I have wanted to write this post for a long time but I have been too chicken.  But many people have said that God must have a purpose in keeping Bob alive.  Maybe the purpose is so I will write on this subject?! Now that I have your attention, let me update you on Bob's condition first.  He is down to 126 pounds, but he seemed to be choking some, so my favorite nurse suggested that they puree his food.  He seems to be eating a bit better since then, but I am still allowed to give him Teddy Grahams, which he seems to like now. There is still a lot of blood in his urine, and now he is passing blood clots.  But to look at him, you wouldn't know anything is wrong, and he still has a very firm grasp on my hand.  On Father's Day when our son Ron was there, he even batted a balloon a little.  

Now for the juicy part.  When I went on the trip to Maryland, I was able to stop by the church where we got married.  Looking at it made me remember all over again why I married Bob.  In addition to his regular job, he was caretaker of the church, both inside and out.  He kept flowers planted in the summer.  It is the church where, with my father officiating we said our vows: "For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as we both shall live."  I posted the picture on Facebook, and there were 84 reactions to it.  Some comments also mentioned that they too had been married in that church.  And one comment I laughed at said that it was on the porch of that church where she first saw women with no seam up the back of their nylons!  Such scandal!  What would old people think of the bare legs today?!  But seeing the church sparked other memories for me.  After church, after everyone was gone, Bob would lock up the church.  A friend of his had a convertible and 6 of us would pile into it.  Bob and I always sat in the front seat, as it was a bench seat!  We would go to the Hot Shoppes on Edmondson Avenue, and Bob would buy everyone lunch.  I will send this blog to Sid, another occupant of the car!  After lunch, they would drive Bob and I back to the church, and go on their way.  The church wasn't air conditioned, but Bob had carefully turned on the window air conditioner in the pastors study before we left so it was nice and cool.  We spent the afternoon there.  Maybe the windows steamed up, I don't know.  We had decided not to have premarital sex, so we left our clothes on.  And that is all I am going to say about that.  A year later after our wedding and the reception in the annex, we were out on that same porch when the old German man that was going to take Bob's place came up to him and asked if Bob was going to stay and clean up the church.  Um, NO!  We were anxious to go get a room!  We headed toward the destination of our first job in Hinsdale, Illinois pulling a small U-Haul with all our earthly possessions.  We stopped at the first motel we saw on the Pennsylvania turnpike, and fortunately it was a nice one.  One of the church ladies that had taken Bob under her wing and was like a surrogate mother to him had told him since I would have a filmy negligee (I did) that he should have a nightshirt, which he dutifully put on.  A few days after we got to our new apartment a package came in the mail.  It was the nightshirt that we had left at the motel and we hadn't even missed it!  He never wore it again.  And that is all I'm going to say about that.  

Now to the real subject of this post.  The Creator made male and female and it is normal to long for the the companionship of the opposite sex.  But as it does with everything, Alzheimer's turns everything upside down.  I think of a book I read early in our journey into Alzheimer's.  The title is "Jan's Story", and the author is her husband, Barry Petersen.  Some of you may remember him as a correspondent for CBS news.  Jan was a vibrant, active, and healthy lady who was also a correspondent for CBS news.  They traveled extensively together.  Then Barry started seeing changes in Jan, and thought, just like I did with Bob, that it was only jet lag.  Then came the diagnosis, and Jan was only 55.  Since it was early onset, it progressed rapidly.  Long story short, Barry met another lady, and they became a couple.  Jan was in a facility by that time, but Barry still watched over her lovingly and they became a three-some.  At the time, I remember thinking "How could he do that?" But as the years have passed, and the long good-bye of Alzheimer's drags on, I have learned not to judge anyone.  I belong to 2 support groups.  One is for the widowers and widows; have I mentioned how much I hate that word?  It reminds me of a spider.  I am so glad that they invited me to join their group as we went through so much together.  Several of their spouses died during Covid.  I have seen how different people handle the need for companionship.  Sometimes as soon as the spouse dies, some will get on Match.com.  Others will wait awhile.  And some people I know have gotten happily remarried.  The consensus in that group seems to be that most would like to have a friend to go to dinner with, but not get married again, and I think I fall in that category.  I know Bob was always faithful to me even though he traveled a lot and I have always been faithful to him. But I am going to go see the Elvis movie tomorrow.  Now if Elvis wanted to make passionate love to me (HA, HA) could I resist the wiles of the devil?!  Oh wait!  He would be 80 plus years old, and not such a pretty picture anymore!  The point I am trying to get across is, don't condemn someone until you have walked in their moccasins. 

