Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Thank you to all of you who have sent condolences through many emails and many, many cards.  I would like to thank each of you personally, but of course cannot.  Your words of sympathy and encouragement made it easier to bear up under the incredible grief I feel every second of every day. Grief is a strange bedfellow and I am doing my best to get on with life as Al would have wanted me to do.

Al’s Memorial Service took place Thursday. August 19, which was a month after he died due to his older brother not being able to make the trip until then.  Fr. David Shalk, a friend of ours, officiated at he Catholic service although Al was not Catholic.  I am grateful to my parish, St. John Neumann, Sunbury, Ohio, and its pastor, Fr. David Sizemore, for allowing the service to be held there as I was greatly comforted.  I am very grateful to all who came to honor and remember Al and to support me.  The beginning music was my husband’s beloved Bach, followed by my niece Annie singing our favorite hymn, “On Eagles’ Wings.  Al’s niece Gabriella, an opera singer, sang the “Lord’s Prayer” and “The Wind Beneath Wings.”  I carried my beloved’s ashes out to Sarah Brightman’s melodious and haunting “It’s Time to Say Goodbye.”    At the risk of repeating parts of what I have already related on this blog, below is the Eulogy I delivered for Al:

Al’s Eulogy

I loved my husband. Our first conversation on the phone before we met was about broccoli, gardening, and nature. Thank God he loved he loved dogs and horses for if he didn’t I was in trouble. I was a “goner” as soon as we met. We met January 20, 1984, on the coldest night of that year and we knew that we belonged together. We just knew. We weren’t sure how; we weren’t sure why. We just knew that no longer would we be alone. Our first kiss in the restaurant parking lot sealed our future.

We were married six weeks later . . . the feisty gal from Brooklyn (Al hated New Yorkers, go figure)—the queen of excess and Irish emotion and the master of moderation and restraint. The earthy hopeless romantic and the complete realist with a wry sense of humor.

A poem from the romanticist Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes my way of expressing my love for Al:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old grief’s, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God chooses,

I shall but love thee better after death.

In Al’s desk I found the following Alfred Lord Tennyson poem in Al’s writing; it describes Al’s way of expressing love with his own brand of humor perfectly but doesn’t say much for me:

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall run its novel course:

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

To explain further Al’s sense of humor, I submit the following: his favorite tee shirt which I hold up now and which sweetly reads: “My next wife will be normal.”

What is the measure of a man: for Al it was honor, integrity, ethics, honesty, strength of character, and stoicism. He believed in hard work and no complaints.

For Al it was the love of his children Carolyn and Stuart, his grandchildren Audrey and Darren, his brothers Bill and Jack, now deceased, his sister Susan and his nieces and nephews, and me.

For Al it was gardening; farming, nature, red tailed hawks, bird watching, Celtic history and music, Bach, his beloved Cavaliers and the Rattlebridge fame we achieved together, his mare Buttercup to whom he sang the Gilbert and Sullivan tune, “They call me Buttercup” from the time she was born. For Al it was science, his great passion for sailing especially with his brother Bill. And for Al at the very end it was Jesus Christ whom he had spent his lifetime at least publicly denying.

Before we were married, he told me: “My soul is in your hands” and I took it very seriously. I felt that if I were a better Christian and a better person, I could set the example to bring him to Jesus. Al despised the hypocrisy of organized religion with its corrupt scandalous leaders who should have been the epitome of God’s grace and kindness to man. I explained that because men were fallible, it did not mean that belief in the goodness and omnipresence of God was tainted. I prayed for 26 years that Al would believe as I believe. He balked. His soul was never in my hands but in God’s hands all the time. Two days before Al died, he became filled with anger physically pushing me away and harshly uttering that “he hated this world and wanted to leave this earth.” I climbed in beside him, held him tight, and fervently told him to let go of the anger and the darkness in his head for it was the devil’s work. I begged him to accept the light and God’s love. I said the “Our Father” and he joined me in the prayer. I asked him to pray to Jesus and he said “I am” and physically relaxed. Later he told me to ‘let him go” please let me go and I told him yes, it was okay to go.

