The end of a crap year

2019 has been pretty bloody awful, culminating with Mum dying on Christmas Eve 10 minutes before we got to the hospital.  She'd been ill the entire year, with multiple hospital admissions, gradually - and then rapidly - getting worse and worse throughout the year.  Several times she took a turn for the worse and we all thought it was the end, only for her to pick up again.  It's been a real rollercoaster.  It's a blessed relief that she's now out of pain, her last few weeks were truly horrible, for her and for us.  

My beloved aunt Sylvia, Mum's younger sister with whom I spent a lot of time when I was in my teens and 20s, died in July after a short illness, we did see her in hospital 2 hours before she died.  I still miss her dreadfully.

Husband's health has been, and continues to be, a worry this year.  He's got an appointment for admission to the day surgery ward in mid January, so they can accurately measure his prostate - they need to know the exact size before they can operate.  If it's too big, he'll have to go to a hospital quite far away for the operation, they won't do it at our local one - another worry.  The cold weather and long drive up to the Midlands to see my Mum has affected him quite a lot with his heart failure, he's been exceptionally tired, more so than usual.

My health hasn't been good this year either, having been diagnosed with arthritis and bursitis in my hips, the start of a diabetic foot problem and my liver disease having progressed to Stage 2, and a lot of gut trouble caused mainly by anxiety and stress.

But there have been some good things....my nephew's wedding in August was truly lovely, despite it peeing down with rain the whole day, meaning we had to be inside in a conservatory (it was held in an old abbey, now a wedding venue) rather than outside in the gorgeous grounds.

I started a new hobby, card making, which I love and was pleasantly surprised to find I'm actually quite artistic, something I never knew!

My 60th birthday was lovely, we went away to Devon for the week and the day of my birthday was made really special by our wonderful friends.

We now have the funeral to get over with on the 11 January, there are some associated family problems which I'm not going into on here but which will be a big worry for some time to come.

But we're really hoping that 2020 will be an improvement on this year - I won't say it can't be any worse, as I don't want to tempt fate.

Thank you all so very much for all the support you've given me, it's made the bad times a lot more bearable and comforted me a lot.  I hope next year is a good one for all of you.

Getting prepared for new healthy eating regime

I am determined to crack on with losing weight and getting fitter in 2020, my weight is affecting so many aspects of my health now and I've felt increasingly unwell for the past few months.  Admittedly, not all of it is weight-related, some of the gut problems certainly are to do with stress and anxiety, as are my sleep problems.  That won't be improved until Mum's funeral and associated other problems are dealt with, and husband's prostate op is over and done.  But losing weight should help with my arthritic hip and back pain, joint pains, general sluggishness, my early diabetic foot problems, and the internal stuff like my worsening fatty liver disease which has progressed to Stage 2, gallstones, high BP and moderately high cholesterol.  I don't want any of that to get worse, I want it all to get better or at least be stopped in its tracks.  And I don't want to have to be on various medications for the rest of my life.  For all that to happen, I HAVE to lose weight.

Realistically, the new diet proper won't start until Friday 3 January, but I am making preparations and plans between now and then, and am starting to eat more healthily.  Our day to day eating regime for the past few weeks has involved not much healthy home cooking, and rather too much reliance on quick carby things, snack foods and takeaway stuff - something we very rarely normally do.  I'm sick to death of peanuts, crisps, chocolate, cake and pastries now, so that's good!

We still had most of my Christmas cake left....I'm not really a great lover of it (I make it for husband, who loves rich fruit cake) but had eaten a couple of small slices.  Yesterday I portioned it up and gave some to neighbours and put a little bit in the freezer, for husband to have on his birthday (8th January) - I froze it so he won't be tempted to eat it before then.  

We had the bacon, brie and cranberry puff pastry pie I'd made and frozen before Christmas for dinner yesterday, as we were having the double crust pastry pie for dinner, I didn't do any carby root veg with it, just lots of green veggies.  Now there's just the last few mince pies left, which will no doubt get eaten today.

Will try to ease into the low carb, moderate fat and protein, lots of chicken, fish and green veg and fruit thing this week, prior to starting proper with that in a time restricted window on Friday.  We're out on NY eve to neighbours so won't have much control over what we're given to eat and drink (I do supposedly have control over how much of it I choose to eat though!), so I expect some naughty things will be consumed then.