I terribly miss the Bob that was Bob.  We always held hands wherever we went.  Except church, when we were going in opposite directions to our various duties, arms weighed down with "stuff".  Now when I see a couple walking along holding hands, I almost get misty-eyed.  We had "to have and to hold" for many years, and I am so blessed by that.  I cherish the memories, and if you still have your beloved, please give them an extra kiss tonight.

Betty

 I am in a "devil-may-care" mood today.  Some of you have said you appreciate me being transparent.  So hang on to your hats, here we go!

When I wrote the last blog, Bob had had a urinary tract infection that continued even after a round of antibiotics.  I had a trip coming up that I planned in January, and I agonized over taking the trip, even up to the day before.  I was afraid he would get septic and pass while I was gone.  But the nurse at Hillside told me to go and they would take good care of Bob, and I knew they would.  And I decided that he would want me to go, so I did.  I planned to see his relatives, that were starting to deal with the problems that come with aging.  Some of you know about those, don't you?! We had a cookout the Sunday before Memorial Day.  We needed Bob there to tell his stories.  Usually Bob was the life of the party, and as he didn't drink, he had to carry the party until the others got drunk enough to start talking!  Fortunately we have some of those stories recorded for posterity, first on VHS, and then I had them transferred to a DVD.  I could tell you some of those stories, but I draw the curtain here.  But they were all true...And I got to go to the Eastern Shore of Maryland which is much different from mainland Maryland.  Bob's family all came from there and the town of Woolford is where his ancestors came from.  I got to go to the Old Trinity Church, built in 1675.  It is the oldest church in the USA that is still in use.  The graveyard surrounding the church has many headstones with the name "Woolford", some from the 1600s and some illegible.  When Bob passes, I will take some of his ashes and scatter in the peaceful river that runs right by the church.  I also was able to take more time on this trip and see things I had never seen before, such as Aunt Kate's house, and another Woolford cemetery that we happened on accidentally.  We also visited a Victorian house where I lived as a teenager in Chestertown.  It is a historic, quaint old town, that has many beautiful homes built in the 1700s.  It also has a college there that was started in the 1700s, Washington College.  All the houses there have been kept up, including the one I lived in 63 years ago.  Unfortunately I didn't appreciate it like I should have, as the house didn't have air conditioning.

And I got to see my forever friend Marian, who lives in Hagerstown.  We have been friends since I walked into a new school on my 16th birthday, having moved from beautiful Coeur d'Alene (heart of the mountains) Idaho to Baltimore.  Of course I was shy and afraid, but she immediately came up to me and from that moment on we "clicked"!  We have kept in touch through the years and have seen each other a lot.  I miss all the historical things to do in Maryland.  I got to see Antietam (Civil War battlefield and an old favorite), Annapolis (the Capitol of Maryland and oozing with history), Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania (a new site for me, and totally worth seeing).  

I flew home at midnight Wednesday, and went to see Bob Friday and for several hours today.  He is the same as when I left, but there is still a lot of blood in his urine.  Of course I worked in a hospital, and all the UTIs that came in untreated had turned to sepsis.  So something else must be going on.  But as I said last month,  I am not going to put him through going to the hospital and through a battery of tests to see what it is.  I just wonder how long he can go on loosing this much blood.  He is like the energizer bunny--he just keeps on going!  And he still doesn't seem to be in pain.  If he is in pain, he would let people know it.  When I try to cut his fingernails (a podiatrist does his toenails) and I get to close to the "quick" he lets me know with a vehement OUCH!

Okay, here comes the shockers, and you can agree or disagree!  I have come to the conclusion that to he** with the healthy eating and exercising.  In the end it doesn't pay as you can't die.  As I have said before, Bob belonged to an online rowing club and he used the rowing machine 2 hours a day.  Why torture yourself??  He fell off the "wagon of healthy eating" once when he discovered Ben and Jerry's ice cream in Vermont.  He even had it shipped to Kansas on dry ice before it was carried in stores here.  Then he decided that it was counterproductive to his exercising and he gave it up.  Look!  He could have enjoyed it all these years!  In the end, SOMETHING is going to get you.  I saw all this tongue in cheek, as I am playing pickleball twice a week and do yoga to try to stay healthy.  So saying,  I have succumbed to the wiles of coffee flavored Haagen Dazs and I am going to enjoy it!

