I guess that just challenging fate by surviving cancer and working through the effects of this damned stroke isn’t enough… the universe has to pile it on higher and deeper.

So, with the stroke comes the responsibility to tell the ministry of transportation that there has been a life altering change in my medical status.  I did that yesterday.  Now it’s official; I cannot drive until the doctors sign off on my ‘fitness’ to get behind the wheel.

Let’s layer on the mess with my disability benefits coverage for the mortgage.  Add the general embargo on ‘working’ which will eventually affect how I return to work, coupled with the unsuitability of my home work station to get done the writing that I really want to be working on, and the continued sense of being under ‘house arrest’ because of the loss of independence by being forced to rely on others to get any where and let’s not forget to mention how the bloody cold keeps me and any relatively sane human being from just going for a quick wander around the neighbourhood to shake out the cobwebs.  Its actually been so restrictive that I haven’t been able to get out to get anything for  Valentines’ Day. You know, on balance, I think I can cope with all of that and I may even be able to contrive something acceptable for Valentines.  But continuing to sift through the other layers that the universe is piling on… G.’s family in the UK is having some significant issues, and she is emotionally affected, largely because she isn’t there to help or to intercede, as the case may be.  Saturday evening while we were hosting some young friends who have returned from Wales to make a home with their three year old daughter here in Canada, an old friend of G’s and part of a past life died in Vancouver.  There was of course the thankfully brief personal recriminations about not being there when she passed.  Now there is a bit of drama around the timing of the Memorial service, and how G. and the others who were close to the woman on this side of the mountains could get there.

Somewhere in all of this, my G. has gone missing.  Where is my G., the woman that I married and with whom I have lived a full and somewhat tumultuous life.  I miss the woman who was so full of joy that she practically pranced around the house being obnoxiously ‘positive’ and trying to find the good and the meaning in all that happens.  And then yesterday she was feeling physically beat, not just emotionally whipped, but her core ached;  she put this down to over doing it at the gym in the past week.  Her muscles hurt, and generally she had no energy and not much of a spark at all.  We didn’t get out at all, which considering the cold it wasn’t surprising that we chose cocooning, although it was more about be inactive than cocooning.  G. spent time on the phone with contemporary of her mother’s who with her radiologist and slightly hypochrondriacal husband has lived here for a good 40 years, talking about the challenges they are facing with the real health issues he faces and the ongoing drama with one of her adult daughters.  Now G’s sleep patterns are odd at the best of times, and only get more complicated with stress and anxiety, and so this morning it is truly unfortunate that not only did she not sleep well, but G. woke physically ill; nausea, stomach cramps, diarrhoea.  This now complicates the day.  She can’t take me to the rehab centre, so we’re scrambling to find me a ride there and back.  G. will also have to cancel her class at university, and arrange to do a make-up class for her 30+ students.  Add to the mix the drama of a friend who’s car finally gave up on her.  This woman is a teacher with a horror for a principal… so she’s gotta go and go now.  Well, G. isn’t well enough to drive her to school, and I don’t dare because of the license suspension that is pending.  So we lent her the Jeep for the day, which further restricts our mobility if something goes pear shaped.    By having lent her the Jeep we give up the child car seat that would allow us to rescue the granddaughter from daycare/kindergarten.  Our very pregnant daughter now has no real backup in case picking up the granddaughter becomes a necessity.  All of this just serves to reinforce the complexities presented by my inability to drive.  What happens when the next granddaughter is birthed?  How complex does it all get, then?  Well we did manage to arrange a ride to see my occupational therapist, and a ride home.  It really is time to work out a better, more reliable system for getting around.

I’m getting concerned… where is the joy?

I’m finding it a chore to be happy when the people who orbit my world are in such disarray and distress. This is getting tougher.  I find myself teetering on the brink of depression.  We can’t afford for that to happen when G. is in such a state of anxiety so much of the time lately.  I’m gonna have to ‘step up my game’ and find some unique ways to bring the joy back to her.  When she’s happy, I’m happy.  Gotta get this solved, and stop the petty dramas that interfere with with our journey.