We must try and get out for a beach walk today, Betty needs it and so do I, the lack of activity for the past couple of weeks due to back pain, has just exacerbated it even further, I'm in total agony now.

Highs and lows in town

Yesterday morning we nipped to town to get a couple of things I wanted - the health shop (H&B) are having one of their Penny sales (buy one thing full price, get another for a penny) and this weekend they have an extra 15% off any spend over £35.  So I got another 2 bottles of CBD oil, the larger 30ml size (I'd previously got the 10ml size), for just £34 for the two.  At full price without any of the offers, those 2 bottles would have cost me £80, so a very good saving.  And they'll last me for ages.

Whilst there, I noticed one of the card shops was selling 2020 calendars at half price, one of them had large size months and dates and plenty of space to write things on.  I'll get one of those for Mum, I thought, it'll be just right for her (she's nearly blind in one eye and has poor sight in the other).  I'd actually picked it up and was on my way to the till when I remembered.....I had to rush out of the shop in tears.  No doubt there'll be plenty more occasions like that, until it finally does sink in that she's no longer with us.

I decided to make the healthy brown rice salad that Cherie mentioned (from A hopeful nature blog) for lunch yesterday.  I didn't follow Meg's recipe exactly, but used what I had - brown basmati rice, cooked diced chicken from out of the freezer, some crumbled feta cheese, chopped tomatoes, cucumber and a couple of gherkins, a few remaining olives and some pomegranate seeds, plus a handful of chopped walnuts.  For the dressing, I mixed up some olive oil, honey, lemon juice and homemade cranberry sauce with salt & pepper, shaking it all in a jar.  It was lovely.  Sorry, I forgot to take a photo.  There's enough left for lunch today, I'll take a pic if I remember.

For tea last night we had the sausage rolls and pigs in blankets I'd made for Christmas and froze and never ate, with homemade coleslaw and a few slices of cheese.  

Dinner today will be the bacon, brie and cranberry puff pastry pie I'd also made and froze before Christmas, we'll have it with veg and probably a cheese sauce.

Emotions all over the place

Yesterday started off with sister and I having a laugh over some funny memories of Mum, but later on we were both in tears.  I know it will be like this for some time to come, definitely an emotional rollercoaster.

Sis went to the hospital yesterday to collect the death certificate, then to the funeral directors and the bank....all very emotional.  She'd been sorting out some of Mum's paperwork in the morning and had found a lot of my old school reports - oddly enough, only mine, there were none of my siblings' reports, we don't know why...unless they're somewhere else that sis has yet to find.  I found it very touching that Mum had kept my reports, I never knew that.

My elder brother, who's been a keen photographer all his life, has been sorting out photos he's taken of Mum over the years and sending them to us (thank goodness for phones and social media).  More emotion - most of the photos bring back happy memories, some of them I'd never seen before and were a bit of a surprise, a few not entirely welcome.

We're collaborating and collating memories for Mum's eulogy - as the eldest sibling I recall more about some aspects of Mum's early life, and knew a few things that the others didn't....that's all very emotional too.

It's all quite mentally exhausting at the minute.  Some of the time I'm fine and getting on with the day, then suddenly, completely out of the blue, I'm overwhelmed with a bout of sobbing.  Had a text from someone yesterday, it was well-meaning but breathtakingly insensitive - unintentional I know, but it had me in floods of tears.  In situations like this (a death), sometimes people just don't know what to say for the best, do they, and end up putting their foot in it.

The limbo period between the death and the funeral is the worst, I think.  I hate it.

Getting Christmas over with

…..not that Christmas really happened here.  Thank you again for your lovely comments, I've had so many comments, messages, emails and texts, it gives me such a warm feeling.