The night before he died, he was restless and agitated. My niece Annie and her husband Eric, both of whom loved Al very much and whom he loved, and I held a prayer vigil over Al. I once again crawled in beside him as close as I could, inhaling his scent, and whispering my love for him and more importantly God and His Son Jesus’ love for him. Eric said that Al visibly relaxed as peace descended upon him.

Al died the next day very peacefully and I know he died believing—the answer to my prayers.

Recently I had researched near death and dying experiences which seem to mirror each other around the world. Dr. John Lerma, hospice physician at Houston Medical Center, wrote the book Into the Light which chronicles the stories of dying patients who testified that they saw angels and sometimes Christ at their bedsides embracing them with incredible love. Sometimes inexplicably a white feather would appear in the room–a sign that the angels were filling the room with light.

Even though I believe that Al is in heaven, I have begged Al and God for a sign. The other night just before closing, I pulled into Lowe’s and at my feet as I got out of the car lay this white feather. The smaller feather Annie just found in the barn at the farm Al loved so much, the only white feather we have ever seen at the farm. I have my sign.

The love of my life is with God watching over those he loved especially me and cringing that I now have access to the checkbook which he knows I will screw up for before I was married I balanced my checkbook by changing banks every four months. He is also worried that I will never change the oil in the cars. Al took good care of me. He was my rock, my support, my solace, and my friend. A friend just wrote me: “In knowing Al, a person of quiet wisdom with a sneaky little dry sense of humor, there is one thing I loved seeing each time. This is a man who really "got you". He knew you inside and out and loved you. He loved sharing life with you.” Yes he really “got me” and I “got him.” Two souls that came together on that cold night.

Not a demonstrative man verbally he still told me many times: “all I do and my life is for you.” His support allowed me to fly but he was always and always will be the “wind beneath my wings.” His love is alive in my heart, but oh, my Albie, I miss you so . . .

Before we were married, Al and I had dinner and talked about God.  I am very Catholic although I did not always practice my faith as I should have, but my journey has led me to more spirituality and a better understanding of Christianity and Jesus Christ whom I love with all my heart. Since Al was not truly a believer, he told me that night that “his soul was in my hands.”  I took his statement very seriously and believed that if I was a better Christian, Al would believe. I prayed for his acceptance of Jesus Christ as his personal Savior for twenty six years. Al hated the hypocrisy in organized religion from the corrupt evangelists, to the problem of pedophile priests, to the lack of human decency from those who professed to be oh so Christian.  I felt the same way, but man sins.  I keep telling God that His biggest mistake was giving us free will as we have really screwed it up. 

I ministered to Al every chance I could.  When he was in the hospital the several times in the past two years for his chemo treatments, he met one of the chaplains, a Lutheran minister, who had several conversations with Al. Still I saw no progress in his acceptance of God.  When listening to music, especially his beloved Bach, he often stated that music was a reason to believe in God’s existence.  This last time in the hospital, my praying for him was non stop.  When he admitted to being terrified, I calmed him down with prayer and talk of heaven:  he had nothing to fear.  During his anger described in a previous post, I prayed and talked him through the anger by telling him to push the dark thoughts out of his head and let in God’s light. I did not stop talking and praying.  He was visited several times by the Lutheran chaplain with whom he had talked and by my Priest, Father Shalk, whom Al knew and liked.  Finally when I asked him to pray to Jesus, he replied “I am.”  The night before he died Eric, Annie and I held a vigil over him, praying, reading from the psalms, and singing hymns.  I crawled into his bed and held him, caressing his face, reminiscing about our life together and talking about God’s love for him and how God was embracing him as he left me.  He died the next day very peacefully; I know he accepted Christ but my faith can be weak so I kept praying that he was in God’s arms and happy in the Light.

I have read two books by Dr. John Lemma MD: Into the Light and Learning From the Light.  Dr. Lerma works at Houston Medical Center in hospice.  He has studied near death experiences as he worked with his patients.  I have read several books on near death experiences; all the research done in every country on this phenomena describes the same scenario no matter what the language, faith, or terminal  disease.  All the patients describe the same experiences while nearing death; they describe seeing angels and sometimes Jesus Himself.