The other thing people don't like to mention is the financial aspect.  But I have seen people in the support wrestle with it, spend down so they could get on Medicaid, and go bankrupt.  BTW, in Kansas, the wife's 401K is protected in that spend down, but just a few miles away in Missouri it is not.  Not fair!  Some of the members have moved to Kansas to get around that.  And forget putting it in your children's names.  There is a 6 year look back for people that try that.  We have a wonderful stock broker and financial advisor, but I know how Bob felt in the 2008 downturn.  The cost per month where he is is between $7300 and $7500 a month, depending on how many days are in the month.  And that is because the facility is rural.  In the closer suburbs it is much higher, with generally much less care.  If Bob knew those facts, he would have a heart attack or if there was a plug to pull, he would pull it.  And the downturn in our portfolio last month was enough to give me a heart attack.  Along with the price of gas to go see him 3 times a week.  But that is important to me, and I will keep it up.  

Well, today started out bright and sunny, but now it is grey and overcast with another chance of rain, which is fine because the yard sprinkler system is broken and they are waiting for parts.  At least maybe this has brightened your day!  Again, tongue in cheek!

Betty

 It has been said that "true love travels on a gravel road."  I can hear Elvis singing it now.  But since my last blog the road on this Alzheimer's journey has not been gravel, it has been rocky.  And not the delicious rocky road ice cream with all the little marshmallows!  

Yesterday when I visited Bob, he had had a grandmal seizure again, and was totally nonresponsive.  He hasn't had one in quite awhile.  But today I just came from feeding him lunch (not much success).  True to his usual form, he was much more alert after the seizure, and it usually remains that way for several days.  But the bigger problem is blood in his urine.  They got a urine specimen, with culture and sensitivity to see what antibiotics would help.  The results were that he had a big infection.  This is the third one he has had, which is amazing as he has been incontinent for a long time.  Antibiotics worked before, so I okayed a round of them to be given orally.  That has been my criteria before, as when an IV is started, it is sometimes the beginning of a slippery slope of going beyond measures that you want to do.  I remember when we filled out our advance directives (living wills), I put a big question mark where it said "would you want to be given antibiotics" and so he followed suit.  But now the round of antibiotics is over, and after a few days of clear urine there is blood in the urine again, and quite a lot of it.  I have been agonizing over whether to okay the start of another round of antibiotics and I have decided not to.  One of the big reasons is I know that Bob would not want to continue living like this.  I wish the decision would be made easier by him not being able to swallow, but he is still drinking well.  I have been taking big glasses of grapefruit juice (his favorite) and cranberry juice for him to drink.  Hillside Village has offered to call hospice, but I am so comfortable with their care, that I have opted not to.  He was on hospice for 3 years and they are wonderful. Under their guidelines, he would not be given antibiotics, and so now I will choose to let those help me. 

Another thing that makes me comfortable with my decision (and I know I alone have to be comfortable with it), is that Bob doesn't seem to be in any pain.  There may be something going on besides the infection, but I don't want him put through a battery of tests to find it.  A urinary tract infection is usually painful enough in its own right!  I have done an informal survey of others in my support group, other friends, hospice nurse friends, and they all say that they have never seen someone with Alzheimer's in pain.  Maybe the part of the brain that senses pain is numbed by Alzheimer's?  If so, that is the only good part of Alzheimer's I have found. 

So I end this month's blog by saying I have placed Bob in God's hands.  I have been praying for God to direct this path, so I must take one day and one step at a time.  Please keep us in your prayers.

Betty 

 I recently read a book "In Love"written by Amy Bloom and it inspired this blog.  The book was riveting to me and I read it in about 3 hours.  I couldn't put it down!  She married Brian Ameche, who had played football at Yale and then became a architect of renown. Their marriage was the second marriage for each of them and they were deeply in love.  They had been married for 14 years when they both started noticing subtle changes in Brian's personality and thought process.  After the devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer's, Brian immediately said he wanted to die on his feet, not kneeling down, and he was going to find a way to do it.  But then he told Amy he was putting her in charge of that, because he trusted her judgment so much.  And because she was a writer, he wanted her to write about it.  At first she told him she would do neither.  But he was so determined and so persistent, that she started researching ways for assisted suicide.  First she found that the 9 states in the United States that allow it have such stringent guidelines, such as being a resident of that state, that it made it next to impossible.  She researched other options such as drowning, but none of them seemed satisfactory, and she would have to be careful not to assist so she wouldn't be prosecuted as an accomplice.  In the end, she found Dignitas, a non profit organization in Zurich, Switzerland that would also help people from other countries, and that had already done over 1000 assisted suicides.  There were stringent guidelines, referrals, and paperwork to be completed that was daunting, along with the travel to Zurich and the $10,000 fee.  But they jumped through all the hoops, and the story of them saying good-bye to family (they told them what they were going to do), the trip there, and the days they spent together there are heart wrenching.  But then the day came, and Brian, still fully aware of what he was doing, drank the Sodium Pentobarbital concoction and died in her arms.  It makes me think of Jack Kevorkian, a pathologist in Michigan in the 1990s who helped at least 130 people commit assisted suicide, though probably from incurable diseases such as cancer.

