technology-enabled health services business dedicated to helping make the health system work better for everyone. With more than 50,000 people worldwide, Optum delivers intelligent, integrated solutions that help to modernize the health system and improve overall population health, including palliative and hospice care for

   

For more information on what to expect from hospice check out Moments of Life.

Kindergarten Update

Noah is half way through Kindergarten. Where has all the time gone? It seems like only yesterday he was a newborn in my arms. Time flies when you are having fun. I wanted to talk about how he's doing in school. I really like his teachers a lot and I couldn't have asked for better teachers for him. I am so happy that he is in the class he is in. The kids in his class are all really awesome too. He is blessed that he has such a great class. He is doing great in school. He reads at a second grade level. He is really good at math, very advanced and loves to learn. He is an awesome kid and I am so proud of him. He is full of questions and loves space and sea life and is really great. I feel blessed and lucky that he is my son.

Choose Your Friends Wisely

I mentioned in my peer pressure post, I would talk about a girl I once knew.  I met this girl when we were in sixth grade and became friends; she was really shy but seemed really nice. Somewhere in seventh grade we weren’t friends anymore.  We both went through school without any interaction, we went to a huge school so it was possible and we didn’t have any classes together. We were never enemies, or got in verbal confrontations, she became a girl I would occasionally hear her name and maybe possibly see her in the hall. We both moved on with our lives and then in 2007 we became reacquainted. At first it was weird, because she didn’t really care for me much, but holding on to something that happened in the sixth grade is just silly. We became friends again; I wouldn’t consider that we were really close. She spent a lot of time with some of my other friends so we hung out. She and I hung out just us maybe three times to this day.  Shortly after this happened we moved to Florida, we still stayed in touch, because I hadn’t seen the big fireworks going off warning me to run for the hills.

I knew she had some issues with her ex, and stuff like that, I could relate to her in that respect. I knew that she was hurting and I wanted to reach out and be her friend. I remember a specific time that she threatened to call the cops on me, because I didn’t agree with the legal advice some lady was giving her. She wasn’t a lawyer, she actually didn’t know what she was talking about at all. So, this girl and I stopped talking, I can’t be mixed up in that. I am a mom and I don’t have time to really deal with this kind of behavior and then she called me. She used her “wounded animal” voice and I stupidly started talking to her again. This time she thought she was pregnant; well she always thought she was pregnant.

I felt sorry for her, she completely down spiraled from there.  She would meet these guys that were no good, she even went as far as trying to change her ultrasound from the child she miscarried to fake a pregnancy, which she later said it was a miscarriage. I have had a miscarriage and that really upset me and made me very angry. I started ignoring her calls, texts, ims you name it, I ignored it. That was not ok. I found out through mutual friends that she had been engaging in criminal activities. She would call the police at a drop of a hat, and it even got to the point where she cried wolf so many times, the police didn’t believe her anymore.  I was suckered in to talking to her a few more times, I felt bad, I wanted to help. You can’t help someone who won’t help themselves. I honestly still feel bad for her, but my family comes first. I can’t have someone who is engaging in behaviors where I could get in trouble and go to jail or worse around me or my family. I don’t want to be innocently going to the mall or out to eat with her and land in jail for her actions. That is not someone I want to be a role model. I know that it’s her life and her choices but personally, I can’t have that around me.

As I said before, I believe that you have the right to pick your own friends, but be careful and watch out for the warning signs that something might not be right. I would hate for any of you to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and regret it.

A Hard Parenting Moment

I recently wrote a post about letting people go.  Well, several nights ago Noah and I were talking, it was late, he had a cold and he started talking about my dad.  It broke my heart, without going in to personal details, basically he was saying things like I wish I could meet Grandpa. He is almost six and has never met my dad. He lives in England with his new wife and it just is far away. I haven’t seen my dad since before I found out I was pregnant with Noah.  Noah kept saying things like where is Grandpa? How far is England? Why haven’t I met him?  I didn’t have the heart to say anything. He went on to make a plan to go see him. He calculated every detail of the trip out to me.  I just went a long with it.  I felt the tears falling down my face because it made my heart hurt so badly.  We have never had the best relationship and again without getting in to all the personal details he has hurt me many times in my life, more than I can count. I had known this for a long time and it is who he is, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.  I was really hesitant to let him back in my life and now Noah’s life back in 2007.  It is really hard because he’s my dad. My five year old doesn’t know, it is sad that he hasn’t met him.  I already have seen him disappoint Noah and continue to disappoint me. I used to wonder if I did something wrong, if I wasn’t good enough growing up? I wondered if it was my fault. 

So, what do I say? I mean I am definitely not going to say the truth to my five year old. I don’t want him to know, if that makes sense. I guess I will just have to go along with it for now and not make any promises. It is not like he has made any effort to see us. He invited us out there when Noah was two.  That’s a long way from home and I would be worried something would happen and we would be on the streets in England to fend for ourselves.  He has never offered to come here once. When he was living in the states, he never offered to see us.  We actually moved to be closer to him and he took off to England.  He has never heard Noah’s voice other than on videos. He doesn’t call, Skype or anything. Noah has seen two pictures of him.  It makes me so sad, because who could want to not meet my sweet little boy. He is amazing and so smart.  It has really turned in to a very stressful and hurtful thing for me so I decided to just let him go. Let him have his life in England and all that and hope he is happy, but I can’t let him hurt us anymore. My heart can’t take it, I don’t want Noah’s heart to hurt or ever feel unloved  by him like I did for almost my entire life.  It just really stinks because Noah is asking about Grandpa all the time now and I know he is genuinely just a kid wanting to see someone he loves.