I cooked a roast dinner yesterday (and ate it), it's the first time I've cooked a proper meal in a week or more, we've been pretty much surviving on crisps, peanuts and cake (my Christmas cake I made about a month ago, no marzipan or icing though, and a lovely carrot cake a kind neighbour made for us).  Oh, and the lovely buffet our friends provided Christmas evening....friend M practically stood over me with a whip to make sure I ate it (ok, slight exaggeration M but you did 'encourage' me to eat, so thank you 😘).  We've got lots of homemade sausage rolls, mince pies, pigs in blankets and a homemade bacon, Brie and cranberry puff pastry pie in the freezer, none of which we felt like eating, so that's what we're going to eat over today and the weekend - just to tidy them up and get them out of the way, so there's only healthy food left 😉😁.  There's a method in my madness.....eating that lot will probably mean that by Monday I'll be feeling bloated, sick and desperate to eat clean, light, healthy food, so the healthy diet commences next week.

On the subject of which.....Cherie this morning mentioned on her blog a salad another blogger, Meg (not come across her blog before, but will bookmark it now) put on hers.  I've had a look and it's lovely, exactly the sort of thing I like, so will be making that next week.  If any bloggers want to band together so we can all encourage each other with healthy eating, please shout!

Sister and I were reminiscing via WhatsApp early this morning, funny stories about Mum, we were both in stitches, did us both good.

Going to venture out to the shops in a bit, will be good to get out of the house for a while.

Mum

I love this picture of Mum, I have it as my laptop screensaver.  It was taken by my sister back in May, in Mum's garden, Mum was on the phone to me at the time.  Unfortunately, she didn't look anything like that on Christmas Eve when she died, she'd lost so much weight and looked utterly dreadful, seeing her like that will haunt me for the rest of my life.  

But I'm not going to dwell on it, I shall look at the above pic whenever the image of her final day threatens to overwhelm me.

Mum passed away 10 minutes before we got to the hospital....it's fine though, I really didn't want to watch her die, and we're all just relieved she's no longer suffering.  The nurses said she was peaceful and comfortable at the end....well, they would say that wouldn't they, but I choose to take them at face value.  Mum's last few weeks weren't nice at all, her passing is a blessed relief for her and for all of us.  She didn't get her last wish to go home, somehow I knew she wouldn't, she was far too ill to be moved.  It's probably for the best.  The one thing that gives me some comfort is that when I gave her a final hug and kiss, she was still warm, having died only minutes before.....I would have been filled with horror had she been cold.  I am sorry if this upsets anyone, but death is horrible and that's the reality.

A positive is that she had lots of visitors in her last few weeks, many friends from her congregation went to see her in hospital, much to Mum's delight, she didn't realise how loved she was.  I'm glad about that.  I'm also very happy that she was able to speak to me on the phone a couple of weeks ago and told me how much she loved the cards I made for her.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but I just knew she was going to die at Christmas, I just 'felt' it, I even said it to my husband.  Christmas is not a happy time for our family....my beloved Nanna, my Mum's mum, died on Boxing Day years ago.

We have lots of happy memories of Mum, she was very funny, often unintentionally so.  She also said whatever was on her mind, she never left anyone in any doubt as to what she thought, which could be a bit embarrassing at times!  Mum didn't have an easy life, being left to bring up 4 children on her own (I was the eldest at 13, my youngest sibling was just a baby when our father buggered off) and with next to no money.  We never went hungry, she was expert at making a meal out of nothing, we were clothed, fed and warm - even if there was ice on the inside of our windows in winter, we had plenty of blankets, hot water bottles, paraffin heaters and handknitted jumpers, gloves, scarves and hats/balaclavas (much to the disgust of my brothers who had to wear the balaclavas).  We had days out to the zoo, museums and parks, we even went on caravan holidays a few times.  Mum wasn't a demonstrative or cuddly mother, she was more likely to say 'oh for goodness sake, what have you done now?!' when one of us fell over and cut our knee, but we knew we were loved.  And she did become very affectionate in her old age, obviously making up for lost time.

We took our decorations down a week ago, knowing that Mum was near the end I just couldn't bear to have them up.  Regardless of our Christmas being a sad one, I hope all of you have had a lovely time.  We did go to our friends' late yesterday afternoon, they were extremely kind and supportive and we're lucky to have them.

Even though we've been expecting this for months, it's only just beginning to sink in that Mum's gone and I'm very tearful this morning.  

Thank you so very much for all the comments and emails, they help enormously.

RIP

Our lovely mum died peacefully this morning.