The book stirred many emotions for me.  I am sure Bob knew what was happening long before he would admit it.  After he retired, I would come home and he would tell me who he talked to on the phone that day.  I was amazed at how he could track many of them down, with all the phone numbers.  Was he calling them to say good-bye?  And many people have told me in later years that he called them too, and just chatted for an hour (or two!)  And is his not eating now somehow in the back of his mind like an assisted suicide?  I can't really believe that he is able to reason that much, but who knows?  He is losing 2-3 pounds a month and is down to 128 pounds.  My mother, when she had to go to a nursing home decided she didn't want to live any more.  So she stopped eating.  But that didn't last long.  Maybe because the doctor asked me if I wanted a feeding tube placed.  I told him, "Ask her, she is totally with it!"  When he asked, she told him most definitely not!  And then she started eating again...Two nurses separately told me that when I wasn't there she was the life of the party.  She was just making me feel guilty for putting her in a nursing home.  But by now, I think I have worked through the guilt of putting both her and Bob in a facility.  To have done otherwise would have been impossible.

 I remember Robin Williams, who suffered alone with depression for many years.  He died by his own hand by hanging, when he found out he had Lewy Body dementia.  How could someone who made so many people laugh come to such a tragic end?  Even King David of Biblical fame probably suffered from depression.  I heard it said that if he had been on medication, the Psalms would never have been written.  One day he was "Oh Lord how mighty thou art" and the next day he was saying "Oh God where are you?"  I said much earlier in one of my blogs that I take medication for depression.  And to those who say that I don't have faith and trust in God because I take medication, I would say "God helps those who help themselves, and shows them how to navigate this complex life." My sister, on a high cycle, declared herself cured of bipolar disease, stopped taking her medication for it, plunged into the depths of despair and committed suicide within days.  

So, in closing, I ask that you be kind to those you come in contact with.  So many friends right now are trying to navigate the care of their spouse or loved one with dementia and they are overwhelmed.  The Alzheimer's office that was such a great help to me in the beginning has been closed since COVID started, and the caregivers don't even know where to start.  But everyone is fighting a battle that you don't know about, so please, just be kind. 

Betty

 Recently I listened to a series of 5 sermons about doubt from a local pastor.  Those sermons inspired the content of this blog.  I may repeat myself with some posts from earlier blogs, but some may not have been following the blog then.  Or it doesn't hurt any of us to be reminded of these things!  The series was on doubt.  The pastor stated from the beginning that doubt was a good thing, and asking questions and delving deeply could be a means to strengthen our faith.  He took a survey of the members and the things that most troubled them.  As you could guess, the overwhelming thing people asked was "If there is a God, why does He allow suffering?"  Of course, that question has probably been asked and debated about from the beginning of time.  I have read books about it.  The thing that troubles me most is the Holocaust.  Where was God when His chosen people, 6 million of them, were suffering and dying the most horrible deaths?  The pastor's postulation was that these kinds of questions either 1) turn you away from God or 2) turn you back to God.  

So, I would like to proceed to address those thoughts with the circumstances I find myself in.  If anyone deserves not to suffer, I believe it is Bob.  But thankfully, he doesn't seem to be suffering and his usual sweet self now shines through.  If you remember, at one time it didn't, when he was in a violent stage.  Now Bob has been the survivor of 2 Covid episodes, more than anyone else in the facility.  A friend was musing after he recovered that God must have a plan for Bob, since he is such a strong person and seems to be holding on for so long.  The usual course of Alzheimer's should have happened long ago since he has been on and off with his eating and losing so much weight.  Usually he would start choking on his food and get aspiration pneumonia.  More than once I have thought that was happening, only for him to turn it around again!  I lose track of when I had him anointed.  He was still at home then.  I love the hospice chaplain that anointed Bob, and he gently reminded me that sometimes God says no.  I told him that I wasn't asking for healing.  As a nurse I had seen whole churches come to the hospital to pray for a dying child and the child still died.  I told the chaplain that I was just placing Bob in God's hands for safekeeping.  And I gently reminded friends that told me if Bob didn't recover it was because I didn't have enough faith, as the chaplain reminded me, that God sometimes says no.  Our faith is necessary for our mental survival.  I have come a long way in this journey, but I still have a long ways to go.  Bad things happening are not a part of God's plan, but a result of the sinful world in which we live.  And if it is happening to you, God will be there to walk you through it, and I am encouraged by that promise.  Do I find myself in this situation so I can be of better service to others?

