First HNT Redux

This is a repost of my first HNT. I don't have a "celebratory" pose - things have been kind of crazy around here lately.

C is dying. It is not the dying of movies where the heroine gently fades as the music wells. This is real. It is painful. It is ugly. She cannot, or will not eat much. She hasn't pooped in over a week. Her kidneys are failing and she is filling up with her own toxins. She is nauseated and often has the dry heaves.

She asked me tonight why she is still alive? Why is she having to go through all of this? I did not know what to tell her. I finally said that it is because she is such a fighter. I told her that we could call hospice back in, she could stop taking all of her pills, and we could make her as comfortable as possible for the remaining time. She did not respond.

I wonder what our children think? They don't want to talk about it. I don't blame them. I don't want to either. But here I am, talking to all of you whom I know only through this anonymous medium of blogland.

Well, I am tired now and will go back upstairs to my sleeping C. Adieu.

P.