Now I have prayed for a sign that my Al is okay and in God’s arms instead of mine.  All of Lerma’s patients describe seeing angels; sometimes a feather appears near the patient where there is no real possibility of a feather appearing. I have been begging God to let me know that all is well with my Al.  I know he is in heaven because I believe in the mercy and goodness of God. However, I been agonizing over not knowing how to reach Al or having him reach me.  Well, today, while shopping at Loew’s I got out of the car on this huge expanse of blacktop and at my feet lay a white feather with no reason for the feather to be there.  I had my sign and it is real.  I worship the kind and merciful God who gave me this small miracle from one of His angels wings.  I have my sign; my Al is basking in the glory of God. Praise to you, Oh Lord, and Your Son who died so that my Al can live forever in The Light.

It has been a week since my beloved Al died and I just cannot believe he will never be home again.  I walk this large house aimlessly, I go through his things smelling every shirt to catch his scent, I sit where he sat in the living room, I sit in his place at the table, I try to find him in every corner.  I cannot hear his voice; I cannot see him walk in the door; I cannot find him and yet he is everywhere.  His little Spangle goes from room to room, she looks dejected as she cannot find him either and is so confused; we are now sisters in grief.

He always did the grocery shopping because he thought I always spent too much money; true that.  I am out of everything and yet I cannot make myself go to the store.  Last night after going to the pharmacy to stop his prescriptions being automatically refilled, I went to Bob Evans and sat at the booth where we last sat.  I looked at a couple across the aisle and knew that I would never again be part of a couple again.  I walked out with such a heavy heart and cried all the way home.  I am a strong woman and I am functioning enough to pay bills and do the dog and household chores.  Some of my dogs are at the farm with my niece and nephew and will come home after I judge this weekend.  Judging and any showing I do will be a special challenge as was always here so I could leave.  I think of the most stupid things like who will take me to the airport and pick my up; who will make the salads at dinner; who will make my morning tea; who will read the paper to me and make me watch CNN or the awful Judge Judy whom he watched daily; who will hold me when I need to be held; who will put me first and love me unconditionally as I love him. Who be the other half that makes the whole?

I have known for a long time that I would lose Al; he has battled one kind of cancer or another for nearly twenty years.  Yet, now I just cannot believe that he is gone,  I can now empathize with every woman who has found herself or will find herself in the position that I am now in.  I never understood the depth of the loss of one’s spouse before and now sadly I do. 

I have had so many emails concerning plans for Al’s Memorial Celebration from those in our area.  I had intended to have just a very private family service, but some of our friends said they would like to attend.  There is absolutely no reason for anyone to feel obligated to attend as Al and I would not expect it. Even so,  I thought I would post the arrangements:

Just finished arrangements for Al’s Memorial Service, no viewing. St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Sunbury, Ohio. 7 PM, Thursday August 19, 2010.  Light Refreshments in social hall after. 

Al was not Catholic, but I am very Catholic. Father Sizemore, pastor of St. John Neumann, has graciously given the privilege to me of having Al’s Service in the Sanctuary of my church.  I am very grateful.  Father Shalk from my childhood church has been a friend to both Al and me.  When we were talking about Al he remarked that “Al was Al” and truer words were never spoken.

Donna Riess who has a very special Rattlebridge ruby girl, just sent a lovely email to me with words I have printed below.  I am so thankful for all the emails and cards in memory of my Al.  Thank you.

Donna’s words:

The day I picked up Lucy from you, I noticed something that I very rarely
see.  It was a look that passed between you and Al.  The look said it
all; there was understanding as though you could read each others minds,
there was respect, there was playfulness, there was devotion, there was
love…. Not everyone gets the chance to find that perfect soul mate.

It seems that I will be using this blog to describe stages in the grief process.  One minute I seem to be okay and then I rage and sob and call to him not to leave me.  Silly I know, but his presence is everywhere and I miss him so much.  When I came home from the hospital I ran to his pillow and his undershirts just to catch his scent. After he died, I held him for a couple of hours with my nose in the crook of his neck to catch his essence as I had done so many times in our marriage.  I think back at all the things I could have done better, paid more attention to his needs while being so caught up in my career and dogs. Al suffered from one type of cancer or another for twenty years.   He was determined to live for me.  He endured chemo for me.  Once one has cancer, one waits for its reoccurrence despite chemo, surgery, radiation.  If I were to get cancer, I would do nothing because I could not live knowing it could strike again and again.  He did it for me.

