A few nights ago, I thought I was dying. Seriously.
Suddenly, around midnight, I began feeling weirdly ill. Totally exhausted, too tired even to undress and climb into a pair of pajamas, I fell into bed fully clothed, and spent the night wondering whether I’d wake up in the morning.
And when I did, I was almost disappointed. Since then, I’ve had intermittent nightmares about tornadoes, being pursued by people trying to kill me, and other disturbing bits and pieces that, mercifully, recede as soon as I am fully awake.
Let’s be brutally honest: I’m old now. Not “older,” not just a “senior” . . . but officially, undeniably, irreversibly old. The kind of old that renders you nearly invisible to younger people. And I have issues that make life somewhat difficult. Not nearly as bad as the problems of a lot of people, of course, and I know I should be grateful that I still have most of my mental faculties and a roof over my head and don’t live in a war zone.
But instead, I’ve been in a dark place of my own, and don’t know how to pull myself out of it. So I’ve tried reminiscing about the good times — the really memorable years of great jobs, children, travel, social activities, beautiful clothes and beautiful friends.
And while tiptoeing down Memory Lane, I came across this journal, of sorts, that I began creating at the crest of what was clearly the hardest period of my life: the time when my sister (and best friend) Merna became ill, lingered, and then finally lost the battle at age 84. I added to it over the following few years, always expecting that things would get better and at least a little more upbeat . . . but that never seemed to happen.
I don’t know why I’m sharing this with the world right now, other than perhaps trying to connect with others going through similar hard times, or simply to explain — to myself and to others — why I am as I am today.
And maybe also to show that survival is possible, no matter how bad it may seem from one day to the next. Because, after all is said and done, I am still here.
So, for what it’s worth, this is my story, from 2014 to 2021:
*. *. *
October 2017
My sister is dying.
She just lies in her hospice room, lost in a morphine-induced sleep, waking only occasionally to cry for help when the pain returns or to ask for a sip of water. The cancer is eating its way through her body, with agonizing slowness after suddenly overtaking her following four months of feeling fairly healthy. When she heard the prognosis of three to six months, she focused on the maximum number six, and said she wanted only to live through the coming football season. She’s not going to make it after all.
I sat in her room yesterday for an hour, watching her chest rise and fall slowly and with regularity except for an occasional pause. With each pause, I held my breath until she drew her next one. Her face was sunken, her mouth open like a sleeping passenger on an overnight flight. She woke once and asked for water. When I brought her cup to her, she looked right past me without recognition. I asked if she knew me, and she shook her head, mumbled “No more morphine,” and closed her eyes again. I told her the morphine was for the pain, and she responded, “I don’t have any pain.” I said, “That’s because of the morphine,” but she had already closed her eyes and fallen asleep again.
When she arrived at the hospice facility, the doctor said most patients in her situation usually lived three days to a week. Unbeknownst to me, Merna must have been a fan of Dylan Thomas, who wrote:
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
. . . because she refused to give up for a full two weeks. The doctors and nurses were all confounded, and remarked on her stubbornness and strong will.
Chronology of a decline (2014-17)
My sister had always been amazingly healthy, other than the usual childhood illnesses (most of which no longer exist in the 21st Century). In later life, she developed orthopedic conditions, and had had both knees replaced, with excellent result. In late 2014, she underwent a shoulder replacement and was recovering nicely, when she got up one night to get a drink of water, passed out in the kitchen and cut her head open in two places. When she came to and called for help, she was taken to the ER, where they stitched her wounds and performed routine tests. One of those, an EKG, showed a severe arrhythmia for which they admitted her and inserted a pacemaker. A few months later (spring of 2015), she received clearance from her cardiologist to have a much-needed hip replacement, which also went well. In June, she began having severe abdominal pains, requiring another trip to the ER. It was then that a scan revealed a mass in the lower intestine and nodules on the small intestine. The mass was a benign bowel blockage that was removed by yet another surgical procedure. But the nodes proved to be malignant; the diagnosis was primary peritoneal cancer. When she stopped crying, she decided to fight it and undergo chemotherapy.
