this hurts

It's been two and a half weeks.  My chest is still so heavy, and it still hurts so darn much.  It's crazy how life just goes on.  Work is still work, Madysen's softball has started, Mom sewed my curtains, and the kids are having finals this week at college. I get that life is good, I do.  We are blessed in so many ways. But Dad's not here.  I think about it all the time.  We are all staying busy, and I think
we are doing as expected. It's just hard.  I can be at work, busy, and a patient has a shirt like Dad, and I start to cry.  Or I see an old couple, and I get sad because that should have been my parents, 20 years from now.  Seeing pictures of him can be either comforting or make me cry.  Oh man, the smell of him in his coat and his pillow...


I think back to just a year ago.  Dad had been saying last winter that his voice just wouldn't project, but I really hadn't noticed anything.  In retrospect, after listening to his voice on old videos, I think that his voice had maybe gradually weakened and I just got used to it.  I remember him saying awhile before that his hand s were cramping, but I didn't really think much of it.  He had a fall off a high ladder in Sept 2011 while painting the house.  Mom and Dad were so busy and worked so hard getting the acreage ready to sell it, so that they could move to the Black Hills.  Our attempts to get him to see a dr weren't successful, which wasn't surprising to any of us.  I didn't know that he had been having muscle twitching for awhile.  I remember him saying last spring that he just didn't have the strength that he used to have.  I assumed that he was just feeling his 60's a little bit.  He was bothered when he tried to help with cement work at a friend's house.  Again, I thought that maybe he needed to cut himself a little slack.  Cement work is hard, and he wasn't 20 anymore.  He helped Bill move in January and Bill didn't notice anything amiss.  Mom and Dad went to Washington DC last April and he did absolutely fine with tons of walking, and had a blast. 

So when he started to say that he was having trouble raising his arms and with arm strength in the late spring/early summer, I figured that he had hurt his neck with his fall and needed something done with his neck.  My first moment of dread occured last Easter Sunday, when I watched him try unsuccessfully to lift Nathan up onto a chest high tree branch.  He couldn't do it, and Jared easily did.  Dad normally did that without even thinking about it.  I remember calling Erin over to the window and saying, "this is weird, what'g going on?"  But like I said, I thought it was probably his neck. 

Just a year ago. 

June was spent with testing for his neck, all negative.  Dad was starting to look so frail and thinner, although he swore he hadn't lost weight.  We didn't see the muscle shrinkage under his clothes.  A rheumatologist raised the ALS question.  July was spent with neurology appointments and testing.  Just the fact that he was even willing to see different doctors showed us how crappy he felt, and filled us with dread.  Looking up symptoms of ALS:  muscle twitching and cramping, muscle weakness, difficulty projecting voice, impairment of use of arms or legs.  I remember my stomach just dropping.   

It just feels like we went from blissful ignorance to fear and grieving so quickly.  I mean, who gets ALS??  In 27 years of nursing, I remember ONE patient with ALS.  One.  And then it happens to Dad.  I don't get it and I don't think that I ever will. 

Anyway....gotta stop feeling sorry for myself.  Get my butt in the saddle and start galloping, and all that.  That's what Dad would say. 

And in that spirit of galloping, we are planning a couple of things.  We have a trip with the entire family planned for late June to go to the Hills and camp.  We are going to go on a walk at Slate Creek, Dad's favorite horse trail.  Bill's familiy, the Hills, Mom and my family.  Kind of a memorial trip and walk.  Dad asked us to do this and would love it. 

Melissa also shanghaid us into participating in a 5K run in Omaha in mid July.  Running 3.1 miles together in blazing July heat and humidity.  So far it's Melissa, myself, Erin, Mom, Madysen, Abby, Tyler, and Jordan. It's called the Color Run and it looks like fun.  (IF we survive) 

Dad would really get a chuckle over that.  He'd think that we are nuts (and he'd be right) but he would be right there along the race, wearing his hot Wrangler's, cheering us on.   Go team Sweet William :)