Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

It’s 4am. Yet another night this week plagued by sleeplessness. From the darkness of my room, all I can hear is the dog snoring from Alex’s bed where she disappeared to when I stood up to use the toilet an hour ago. My bladder has long since woken me during the night – it must be an age thing, or consuming too much water in the later part of the day- but this time my problem stems from the anti inflammatory meds I’ve been taking for pain in my lower back. Unfortunately I have lost my ‘regular-ness’ and the discomfort of a distended belly is what’s keeping me up.

I lie. It’s not the only thing keeping me up. Grief would do that to you. His side of the bed is rumpled and sweaty for a change – I’ve been tossing and turning for the last 2 nights in an effort to ease the pain in my back, but usually it would be cold and I tend to rest my hand there in a moment of poignant, quiet sadness.

This time a year ago Anton’s health was rapidly deteriorating. From the moment the doctor showed us the scan with the tumour spread through Anton’s meninges on December 10th, he tumbled downhill. Today a year ago he had the new chemo port put in, but his doctor realised there was no point in continuing with chemo, such had the tumour gripped hold of Anton. Did I ever tell you about the week between discovery and port implant? We’d been told he could go on with chemo and we’d scheduled dates for the following week. But that tumour had gripped hold of Anton with such a force by then, there was no going back. In the week that followed the new diagnosis, vomiting had taken over and no matter how often we tried to get cortisone mediation into him, he would vomit it up. And the dehydration: 24 hours of not consuming anything, not needing to use the toilet? I was at a loss. In hindsight I probably should have called an ambulance and admitted him into a regular hospital ward, but the cancer centre where he’d been treated since May was the only place I considered calling, I needed his oncologist to tell me what to do, so I phoned them to ask what to do. There were no empty beds there and it took a few hours before they could do the necessary paperwork to arrange for a nurse to come to our apartment. For 6 days she came over twice a day to change bandages on the port incisions and the saline bag that she’d hooked up. It contained cortisone medicine and pain killers and rehydration fluid, and despite that, the vomiting continued. Mostly I have been able to supress all of those memories, but I have been down that path all month this December remembering his final days. I wonder how I got through it. Emptying buckets of vomit, helping him to stand next to the bed to urinate into a potty (when the iv drip took over) because he was unable to walk to the toilet, feeding him pots of yoghurt or simple ham and cheese sandwiches if the nausea wasn’t present, trying to be optimistic and hopeful in the face of fear and loss? And I did that on my own. Yes, I had friends who were at hand willing to help me, but I knew that help came in different forms, so I chose my friendships as a distraction when I needed it, and the duty of care fell on to me, the anxiety a burden only I to endure. The memories of my dying husband I now carry will rest in soul forever. Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself, I wish I could get an acknowledgement for that.

I’m feeling particularly fragile at the moment. My journey of grief has hit a new low, despite feeling like I had overcome it in August. Now the fatigue of going at it alone has hit harder then ever (despite writing last month how I felt there was an amount of freedom in widowhood). Perhaps it’s the fault of winter: there are just not enough hours in the daylight to get the job done. Garden work is impossible to get to in winter when you work an 8-4. Admin and appointments impossible to maintain when you are the only person who can do your job, so after-hour call outs for broken shutters and heater maintenance becomes l’ordre du jour and the only appointments for medical check ups at suitable time of the day are so unavailable you need to book 6 months ahead of time. I have no interest in shopping for Christmas gifts because all I have strength for is cleaning and dusting and changing linen and washing dishes and laundry. (Vok, I am so grateful to Les Deux C’s for opportunities to amble through the mountain when I can force myself to take the break). I am mentally exhausted. I am physically exhausted and aside from trying to figure out what’s the most important thing, I don’t feel good about asking for help. Paying for help, perhaps, but when you’ve lost your main breadwinner, tightening finances begins to play a role. As it is, I’m actually booked off work for 3 days this week because of the back pain I fell out of bed with on Monday (as unglamorous as possible, I didn’t actually fall. I actually had to roll over to somehow put my feet on the floor and pull myself into a standing position.) While I spent 2 days flat on my back imbibing pain medication and sleeping, I have got mobility enough today to change the linen on my bed, walk down to the physio (I am so grateful that my GP wrote me a prescription for physio visits if and when I need it), and hopefully I can at least dead-head my window-box chrysanthemums and get rid of the long-dead basil from my kitchen terrace. I’ve been able to submit medical reimbursements requests to my medical aid, made a list of jobs I need to fulfil in January: if there is anyone here that can definitively suggest an affordable cloud storage option and can help me with decluttering my computer, I welcome that help. It’s funny how I can happily remove shower taps to remove calc build-up, but IT stuff is beyond me. Also, the shower taps that need decalcifying are now 2 months overdue, so I am way behind schedule. Lastly, I have written an update here so I can now wind down the year having fulfilled at least one objective this year: monthly blog post.

I took to my Substack yesterday to angry-write as I have found that I am now editing myself in this space, and to an extent on my insta account. Writing there to express my anger, my sadness, my anxiety, it felt necessary, but it was only as remedial as shouting into a quarry and having my words reverberate back to me like a toddler repeating an adult. Even this is filled with unimaginative garble, all to say that I am not okay. Whether it’s the memories, winter, darkness, shit weather or relationships that can’t be avoided, yet bring their own bad vibes, or simply a combination of it all. I’m counting the days until the Solstice where I will be reunited with my sister in Spain for Christmas this year. I have never been anywhere but my home for Christmas- at least since 2003- and while it’s taking a lot of me to forget about having a traditional home-cooked meal, I know that the trip is the only thing that will suffice this Christmas.

Maybe in February I will set about journey of shedding grief with fresh strength. Until then, I’m planning on feeling all the feelings I want to, I’m going to hide out in my home with Thandi and my girls, and we’ll see where life takes us when the earth moves closer to the sun.

Post Script. As usual, this was not written in one sitting. However, I am about to publish this from my bed, on Friday December 19th. Today a year ago Anton was moved to hospital after the nurse who had spent 6 days coming to our home reported Anton’s condition. Granted, the oncologist 3 days prior would have admitted him on the 16th if a bed was available. Instead we had been taken back home and told they would call us, so I can’t be sure what had transpired. It’s been a year that my bed has been empty of my partner, the man I married, the man who raised my girls with me, the man who stood by me until he couldn’t anymore. Turns out back pain in this age is a little bit worse than in our twenties, and I was booked off work again today. I ticked some admin boxes, and managed some gardening. I didn’t dwell on the date until the girls pointed it out. Sleep is not my friend.