Is it Monday?

[feliciakw]

It's been a long week, and it will take a while to recover from it, I think.


As I mentioned before, my birthday was really nice. (whitemartyr and izhilzha, thanks for the belated b-day greets. :-) If you're like me, you rarely go to your "My LJ" page, so the day wouldn't be of particular note. No worries.)

Then last Monday, Geo called me at work and asked me to come to his folks' house when I got off work at noon; his mom didn't expect his dad to last through the day. Geo and his sisters spent the day and night at my in-laws, and my mom-in-law told me to check my e-mail in the morning, that she'd e-mail me if my father-in-law passed. So I went home that night. I check Tuesday morning, and no e-mail. So I go back to their house and tell Geo to come home and get a shower and such. And thus began the waiting.

Somewhere in there, my new iBook G4 came. Yay!!! I'm using it to make this post. Geo helped me set it up, which was incredibly easy. It transferred everything--my wallpaper, desktop, everything. It's really nice, and the keys are a smidge bit larger than my iBook G3 and it's just all really nice.

So Tuesday came and went, Wednesday came and went, and Thursday morning around 4:30am the phone rang just as Geo's alarm went off. FiL had passed away. Geo went over, and I, being unable to get back to sleep, played on my new 'puter for a bit, did stuff around the house, and went over around noon. Geo and his sibs and mom were the only ones there when the funeral home came to pick up the body. It sounds like it was all rather comical in its own way. When I arrived, MiL and Geo were choosing FiL's funeral attire.

I worked Friday morning and Saturday evening. My work cohorts have been really nice about it. My supervisor is really understanding about family stuff, but I told her I'd go ahead and work, which I did.

The viewing was last night, and it was overwhelming. So many people, and so many people out of context, you know? My FiL was a teacher, and he touched a lot of lives. He was also an artist (he was an art teacher, actually), and I think Geo and his family are pretty awed by how much his art touched people and how much art he actually produced. He even sold some of his artwork to churches and support groups and illustrated a cookbook and stuff.

And while the viewing was taking place, our realtor was having an open house here.

The funeral was today. It was very nice, though our weather has been bitterly cold and there was no graveside service (we did the "graveside" stuff in the cemetery's chapel). So we had the "formal" service at the funeral home, and the graveside stuff at the chapel, and then people at the church had a lunch prepared for us.

Now we're faced with settling in to the day-to-day without FiL. There's a lot of philosophical stuff I could say, but it won't really do any good until some of the grief fades.

It's been a long week. Family is good, and we've had dinner at MiL's with family (including my folks, because the families have been friends for a very long time . . . but that's another story) every night since last Monday. And there has been a lot of laughter in there. This is a good thing, that he died at home with family around. But it's hard. I think it's the least difficult for me, because I'm the last in-law to be added to the family, and in retrospect, I never knew him as my FiL without the disease. But it is hard, and it's hard for me to see everyone around me grieving.




My FiL died of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, or PSP. This is what Dudley Moore died of. PSP is in the same category of diseases as Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's (ALS) disease. Something happens to the brain, and signals do not get from the brain to the muscles and back, and as a result, the muscles cease to function (though FiL's involuntary reflexes worked much longer). It was as if FiL's joints were stiffening up and he could no longer move. Eventually he lost the capacity to talk or communicate freely/effectively. I was very surprised when he greeted me two Thanksgivings ago with a full sentence, "Hello, Felicia." All complete words. Geo could still make him laugh, and he could, occasionally, respond to questions or make very brief interjections into a conversation. But it was often hard for me to tell if he was aware--a sharp mind trapped inside a useless body--or not. Now, in retrospect, a lot of his behavior that used to bother me and that I really didn't understand makes sense.

A major problem with this disease is that it is so often misdiagnosed as something else. FiL was originally misdiagnosed with Parkinson's. But none of the meds worked. Geo showed me a list of misdiagnoses, and it was pretty amazing and scary. You can read about it at the link above. The symptoms "mimick"--or are the same or similar--to symptoms of so many other things. And even when it is diagnosed, there's no treatment. Nada. Parkinson's has drugs that can help. I don't know about ALS (though I should because I just watched a movie about it), but for PSP, there's nothing.

So when FiL finally breathed his last, it was a release and a relief and a blessing in its own way. He's much better now and is in--or will be in, with the coming of the New Heaven and the New Earth--a new, healthy, immortal body. And my MiL, who has been caring for one person or another for decades, has that worry removed.

But it's hard.



Yeah. So that's been my week.

Comments

[kerravonsen]

{hug}

[feliciakw.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-)