Lets look on the lighter side for awhile!  As I have said, just going to Hillside Village and holding his hand gives me strength, but my strength is nothing compared to his when I try to remove my hand to leave!  And I am afraid I have started something again.  I have been rubbing his head.  His grandmother told me when we were dating not to get that started or I'd be sorry, and I should have listened to her.  I asked him the other day if he liked it and he said "sure"!  Ask a dumb question and thats what you get!  It seems he is more alert now since he has recovered from Covid.  I don't have a reason why, except Valerie gave me a very plausible answer the other day.  He slept so much when he had Covid that he has been revived!  A new little CNA was caring for him the other day.  She had never heard him speak before, but he asked her "What time is it?"  She said she about jumped out of her skin!  And the other day we were watching Gunsmoke (his favorite) while I was feeding him.  I told him "thats Matt Dillon there."  He matter-of-factly said "I know it!"   

As I close this blog, I ask that you pray for the people of Ukraine.  Again, sin seems to be taking over, but in the end, good will triumph.  Emmanuel--God with us!

Betty

 January is a bittersweet month for me now.  It is my birthday month and Bob and I would always celebrate my birthday by taking a trip somewhere as he knew there is nothing I would like more for my birthday!  Usually we went to Arizona, where it was relatively warm, and we loved it there.  But now January also marks when Bob had to go to a facility, and he went in just around my birthday time.  I think I went home and slept for a week!  He has now been in a facility for 5 years.  He went on hospice care in May of that year, so at the time I was sure it wouldn't be that long, and hospice agreed.  

Just before Christmas he started eating again, after several months of sporadic eating.  As I wrote in last months blog, it was a wonderful day and I got to hold his hand after not being able to do so the Christmas before because of COVID.    On January 28, I gave myself a birthday present and traveled with a tour group, Road Scholar, to California to check another item off my bucket list.  It was 6 days of activities centered around the Rose Parade which included one day of actually working with the 52,000 roses that went on one float.  The highlight was the day after the parade (which was also spectacular) when our tour group got in the venue early to beat the crowds and be able to walk among the floats and see them up close. 

I had been so careful on the trip to wear masks, and the tour bus we were on only had 18 people on a 50 seat bus, and we also wore masks on the bus, even though everyone on the tour had to be fully vaccinated.  But just days after I got home, I went to breakfast with a group of friends, and the next day one of them called to say she had COVID.  I had already been to see Bob after I got back, but I started the 5 day quarantine period.  The last day of the quarantine, the facility called to say that Bob had tested positive for COVID.  He had survived having COVID last year in February and it was a mild case so I hoped this would be as well.  4 other residents and some of the staff also had it, as this seems to be a very contagious variant.   The staff was so good about calling and giving me updates.  And I got special permission to go in and see him.  As he was in isolation, I had to wear full Personal Protective Equipment.  10 days later he has now tested negative and is out of isolation.  This also appears to be a mild case and the main side effect of being sick was that he slept a lot.  But more concerning is that he has stopped eating again.  They said he would always take the oral liquids, so he kept hydrated, but he can't afford to lose more weight. 