He was not a man to accept softness or babying.  I wanted to baby him, but instead I just made sure he was doing what he needed to stay well except for this last chemo when I failed to keep his nutrition where it should be as he would eat little but fruit. I nagged and prodded and threatened but nothing could make him eat; I am told it would not have mattered anyway. He was just losing ground.He knew he was dying; he knew it was time but it was not time for me.  It would never be time for me.

Tonight a friend and I listened to music to be played at his memorial service.  He loved Bach; listening to his favorite pieces without him was almost more than I could bear.  He often said that he could believe in God because of music, especially the genius of Bach.  I listened to the Celtic Women CD’s.  He was so interested in the Celts, read everything he could about them and perfected whole monologues of legend and lore. He was interested in so many things with his fine mind and scientific bent.  He was so brilliant and capable.  I just cannot believe how empty this house is and how empty my heart.

So many memories, so many tears . . .

My wonderful, beloved husband Al died yesterday from complications of liver cancer. He was in the hospital since July 9, six days in intensive care and then in the supportive hospital hospice. His pain was beyond belief but I advocated for him in my usual pushy Brooklyn way to keep him comfortable and he was kept comfortable.   I told his oncologist that while he may be a good doctor he had the bedside manner of a “toad.”  He was in an excellent hospital which tended to his every need with me ready to do battle if his needs were not met.

He never recovered from his chemo embolization on May 17th.  I was with Al every second of his struggle to live. He tried so very hard not to leave me, but finally asked me to “let him go. Please let me go. I want to leave this earth. I hate this world.” He went through stages of anger which is a normal part of the process of leaving. For 26 years I have prayed that Al would accept Jesus Christ.  As he lay dying, I prayed so hard as I talked to him and held him for so many hours whispering in his ear how much God loved him and was embracing him. In the end, he released the anger and accepted the Lord. I do not how I will live without him, but I know by the peaceful soft and calm look on his face that he saw his future with God and was at peace.  My prayers were answered and I thank God with every breath I have. 

I cannot bear the thought of not touching him again, kissing his dear lips, and bantering back and forth.  He was my rock, my solace, my foundation, my hero.  His character was that of integrity, ethics, loyalty, honesty and a work ethic that was amazing.  I have not done finances in 26 years.  I was 39 when I married and my idea of balancing the checkbook was to change banks every four months. I have not touched a checkbook since he found out about my balancing act. I have not put oil in my vans in 26 years.

I had already bred a couple of my girls, but doubt if I will be be equipped to show for a long while, so the puppies will go to wonderful homes as pets.  I know God has plans for me but right now I mourn and will mourn it seems like forever right now.  I loved Al and he loved me. What more can be said. Rest in peace, my darling “Albie.”  I love you forever and so look forward to being with you again, seeing you basking in the light.                     

              We loved each other, what more can be said?                          

Our Wedding His 80th Birthday with his brothers, sister, daughter, grandchildren and me 

Al and his beloved brother Bill, two peas in a pod!

My Beloved Al

My first and only husband of 26 years, Albert Berry Snyder, will be 81 tomorrow and will probably be going into hospice on his birthday. He has never recovered from the chemo directly into his liver on May 17th, growing weaker and weaker.  He has been in the hospital almost two weeks now with acute pancreatitis; a pancreatic cyst; an infected lesion in his liver: a kidney stone which backed up urine causing an infection of his blood; and extremely poor nutrition from not being able to eat well after the chemo. We knew none of this, just thought the chemo had him down as the other times he had chemo to his liver.  He will not be put on life support and has chosen not to be given any nutrition as he is ready to die. He has been in horrible pain while in ICU for five or six days, mostly from the kidney stone which finally passed into his bladder and from the acute pancreatitis.  He simply cannot take anymore for as he said to me “I can’t go on. I cannot do this another night. Let me go. Let me go please.”  Please pray the his passing is peaceful and free from pain.  I love Al beyond reason. He has been my rock and my support.  Without him, there would be no Rattlebridge and he let me have all the credit.  Without him there may be no Rattlebridge in the future as I do not see how I can go on without him.  Please pray for my Al!

