It's 10:30am on Friday, I've just finished my workout after getting kids off to their last day of school, and I'm getting ready to eat breakfast. I hear a knock on the wall, so I walk down to the garage. Todd is struggling to get out of his chair, I notice a large cigarette burn in his shirt that wasn't there yesterday. He's been up since about 7:30 Thursday morning. When I say up I mean he's pushed himself so far passed the point of exhaustion that he has very little concept of time or how much has gone by, and he falls asleep where ever he sits down. This is just a part of what happens with this awful disease. I knew he came in the bedroom to get something at about 5am this morning and I begged him to lay down. Sleepily he said, "I'll be back in a little bit," and left the room and shut the door. When I got up a couple of hours later I found milk spilled all over the kitchen table. I'm assuming he fell asleep while eating a bowl of cereal......I know he did. This isn't the first time and it won't be the last. I got him upstairs, he is in a ton of pain because his feet have been down more than up. The wounds on his legs are hurting and his legs are swelling from the fluid building up. I get the bed ready for him to lay down, and he tries to convince me he needs to eat. I argue with him for a few minutes because he just ate not that long ago and he NEEDS to rest . Finally I make him a deal. "I'll tell you what, you lay down, if you're not asleep in the next 20 minutes then I'll fix you something to eat." At this moment I can hear him snacking on granola bars, and I'm praying he falls asleep. If not he's going to eat which will take a good hour....smoke....and probably not get in bed for a couple more hours. He goes through these phases at least once a week sometimes twice. I used to sit up with him begging and pleading and crying and trying to desperately get him to go to bed. My temper always got the best of me, I got angry...really angry, and I said awful....really awful things to him during these times. I do not do well when I'm exhausted. It all started driving me crazy. I always tolerated his family, but when these behaviors started, I started to HATE his family, for everything. I hate them for not being here for their own flesh and blood, I hate them for making me take care of everything and offering little to no support. I hate them for blaming me for everything going on in my marriage. I refuse to even speak to most of his family...except for one of his sisters, and even she only checks in with him once in a while, and gets irritated if he doesn't return her calls or texts. Half the time he doesn't even notice he's gotten one. And even though I love Todd, I hate HIM for putting our family through this. I have a hard time when people say who cares if I drink excessively, smoke, party, live for today ...or whatever because it's my body and I just want to live my life and be happy. That's all fine and dandy, but when all this catches up to you and heaven forbid (because I wouldn't wish these illnesses on anyone) you get sick. Who the Hell do you think is going to take care of you? The people who watched you and begged you to stop that's who, and now have to watch you die because of it, and sacrifice their lives in the process, because we didn't want to willingly destroy our own lives, but are the only ones who are here to care for you. I think it's selfish. Who am I to judge though right? I definitely have my own faults. We are not perfect. But when you have to deal with something like this first hand, you go through a range of emotions, and anger is right up there at the top.
It's 11:45am. I haven't heard anything in the bedroom for awhile so I just walked down the hall to peek in on him....sleeping like a baby. I was successful this time, it isn't always like that. I'm hoping he sleeps until I leave for work tonight. I don't stay up with him anymore, I can't. I can't take care of him the way he needs me to, if I'm so exhausted I can't function. Instead I get into bed some nights knowing he's going to fall asleep somewhere else and I pray that nothing happens. I don't know what else to do. Some days are just hard, some days I want to get in my car and drive as far as I can, and some days can be so overwhelming that I have a hard time figuring out how to deal with it all, and for a time I shut down. I'm not sure the best way to deal with all this. Each day is a little different, many days I don't worry at all.....and many days that's all I do. The only thing that is certain, is up to this point we've made it through all the hard days.....and my plan is to continue doing so however I manage to deal with it.
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