Thanks. I will mention that to her. I know I definitely got the better end of that divorce. rarely think of them any more. Hope things are going better for you. It was nice to pop in.
Ok, going to gripe here about a minor thing. CMM's driving drives me crazy! I honestly have never experienced someone whose driving made me so nuts (except maybe my H when he was in crisis and became an aggressive driver for a minute).
It's not that he speeds particularly, it's that his driving is aggressive - and it makes me carsick. (Note: I'm very prone to carsickness but usually am ok in the front passenger seat unless it's a windy mountain road - then I have to drive. )
It's like he doesn't see down the road, so everything is accelerating and braking. Example yesterday - on a busy 4 lane road, light ahead turns yellow but he is still accelerating. Why? We're a block away from the light, this is when you should ease your foot off the accelerator. Instead he's still accelerating and then of course has to brake harder. All that accelerating and decelerating makes me carsick.
Another example - we are on the freeway in the fast lane and the brake lights go on on the car in front of us. Instead of slowing down he's accelerating to pass the car on our right. There's so many things that can go wrong with that scenario.
The constant speeding up and slowing down makes me carsick and the aggressive driving leaves me shouting "watch out" more than he or I would like. I've honestly never felt this way with anyone else's driving. (And he always drove this way so I can't blame it on chemo brain). I'm sure too once I'm carsick I'm more irritable about his driving.
He says my driving bugs him too but that's because I'm too relaxed - I let people in front of me, don't change lanes all the time like he does, I'm not rushing to get anywhere or critiquing other drivers.
I drive more often than not when we're together but yesterday he drove and ended up getting mad at me for back seat driving. Honestly though I've never been this way with anyone else's driving.
I've been told that I drive like a long-haul trucker. One of the reasons perhaps that on my 2010 Corolla I'm still on the factory rear brakes after 534,000 km. Only one serious accident in who knows how many miles.
My son-in-law drives like CMM - always makes me nervous when I'm in the car with him.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Well, i think he's coming to some awareness without us having discussed it further. Last night he was talking about his drive to chemo today. (We live 45 minutes from where he gets chemo, I usually drive him but his treatment today is out of order and I'm working.) He decided he'd rather drive himself than have one of my family drive him - and this is not like ordinary chemo, it doesn't really affect him much.
However, when he was talking about it last night, he was talking about taking the surface streets back rather than the freeway and when I asked why, he mentioned his reaction times. So maybe he is starting to realize on his own that his reaction times are slowed, and maybe that's why all the speeding up and slowing down.
Horror story from a patient yesterday. Her sister was unmarried but living with her man for 14 years. He's 63. She wakes up one morning to find he has unexpectedly died in his sleep (probable heart attack although there has been no autopsy).
She calls the paramedics, who come and certify he's dead so they don't take him. Police and coroner come (because it's an unexpected death at home). But coroner can't take the body until he has permission from next of kin. Hours later they finally get hold of a relative who can okay it; meanwhile she's sitting with the body of her dearly departed boyfriend in her house for HOURS.
I've certainly thought about the fact that CMM could die at my house. As a cancer patient, a heart attack or sudden blood clot or stroke is not out of the realm of possibility. But I never thought I'd have trouble getting the body out of my house if that happened! I'll be getting a legal power of attorney this week.
B was telling my the other day about a friend whose husband died in the middle of sex. Traumatic I'm sure. I'm sure that's one of the things that my ex was always worried about with her overweight husband with a known heart issue.
Power of attorney for medical decisions would take care of that wouldn't it? I may make a point of talking to B about who has what authority. Certainly not in a place at present to hand it over to her although I'm sure she would do fine.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Well this one I can actually answer... It's very likely not about being allowed to take the body - it's much more a question of where to take it. If there was going to be a police investigation, they would have taken the body for autopsy and/or to the county morgue. The problem is, if the police determined it to be a natural death and no further investigation will be conducted, then it's up to the family to decide which funeral home to have come get the body (and be responsible for costs for services provided). Although I'm off the streets now for nearly 10 years, I dealt with this probably a hundred times or more as a paramedic. Once we were done it fell to law enforcement to deal with but we often were involved as well.
Anyhow, while it's a difficult situation, you might want to speak with CMM about what he would like done in the event something happened - especially which funeral home (cremation counts) he would like to have handle things. If he ever progresses to hospice (let's hope not) they are very good about handling things like this. It's just not something most people think about - until it happens.
BTW, are you and CMM living together now? Or just spending more and more time together?
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
Oh, and Andrew - I don't know if the medical power of attorney would work in this situation - I mean, it's not really a medical decision after you're dead, is it?
Ok, just have to share an interesting case I saw this week. A preteen boy with a history of a severe facial rash when he eats fermented soy products like natto and soy sauce (mom is part Japanese and they eat a lot of traditional Japanese foods). Oddly he doesn't react at all to soy that isn't fermented, like edamame.
I do a quick google search and learn something new - apparently natto has a compound called poly gamma glutamic acid that is made during the fermentation process. It's been reported as a cause of anaphylactic allergic reactions, mostly among surfers in Japan - because jellyfish stings contain the same compound! How cool is that?
My young patient needs to avoid all fermented soy (he got some accidentally in beef jerky that contained soy sauce) and I prescribed an epipen for emergencies just in case he progresses to anaphylaxis.
