The last post I made before my world exploded was on December 1, 2020. They’d gotten my husband’s pain under control and I’d managed to get a hospital bed delivered. I was there 8 – 12 hours a day, as the nurses were extremely understaffed and could not care for him properly. I was given dispensation after the hospital closed due to the pandemic to be there as much as I could. I was doing much of their work for them, and keeping him safe.
He was coming home at noon on Monday, December 14th. Sometime between 7 PM when I left Sunday night and midnight, he fell because he was unsupervised and broke his neck in the hospital.
He was transferred to a larger hospital south of me and I found out at 7AM Monday morning, long after it happened. I fought my way into the closed (due to pandemic) hospital and stayed with him until evening. On Tuesday, December 15th I got him out of there and home.
The above photo was taken on the 20th. The Silliman family rallied around me and we provided 24 hour care. I never did get any services at all, even though I had started trying for them 2 weeks before he came home. He required meds every 40 minutes to 1 hour, 24/7. And we did it all. Hospice was there for us, but could not provide relief at night. They went above and beyond to keep him comfortable throughout.
My sister in New Mexico kept the family updated, bought Christmas presents for me and my husband to give each other, and found needed items.
Friends kept me fed, (I lost 20 lbs the first month in October), transported me where I needed to go, and help keep the farm and contractors working while I was at the hospital each day.
This was the 20th and we had hopes of a white Christmas.
But alas, it rained on Christmas.
All I had managed to do was get lights up in the windows and get my Christmas music set up. No tree, no stockings, and no decorations besides the arch my intern and I made in early December.
These are the lights on Christmas Day. The light in the greenhouse window was left on 24/7 once he was home. It still burns 24/7…
He fought up until about 2 - 3 hours before he died at 3:25 PM on Christmas Day. The Sillimans gave him a Christmas concert in early afternoon, and he relaxed afterwards and a couple hours later he was gone.
He was taken for cremation that evening after we washed him and dressed him in his favorite clothes.
I had already been dealing with an enormous amount of paperwork while at the hospital with him. I knew when he went, I’d HAVE to have a large area to organize all the paperwork and my tiny office upstairs would not work.
So on the 27th Sillimans and friends came and moved my office to the old living room and set it up.
My friend Ginger, on left, provided the light relief. Rachel on right provided the organizational skills and muscle power. Tom, center, provided support in any area as needed.
My intern was photographer and “straight man” to Ginger’s jokes, plus helping as needed.
By the end of the day, my computer was running (thanks to Tom), I had an 8’ table to sort paperwork on, and my desk was ready to set up.
The work was well supervised.
We’d ended up with 2 beds as the one I had gotten wasn’t what he needed by the time he got home. Hospice got him what he needed by the day after he came home. The cat spent most of her time on the beds with him.
A friend sent her a catnip bed to comfort her and she took right to it.
When the 2nd bed was taken away, she transferred to the first bed until it left about 10 days later.
My intern drew these 3 pictures of the stages of the house building over the decades. They were her Christmas present to me.
We put them up with the photos of the farm when we bought it in 1983. I tried to stay busy with help from friends. It was better than crying all the time. Though I’ve done a huge amount of that…
I had wanted to get a wall of the family photos up and she helped me do this the day before New Year’s. Ginger had found the photo in center of my husband on her phone and sent it to me. The 2 in the lower left are the Sillimans.
I had more photos I wanted to add to the wall, but these were the ones ready to hang.
And so I ended the horrible year of 2020.