Investing in Noah's Future

Noah is starting kindergarten in the fall, where has all the time gone?  It seems like just yesterday he was a baby.  Now that I have registered him for school, and soon will be buying him school supplies and paying book rental and sending him on the bus, it has me thinking about the future. I have always thought about the future but I really need to start some kind of college fund for him so when he graduates high school, he can go to college.  I am not going to be a parent that relies on a scholarship for my son. I have faith that he is smart enough to get one but you never know.  I know that he is very advanced for his age but I need to be proactive about this.  I need to sit down and look in to investing my money in to something that can provide for Noah’s future if he goes to college or not.  I want to check out purchasing some walking liberty half dollars.  I was always told that gold and silver were both a good investment. 

My dad gave me a couple pieces of silver when I was in Jr. High and I still have them both.  I couldn’t tell you where they are, but I still have them tucked away somewhere.  I thought it was really cool that he gave them to me.  I could have sold them at a pawn shop or something, but I kept them for a rainy day. I think I might pass them down to Noah when he gets older.  You know I am big on heirlooms and by the time he is an adult, they will be over 25 years old. I know some of you might be thinking he’s only 5 now and I have time, the last 5 years has flown by so I am assuming the faster I get on the ball I am able to help him go to the college of his dreams.  He wants to be so many different things, it changes all the time so who knows what he will do with his life.  I just need to check out a company like Independent Living Bullion to start investing in Noah’s college fund while he is still young.  The longer you have the more likely you are to be able to do something like this.  I have big dreams and hopes for Noah to be whatever he wants and will help him achieve his goals in life.

Do you invest in anything? Do you have college funds for your children?

Sometimes You Just Have to Let Them Go.....

One of the hardest things is letting go. It is important to let go those that have hurt us repeatedly. Those people who do not have your best interest at heart, those that think of only themselves.  Unfortunately, I have a big heart. I say unfortunately because as I am aware it is a great thing, it is also a curse at the same time.  I look for the good in people as I have mentioned before, but sometimes you can’t find good in everyone. There are bad people in this world that want to hurt you, that don’t really care about you and it sucks.  Sometimes you just hit your complete breaking point and you have to just cut your losses, cut ties and hopefully learn something in the process.  Losing someone is never easy; you end up mourning the loss of a friendship or a loss of a relationship with a family member.  You go through a grieving period and it hurts. I will always care about those people, but my heart can’t take the pain that they caused. It is really hard for me to stop caring about someone.

 Sometimes I wonder if I gave too many chances, maybe I would see a difference, maybe they would change. The truth is you have to accept someone for who they are, not for what you see them to be. I really need to stop looking at a person’s potential and see them for what they really are. I guess I expect more in people, and when I find out I was wrong, I become disappointed in them.  I don’t expect much, I expect someone to be caring, compassionate, loving, and kind. It is so hard to know what kind of person someone is. You don’t want to push everyone away because people have hurt you in the past, but there is no way of really knowing.  It would be a lot easier if I had an eggdacator like in Willy Wonka, that would tell me if they were a bad egg or not.  If only I could line everyone up and have them step on the machine and see what happens.  If they were a bad egg, like Veruca Salt, down the garbage chute they would go.  I have learned there is not good in everyone. Something must have happened to make them this way.  Some people are just bitter jerks.  It has taken me a long time to learn this.

The worst feeling in the world is when you find out a family member is this way.  Especially when you have given your all to make things work, devoted so much time and energy to be there and when you find out who they really are, it is just like a slap in the face. Maybe I had hoped you changed, and it didn’t happen. There is just so much pain you can take before it eats you alive and you just can’t allow that person to hurt you anymore.  I guess you get to a point where the emotional pain is normal; it really messes with your other relationships and human dynamics.  Hope is a funny thing, it is good to have hope, but sometimes too much hope can distort your reality and make you hurt in the long run.  Some say you are in control of how you feel, and that you only allow someone make you feel a certain way, that is true, but there are a couple exceptions to the rules, one being when it comes to family. You spend your whole life looking up to someone, loving them, trying as hard as you can to have that relationship and bond with them and then one day you come to find out that they never cared and it was all a sham.  One of the quotes from Fools Rush In that I think about is “Love is a gift, not an obligation.” That basically means if it is a gift to love someone and be loved, not something you do because you have to.  I just feel like they were obligated and all those words and memories were a lie, because actions speak louder than words.

 I am not sure I can remember a time where I thought wow, he really loves me, I am sure there was one but it is just weird I can’t remember it.  I think that is the hardest truth to understand.  Now, it is time to let go of all of the pain and the hurt and the sorrow.  It’s time to live a happy life full of laughter and love, and put all that suffering behind me and leave those who have hurt me behind, no matter how hard that might be.  I am at peace with my decision, it probably is something I should have done a long time ago, but that little imp called Hope was playing a trick on me again. It’s good to hope, just don’t hope yourself in to a bad situation, see people for who they are, not what you potentially see in them, use caution and set a limit and once the limit exists be brave enough to just let them go.

I will instead of becoming a bitter person, and giving up hope on humanity, and losing my faith in those kind people, I will still take those chances and open my heart up; I will be a little more guarded about who I associate with.