I am off to up state New York tomorrow to judge two shows.  I will be visiting with several friends

who are coming to the show to see me with their Rattlebridge dogs. I can’t wait to see them.

I will also be glad to see fellow judges and dog show friends.  I have not been to dog shows

on a regular basis due to Al’ health.  Our friend Angie  who helps with our dogs and our friend

Sara who has two of my dogs who live with her, both hopefully pregnant:  Rattlebridge

Bounce in Her Step (daughter of my Bounce from frozen semen) and Rattlebridge

Mary Cassata (daughter of my Renoir from frozen semen).  I am happy to be having summer puppies,

but I will tell you this: if Senate Bill 95 passes, I will not probably be breeding dogs at least in Ohio.

Our Governor Strickland made a pact with the devil with HSUS and the Farm Bureau in an attempt

to keep HSUS from getting enough signatures to get their version of our newly passed farm bill on the

November ballot.  Part of the deal was that Strickland will back SB95 which is being pushed by the

animal rights zealots in Ohio and is being fought by sane people who do not want government control

with the ridiculous requirements in the bill for animal care.  I totally agree we need to fight the

substandard breeders, mostly the Amish, in our state. The standard of care can be inhumane to

downright cruel.

As soon as I begin writing about legislation and animal rights, I lose track of my original subject.  So—as

soon as I land in Columbus from New York on Monday Angie will meet me at the airport with another

packed suitcase so I can repack and take off to Las Vegas to catch up with two of my friends from the

last school that I served as principal who are attending a kindergarten convention.  I should not be going;

I don’t want to leave Al but he is covered and money is tight which has never stopped me to Al’s worry

perpetual worry.

I simply need to get away. Al has not bounced back from his latest chemo; I am worried sick.  He has stayed

bed for the last three weeks with no energy. After he was home after his last chemo which consists of a

cocktail infused directly into his liver through the femoral artery, he had a huge reaction to the antibiotic

Cipro causing him to go into scary hallucinations and dementia which got worse by the day until I hauled him

kicking and screaming into the emergency room. They admitted him and kept him for four days as Cipro can

cause dementia in the elderly. Of course I was the bad guy because I would not turn the televisions and radio

off because they were off when he insisted they were blaring.  His mind is back to normal.

I just wrote an article for “The Royal Spaniels” magazine about priorities changing; I did not expect any feedback

from Cavalier people and got none.  I feature it below. It talks about how we all get so caught up in the dog show

game, myself leading the pack, that we do not always pay attention to the human side of life. I have known dog

people who have taken a second mortgage out on their house or robbed their children’s’ college funds

order to finance a dog’s career to attempt to get to the coveted number in competition Cavalier in the country.  I

know how proud one can be of a dog that does that well; we have had three number one in competition Cavaliers in this

country and one in Canada. Was it sweet, yes, but oh so fleeting. As I say below, at the end of the day it is the dogs

that count, not the wins.

HAVING MY SAY: WHEN PRIORITIES CHANGE

Meredith Johnson-Snyder

Rattlebridge Cavaliers

In the last six months since Al has come out of remission and into aggressive liver cancer, my world and priorities have tilted. I find myself unable to wrap my once driven head around much of anything; I just cannot get myself together to finish articles, to keep up the good fight against anti breeding legislation, or to even embark on my spring planting frenzy. My energy level has pummeled, my goals have gone on vacation, and the normal activity of keeping up in the Cavalier and dog worlds has diminished. Facing cancer in one’s spouse takes center stage and normalcy goes on a back burner. My priorities have definitely changed and for the better right now.

Breeding, raising, and showing dogs can become a passion for those who do it with the right intention to improve the breed or at least to do no harm.