The chemo sessions started in early July 2015 and concluded on the day before Thanksgiving. They succeeded in killing the cancer cells, but they also attacked her nervous system and left her with crippling and painful neuropathy in both feet and legs. She moved into a rehab facility for a while, where they helped her to recover some use of her feet; she returned home feeling more optimistic than she had in quite a while.
For a year and a half, through 2016 and into 2017, she seemed to be cancer free. Then in June of 2017, she went back to the ER with a complaint of breathing difficulty, and an x-ray revealed excess fluid around the right lung. They withdrew fluid, tested it, and found a malignant pleural effusion. The original cancer had metastasized. The prognosis this time was devastating — most likely 3-6 months. After crying a bit, she said no more chemo. The first round had been so horrific, I could not blame her.
10/23/17
Now, four months later, she is losing the fight. For more than 3 months, she did surprisingly well, having more good days than bad, and keeping her spirits up most of the time. And one day she got sick — so sick that the home hospice people urged that she be taken to their facility for a day or two. She finally agreed, but once she got there, her physical and mental conditions deteriorated so quickly, she was completely debilitated within a few days. The doctor gave her a week at the outside. We are now coming up on two weeks, and with no nourishment other than fluids and only medication for pain, nausea and anxiety, she continues to breathe on her own, albeit slowly and unevenly.
And, at the risk of sounding completely selfish, I remain in limbo, waiting and waiting for this torture to be over. I can’t stand seeing her like this, just a shell of a human being, unconscious except when the pain wakes her. And I feel guilty for feeling this way. I thought I was stronger than this, but after nearly three years of ignoring my own disabilities to take care of her, I’m worn out. So I sit here waiting for the phone call, dreading it and praying for it to come at the same time.
10/24/17
She’s gone. At 11:18 am today, she stopped struggling against inevitability. When I saw her, she looked so peaceful. And I stopped shaking. It’s over.
1/12/18
But it’s not over. It’s not just the formalities of handling her estate, readying her condo for sale, and all that. It’s the 20 or more times a day that I reach for the phone to share something with her or to ask her opinion of something, or to let her know I’m going out and when I’ll be home. It’s reliving, over and over again, those horrible last weeks of her decline. And it’s the guilt I feel — justifiably or not — for not having been able to do more for her because of my own physical limitations. I didn’t know how strongly this would affect me. And I don’t like it, because I can’t control it. It’s debilitating, and I have to find a way past it. For the first time in my adult life, I admit that I need help. I suppose that’s a first step.
4/12/18
At long last, we’re winding down. The will has been filed and certified, and the condo has been sold, with closing scheduled for May 3rd. All that’s left is to have the remaining furniture removed and clear the boxes of papers from the storage room. If only I were stronger and could do more. Thank goodness for T____ and B____ throughout the entire process! So very soon I should be able to turn my attention back to my own backlog of chores and projects.
6/13/18
After another frantic month of clearing out, painting, locating her storage unit to remove three boxes of papers, exchanging documents for signature, and one brief postponement, we finally closed on Merna’s condo on May 7th. There are still boxes in my car, but now that most of the things in my apartment have been cleared out or organized — thanks to my daughter’s Herculean efforts during her 3-day visit — I can once again function and face my own challenges. I finally had my car inspected so that I can drive it again — to doctors’ appointments, lunches and dinners with friends, to the Salvation Army. The sense of relief is huge.
R____ also wore her social worker / therapist hat while she was here, and gave some advice that, when considered as a general application, would have been excellent. But knowing myself as I do — and as she cannot possibly know me — I can see the practical limitations. For example, I am unable to open up completely to anyone, friend or stranger. But I can talk to myself as though to someone else, and find it enlightening and therapeutic. I do not feel ready for therapy, as I feel the healing process has already begun. She was, however, correct in advising that I need to overcome the loneliness by seeking new activities and new friends. I have become too insulated at home, too comfortable. I need to make the effort to get out, to find something worthwhile to do with my time, perhaps to forge new relationships. It’s exactly what I told my own mother when she retired. I will not be like her. I will listen to my daughter, and I will do this.
