Sending love and blessings to sisters who are struggling with darkness and feeling lost. Winter can be a difficult time if the black dog is at your heels. @speakout families can be a double-edged sword bringing both untold joy and untold challenges. I really feel for you all. Families can be so thoughtless and take us for granted. Fortunately, hubby is a much better chef than me (he trained at college) and we ran a guest house doing dinner bed and breakfast for twelve guests six months of the year (no days off!) for over twenty years. However, I am a better baker, bread-maker and curry chef than him so we probably divide it about 70/30 which him doing more than me. Left to my own devices, I also love to make soup and eat a much simpler diet with less meat and more veggies. Being diabetic (type 2) is a challenge and I'm conscious of carbs and sugar ... but a slice of freshly baked wholemeal and sunflower seed bread is irresistible. I used to make all the delicious puddings and desserts for the guests and hubby would dearly love me to make one every day but I'm not going there, both for my health and his! We have an occasional treat.
Being retired, our life tends to chug along quietly most of the time but then our adult autistic daughter comes home for three weeks at Easter, summer and Christmas which turns EVERYTHING upside down. I find it hard to believe that I did sixteen years of 24/7 caring, with hubby's support, while we were both running the guest house at the same time. So it's a real shock when she comes home. In December before Christmas, we got home on Monday afternoon and she had a major tonic-clonic seizure (used to be called a Grand Mal) on Tuesday evening which saw her collapse in the corridor, fitting for about four or five minutes, not breathing for a couple of them, grey skin, blue lips, eyes rolled back ... it's absolutely terrifying and the thought that we might lose her is always at the back of our minds. It took her much longer to recover from the seizure once she'd regained consciousness this time as well.
Incredibly, she has had most of these seizures when she's with us (about four in the last twenty years) but has never had one in the care home where she has lived for the last twelve years. Her last was during the summer of Covid in July 2020 but she was attended by medics and ambulance staff who treated her, were happy with her vital signs and decided not to admit her to hospital. However, we spent five hours in A & E in December and then she had another one (nowhere near as severe) about ten days later, just before Christmas and that was another three hours at A & E. That unsettled all of us, making Christmas a real 'walking on eggshells' kind of situation and she was very confused and scared. It wrings my mother's heart that I can't properly comfort and reassure her, just cuddle her and hold her tight.
At least the main county hospital is only a ten minute drive away from us now 😳
We're away this weekend, attending a course/workshop on how to reclaim the VAT back on our self build house project 😊So my practical inner Virgo is warring with my indecisive inner Libra about how much or little to pack. Hubby just stuffed his clothes into a packing cube (which I surreptitiously repacked properly soon after) and dumped it into the suitcase. It's always left to me to organise the rest and provide the things that he just takes for granted, which is irritating. He never seems appreciative, just criticises me for packing too much. At least we'll be seeing my best friend and I can spend a little downtime chilling. In the meantime, our forty year old son (Asperger Syndrome) will be looking after my greenhouse and it looks like it's going to be cold while we're away. I have to give him the simplest of instructions so as not to overwhelm him.
I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, it's looking sunny even though it's cold.