“Doing dogs” can become an obsession, an addiction, and a way of life. I am as guilty as anyone for missing family birthdays, sports events, awards ceremonies, graduations and weddings if one collided with a big specialty or judging assignment. My brothers, sister, and stepchildren and their families have never understood that they really needed to ask about my judging schedule or nationals in order to be graced with my presence; after all a judging contract is usually signed a at least a year in advance!!! The judging panel for a specialty or national may be made in heaven for one’s certain dog. Chasing the next BIS or National BISS can become the “holy grail” and the priority.

I have known those who did not make mortgage or car payment in order to pay entries, a handler to take a dog out, and/or advertising for said dog’s campaign. I have seen dogs become more of a priority than children. Thank God I have never gone quite that far probably because I never had children! I admit that priorities became pretty twisted when dog show weekends took top billing all too often in my life.

How absurd it all is, but then I am not alone in the dog world for having skewed priorities. When I asked a judge friend once what his religion was, he replied “the church of dog shows.” How many Sunday Masses or Holy Days of Obligation did I miss going to shows, whelping litters, or just begging off. Balancing my career and my dog show adventures was always a challenge and I retired earlier than I should have in order to be free to pursue my dream of showing and judging without the restrictions of a full time job—a job I would now love to do again if I wasn’t too damned old to do more than act as a substitute principal!

Why am I going on about all this? I am going on about “all this” because my priorities have drastically changed with age and with my husband’s cancer. I just wish I had had the good sense to change my priorities before nieces and nephews and step grandchildren had grown up without me realizing it, before so much money was spent on “doing dogs” and not enough saved or given to charities, before I had spent so much time away from Al who always supported me in my dog activities even when emitting terribly long sighs when doing the check book!

Was the drive to have beautiful champions, best in show dogs, performance and therapy dogs, and Register of Merits worth it? Yes, in a way, as dreams were fulfilled, goals met, and friendships made. It is wonderful to be able to look back at the journey of fulfilling dreams of wonderful Cavaliers. When I go back in my mind’s eye, the memories of my dogs will keep me softly even if all the ribbons and trophies will not keep me warm. However, all of those memories include Al who was my rock, my balance, my “curmudgeon” driving me crazy with his down to earth attitude when I just wanted to fly and he would be so damned cautionary that I would accuse him of always trying to put a damper on things. He should have put much more of a damper on me!!!

There comes a time in one’s life when the “footloose and fancy free” mentality of the young or middle aged comes into perspective. I think of my friend Anne Thaeder who rather put her life on hold to be her mother’s companion and then caretaker; she did so with joy and love. I hope that I am doing the same with my Al as gracefully as Annie and so many others finding themselves in the same situation do. My husband increasingly needs me in the “ups and downs” of chemo and if not total remission then just as much quality time as chemo and the Lord give to us. I have never been a very patient person, but am now learning patience. I have never really had to deny myself what I wished to do as an adult; Lord knows Al never denied me. Now he comes first in everything and I want to spend all my time with him. Suddenly “doing dogs” is not so important. Although still breeding a bit and enjoying looking at the show puppies grow up with our lawn as their show ring, I find that I am in no hurry to take them out; maybe they will be shown someday, maybe not, as their trotting around at home is as wonderful to me as their trotting around a ring. Even though missing the National this year did give me pause as I have a puppy that would have been competitive, there will be other nationals and other UK shows rather than this year’s wonderful one at Blenheim Palace. For one so once immersed in the dog show world as I, I have changed my priorities by the grace of God. Please say a prayer for my Al; he has been probably the only man in the world to put up with me. At this point he shakes his head with an empathetic yes!

I don’t know about you, but I am totally thoroughly outraged about our precious Gulf coast being assaulted by oil from a BP well—a well that should never have been drilled five miles under the ocean floor without safety nets in place.   I am outraged by BP’s excuses, its lies, its taking shortcuts and hoping nothing bad would happen, and its worship of the almighty dollar to feed its investors their dividends each quarter.  BP is not an American company; why is it operating off our shores. How many politicians has BP bought in order to do the deep drilling it has knowing the possible dangers to our environment and its personnel.  It is our environment, not the UK environment that is being ruined in the Gulf: our shrimp and fish, our bird life, our beaches, our tourist industry  and the livelihood of our people are all being insulted by oil.  Wasn’t Alaska enough of a wake up call ?  When will we as a nation realize that the oil industry does not have a ecological collective bone in its profit geared body.  How long has the oil industry lobbied those in Washington for its own ends and certainly not for the good of the American people.  When will we become fed up with corporate gluttony at the expense of our fragile ecosystems.  Stop buying BP.  Let it feel the results of their greed in their pocketbook as money is all that matters to BP and every other oil company.  Our last president was part of the oil industry and his presidency showed his partiality. Our present president needs to take charge and take charge now without giving BP any benefit of the doubt.  I believe so much is being kept from public knowledge about this whole horrible situation.  Start rattling the cages of legislators to do a thorough, unbiased investigation and stop buying gas from BP!!!