9/8/2020
Two years since my last entry, and much has changed, not only in my life, but in the world as a whole. The media and the history books are overflowing with the news of the Covid-19 pandemic, the turbulent political scene in the United States and elsewhere, global warming, and the increase in violence and hatred throughout the world. So I need not add to that wealth of information. This narrative is about me, and my life without Merna, so let’s pick it up in 2018.
I never followed through on my resolutions to change my life for the better. My physical condition continued to decline, making it more and more difficult to get out of the apartment for even the simplest errands — going to the doctor or dentist, getting my hair done, even taking the trash out or picking up my mail. Just getting dressed was a major effort. Going downtown for dinner with friends became impossible. I began having my groceries delivered, and as I became weaker and less mobile, seemingly by the day, it required too much strength to prepare meals, and I relied more and more on Grubhub and DoorDash.
And I developed a great relationship with Amazon, on whom I could always rely for paper products, cleaning materials, books and music, and all manner of things. And because of my immobility, I couldn’t break down the empty boxes or take them to the trash room, so they piled up all over the apartment. There was, of course, my ongoing romance with the QVC shopping channel, where I could partake of lots of retail therapy, buying clothes and jewelry and electronics, most of which remained in their packaging because I had no real use for them. I lived mostly in pajamas and bathrobes in order to avoid the agony of changing clothes twice a day.
Then came the confluence of circumstances that I can only describe as a perfect storm (to borrow a familiar phrase). First came my daughter’s worsening illness and back condition, rendering her unable to do any manual labor or to travel to see me or to be of any help if she did get there. Then came her inability to work and her dependence on money from me. And then there were the mice . . .
It started in the basement of my apartment building, and although exterminators were hired, those little rodents began multiplying like . . . well, like rodents. The first one who made it into my apartment was a cute little white mouse who was more afraid of me than I was of him. I left no garbage around, no opened food containers, no take-out leftovers. But those “cute” little demons can chew right through paper and plastic containers, and all those empty Amazon boxes . . . Well, who knew? And who knew how much poop a little mouse could produce?
Finally, along came Covid-19. Being in a high-risk category, I was more isolated than ever, and could not even find a housekeeping service to work for me. So I resorted to utilizing County services, and even those were limited because of the pandemic. They were better than nothing, but not much.
Weighed in the balance were my need for help and my appreciation of privacy and my wish to remain “independent.” At some point, my son’s suggestions that I move down to Georgia to live with him and his family became stronger and more frequent, and made more sense. And my calculations showed that my money wasn’t going to last much longer if I stayed where I was. And so, finally, I started planning for the inevitable downsizing and southward migration. I had always planned to retire somewhere in my beloved New England, but sadly, it just didn’t work out that way.
Now, after spending the last of my funds to pay D____ and J____ for their invaluable help in cleaning out the apartment, charging the movers’ and other expenses to a credit card, and giving away thousands of dollars worth of furnishings, accessories and clothing (because of the quarantine, staging a sale was impossible), here I am in rural Georgia, about 45 minutes from Savannah — an 81-year-old woman dependent on her son and his family, living on Social Security, and hardly the picture of the active, colorful family matriarch of my plans. I am very comfortable and well cared for by my family, but clearly, I am no Dowager Countess of Grantham.
10/24/2021
COVID-19 is still with us — almost two years now.
Four years since Merna left, and a candle burns on the mantle for her. Four years with no one to talk to about the little stuff, the day’s news, the reminiscences. No one who shares any of my interests. It’s no one’s fault, but it’s so hard — I still reach for the phone to call her when there’s anything interesting in the news, or when I hear from R____ or B____, or to read this year’s birthday poem for D____ to someone who will honestly appreciate it.
And so ends another day. I did do a little writing, which, along with my voracious reading, has been my salvation and the only meaningful part of my life. That, and my coffee Haagen-Dazs.
3/17/23 . . .
*. *. *
And that is where it ends. As you can see, I never did pick it up again. Perhaps I’ll follow up another time with the last four years. Or maybe I’ll snap out of it and rediscover my senses of humor and wonder.
Who knows?
Just sayin’ . . .
Brendochka
11/23/25
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 