the past four, five months have been really shitty. actually, the whole past year. first, my dog died, then i had a stroke. i found out my dad needed a heart transplant. i had to postpone my vacation to florida because of the stroke. good thing i did though, when i finally got here in late august, i saw that my parents weren't doing so well. we talked my mom into going to the hospital one day. my dad went a few hours later. he had a stomach bug - she had pancreatic cancer.

my father couldn't take care of himself, being so sick, and we knew my mom would be out of commission for a while, so we decided to move down here. my boyfriend and son stayed here an extra week, then flew back to connecticut while i stayed here. i took care of my parents the best that i could...which i think was pretty damn good. boyfriend and son got here late october. we finally got an appointment for my dad with a heart surgeon. they decided to keep him in the hospital, and ultimately decided to to a bipass, instead of the transplant. the surgery was on halloween, he died november 9th. he just kept having back-to-back seziures. we were going to stop all his "life prolonging" medicines, and the doctor was going to wait until i got there to stop them. i got there fifteen minutes too late.

some people keep saying that maybe it's best that i didn't see him die, or he didn't want me to see him die. but i wanted to be there with him. no one should die alone. i barely had time to grieve for my dad because my mom was so sick.

she kept getting different infections, and ultimately, we decided to use hospice for pain management. they were coming out every day to see how she was and check her med. levels. nothing was working, so she decided to go into the hospice house for a few days, just so they could figure out how to get her pain under control.

she declined quickly once she was in there. after about a week, a social worker called me in to say that she only had, AT THE VERY MOST, three weeks to live. this was about two weeks before christmas.

somehow, she started feeling a little better, and was able to come home christmas eve. she spent twenty minutes of christmas morning with us, but the rest of the day she slept. she had to go back to hospice the next day.

some days she would seem okay, just being very impatiant about getting outside to smoke. we would sit out there for a few hours. when we'd get back to her room, she'd be exhausted and go to bed. the last few days she was alive, she didn't want to go outside, i don't think she even knew we were there.

january 16th, she passed in her sleep at 3:25pm. i tried to get there in time, but again - i was a half hour late. at least my aunt and uncle were there with her. if she even knew, i don't know. that was a week ago today.

january 21, a wednesday, i had to have my cat put to sleep. we got her in either '94 or '96. she became my parent's cat after i moved to ct. when they passed and my family (including a dog and two cats) she got really stressed. but i think it went beyond that. she was starting to go senile, losing all her fur, losing a lot of weight, while being an eating machine. i didn't know what else to do for her, but let her go peacefully.

so yeah, this year's not starting off much better than the last, but maybe it'll pick up. it better, i don't know how much more i could possibly take.