When I got home from visiting with the Thaeders in S. Carolina, Al was due to go in for his chemo.  His chemo consists of sending a “cocktail” through the femoral artery directly into his liver.  He has had two chemo treatments into one lobe of the liver and it looks like the biggest tumor has receded a bit, but the largest tumor in the other lobe has grown. This treatment was directed at that tumor and all went smoothly; Al spent the night at the hospital and then came home.  Then the trouble began or as the Irish would put it “the troubles.”  Al was home only a day or so when he began to act strangely; “strange"  became stranger and stranger. He began to hear and see things that were not there and not the Easter Bunny or Santa. He thought he had whole phone conversations that he didn’t really have; heard the television on when it was not, ditto for the car radio.  If it wasn’t so scary, it would have been hysterical as he woke me up in the middle of the night yelling that the television was on.  We have far too many televisions in this house and it took me a bit to go room to room so I could report back that there was no TV on.  He began to tell me that he thought he was losing his mind and by this time I thought I was losing mine.  His hallucinations began to get worse and I thought he was heading into dementia. Of course he was lucid and sane enough to refuse to go to the ER.  Fortunately one of my friends, a physician was visiting when “the troubles” were coming to a head.  I finally tracked down the on call doctor from the oncologist group, who told me to get him to the ER.  Only after I finally put Al on the phone with the doctor, did Al relent and agree to go in.  He would have relented anyway as I said I was calling the squad so the men with the straight jackets could get him.  Finally, we get to the ER where we waited for ten hours in a room as all kinds of tests were run as no one could figure out his problem. I cannot be sweet and nurturing to Al as he just won’t respond to my “Florence Nightingale”bedside manner; I need to be rather hard because Al will not try to go along with what is best for him. At this point Al was repeating “this is the most miserable night of my life” and “I want to go home” complaints; Al is John Wayne through and through. One does not baby John Wayne. So I was relying on drill sergeant persona to keep the medical staff on its toes and Al under control when one of the nurses going off shift informed me as she left that she did not think I was being nice to my husband and she was glad she was going off shift so she did not need to talk to me anymore.  Such professional understanding of the state of affairs as I tried to keep all together without becoming a puddle on the floor.  I refrained from just smacking her.  Meanwhile the CAT scan of Al’s head showed nothing abnormal; his rocks were intact. Other tests showed a couple of deficiencies but nothing to cause the dementia. However, after telling the docs again and again (each new doctor or nurse asks the same questions over and over) what meds Al was taking, one of the ER docs thought that Al might have a reaction to the antibiotic Cipro which can cause dementia in the elderly;  so my darling curmudgeon was admitted for a barrage of tests and spent a few days in the hospital. The antibiotic was the culprit, but also medications needed to be adjusted a bit.

I requested a wheelchair for him so we could attend his granddaughter’s graduation more easily. Of course he initially fought me over using the chair, but capitulated to my commander in chief tactics and told me later, when seriously prompted, that the chair indeed was a big help. Why do men fight the battle when they know damned well they will lose the war when engaged in combat with their wives.

Al has since had a visiting nurse and a physical therapist at home. This chemo and, of course, his reaction to Cipro hit him terribly hard.  He is quite weak; Al has been a strong guy all his life: stoic and tough. John Wayne to the core.  He is not taking old age with grace.  Even as awful as he felt after the chemo and before and after the hospitalization for the reaction to Cipro, he insisted that he was going to mow the lawn on the zero turn.  I know what battles to chose and this one I could not win. Just keep my tough old guy in your prayers please.