As I watch the staff at Hillside work extra on their days off to cover shifts for co-workers who are out because of testing positive or to help when people couldn't get in because of bad weather, I am so thankful that Bob is where he is being well taken care of.  But I read articles of what nurses and caregivers across the country are faced with and I marvel at their strength and resilience.  I listen to stories of people still working at the hospital where I worked, and hear of the horrible things that are happening, and cannot begin to imagine what they are going through.  How long can this go on, and how long can they keep up their endurance?  They are experiencing burnout and leaving the profession they once loved.  There is no way they can keep up caring for the sheer numbers of sick people which of course includes diseases not associated with COVID that they cared for easily in non-COVID times. I pray for them several times a day and hope this soon slows down without another big wave on its heels.  For some, this variant has mild symptoms, but for others especially with underlying health problems it can be devastating and people are still dying from it.  So please take every safety precaution and do everything you can to protect yourself.  You cannot afford to go to a hospital for anything now as you will have to wait for hours in an ED to be seen.  And if you have to be admitted, you may have to wait in the ED for 48 hours or more for an inpatient bed to become available. If you have heart problems and need to be in ICU, your bed is probably taken by a patient with COVID.  Or the ICU nurse may have up to 4 patients where the maximum before COVID was two.  So it goes without saying that the standard of care cannot be met, and you will not receive optimum care.  Nurses from everywhere are being asked to work in situations where they have no experience and units where they haven't worked in years.  Simply put, there just aren't enough nurses to go around.  I am sorry to be so graphic, but I don't think people realize the depth of the problems.

As I close, I want to wish you the best of health.  In the midst of this crazy world in which we now live, I hope you find peace.  Please pray for the caregivers that they may have the strength to go on in the midst of this chaos.

Betty

 I an a little late writing this blog,  I just can't get in the holiday spirit.  But I went to see Bob today and played Christmas music for us on my phone, and that has helped!  I love Christmas music, both secular and sacred.  And Bob was bright and bushy tailed today.  That is the only way I can describe him!  He was laughing and talking, and though it was all gibberish, he was happy.  But when I rubbed his head, neck and shoulders, and asked him if he liked that, he grinned and said "I like" very plainly.  I half expected him to ask to ask me to rub his feet, as he always used to, but that is where I draw the line!  And he opened his mouth purposefully when I fed him, so it was a good visit.  He only lost a pound last month, so that has stabilized.  More teeth are breaking off at the gum line, and no one can figure out what that is about, except maybe his weight loss is affecting the gums as well.  

I looked back at my blog from last Christmas.   I said this last year, but I will say it again.  Christmas is not my favorite time of the year nor is it my favorite holiday.  Even if I am enjoying myself to the fullest on that day, I then think of others who are alone and lonesome on Christmas.  They may have lost all family members or they are estranged from them.  I also think of the servicemen overseas who cannot be home with family, especially if they have small children.  Whatever the circumstances, I am sad for them.  We had our Alzheimer's support group last week.  There are so many new people in the group.  I feel so bad for them dealing with everything with the holidays approaching.  And with the pandemic, a lot of the resources are gone, have closed, or won't let new people in.  I was in that circumstance 6 years ago and even without the pandemic, it was heartbreaking.  I was beginning to have to admit that things were unmanageable at home and I was going to have to admit Bob to a facility I had been looking at.  We had one last Christmas together at our daughters home in St. Louis and I lost him in the grocery store.  "How is that possible?" you ask?  Just ask someone else in these shoes!  You are looking at something on the shelf and you turn around, and they are gone--just vanished into thin air!

If any of you are new to my blog, I will spare you having to go back two years ago when I moved him from the previous facility to Hillside Village of DeSoto.  I moved him because his level of care had increased so much they could not handle him and they had hardly any staff left.  I have no doubt that God had a hand in the series of events that prompted me to move him, as he would not have survived Covid in that facility.  I lot of residents on his unit died, and he would have been one of them.  Now, 2 years later, and am really concerned about the shortage of staff everywhere.  Hillside is short like everyone else, but most of the staff is picking up extra shifts to cover, and I can't thank them enough.  Caretakers are burned out everywhere, and I can certainly see why.  I was not surprised when one of the new members in the support group shared that she had moved here from Indiana to be near family and had put her husband in a facility.  She had helped them put him to bed at 6pm, then she went home.  When she got back at noon the next day, he was still in bed, and had not been attended to.  That shortage of staff is happening in restaurants and hotels, from the cooks to the waiters and waitresses.  So please be patient and kind to everyone you meet that are doing their best in these times in which we now live.

I am sorry to be so downhearted  this month, but I like the saying I posted on Facebook today.  "This is not the year to get everything you want.  This is the year to appreciate everything you have."  I remember back to when I liked Christmas, when we were poor, both before I got married and after I got married.  The simple things meant so much.  It was a more family time, without all of todays commercialism.  Christmas advertising didn't start right after Halloween.  So today I am thankful for life.  I am thankful for health, at a time when it can be so tenuous.  So many people will be sad this Christmas because there will be an empty place at the table.  I am especially thankful for family and friends that mean so much to me.  And I am also thankful for a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Love to you this Christmas, 

Betty