Yes, I am in the middle of a tragedy right now. My partner is in subacute rehab. Discharge planning is not on the immediate horizon, but in my heart of hearts I don't want her to go home. On Medicaid (which she will have to get on) she can have a home attendant every day, but that will then be a full time job for me. I will have to supervise and manage them, some will do a good job, some won't, sometimes the aide will call in sick, and sometimes she won't show up. This is territory I know about. It is less of a problem if the elderly person can supervise the aides herself (for example if her problems are exclusively physical). But I know my partner can't, so this will be my job. It will mean I will never know, from day to day, if I will be in the middle of a crisis. I don't want that. Most of our mutual friends agree, but the social worker at the nursing home where she is getting rehab has (I feel) tried to guilt trip me into wanting her to come home. The place looks like a war zone. Yes, I can use my partner's money to pay people to clean it up (this will need to be done regardless) but how will it stay clean? If an aide is there during the day seeing that my partner eats, changing the bed (and other things), and washing some dishes and some laundry, she will not have time to keep that monstrosity of an apartment clean and organized. And there will still be the mail!!! All those catalogs, and bills and bank statements that my partner can't keep track of or understand.
She is getting good care where she is. True, in the beginning, if she stays there, she will have to share a room, toe to toe, with someone else, but she can be waitlisted for a semi-private, and then a private room. She scarcely knows where she is. She loves to be waited on. She can watch tv, and watch the endless stream of people coming in and out. I can visit her every day. The facility is close by. And then I can leave. And until she physically comes to the end of life (definitely not there yet) I am unlikely to get a frantic call necessitating that I drop everything. I can make plans.
I am not making any now, not until she is settled and I have completed all the paperwork to help her get Medicaid (which she will need regardless). The facility has Saturday concerts at 2:30, so maybe I can do something. And I am planning a solo for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany.
I picked up the Mascagni "Ave Maria" which I had heard and really liked. It's one of those pieces with choices for higher notes and lower notes. So I will sing the lower notes. At the end there's a pianissimo note, usually an A, although you can sing an F. At my lesson my teacher made me sing the A and I actually did it! But I don't seem to be able to replicate it at home. I have tried this, and tried that, and nothing really works. Everything just seems to produce tension. Tomorrow I will try again. It's something to focus on. I won't know if that is something I will sing until we get the Advent/Christmas choir schedule. Ave Marias are usually best for Magnificat Sunday and that is pretty much always a choir Sunday. In fact I am not really sure when I will sing, because the two Sundays are Christmas Day and New Year's Day. New Year's might be a possibility. If my partner is still in the rehab/nursing home I won't be staying up with her at night New Year's Eve and anyhow that has not been our thing for a long time.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
Great Joy and Great Sadness
Trovatore went well. I was happy with how I sang, and my teacher was happy. And he sounded great despite having been battling a cold. The audience loved it although there were only half as many people as had come to Carmen. The only SNAFU was that the event planner was on vacation, and the person she had turned this over to left early and turned it over to someone else, so no one could find the programs. So there weren't any. But that was a minor matter.
The great sadness is that when the nurse came to see my partner on Wednesday she called 911 (I'm so grateful she was there - my partner never would have allowed me to do that) to take her to the ER if for no other reason than that she had a sprained ankle and could not even walk to the refrigerator. She was in the ER for over 24 hours before she got a bed. She had a UTI and pneumonia (a mild case) but I see a lot of other issues as well. She sleeps way too much and is confused some of the time. Legally, she is definitely compos mentis, and she did well on several parts of a memory test (the part she did not do well with involved sequences with numbers which is something she has never been able to understand), but she is too confused, in my opinion, to go back home and deal with trying to feed herself, understand materials that come in the mail, etc. At some point she will be transferred from the hospital to a subacute rehab, and from there maybe she will go into long-term care. She can't afford to have a home attendant every day and is not currently eligible for Medicaid. I think once she is in a facility, though, they have staff that could work on that.
Well, even after over 40 years sober in AA, I think it's only now that I understand the idea of "one day at a time".
But I have to go on with my own life. Fortunately Social Security covers half my expenses and I can always squeeze in 20 hours a week of copyediting to cover the other half.
And I am going to continue to sing although I am not going to plan anything big until I know what's going on with my partner. My next project can be finding a solo to sing during the period between Christmas and Epiphany, when the choir is off.
And I have her cat, Darby. So with him and my little Cash-Kiss (my new nickname for him) it's endless Tuxedo shenanigans.
Although tomorrow I have to arrange for Cash to have his nasal poly removed (the rescue people will pay for it).
The great sadness is that when the nurse came to see my partner on Wednesday she called 911 (I'm so grateful she was there - my partner never would have allowed me to do that) to take her to the ER if for no other reason than that she had a sprained ankle and could not even walk to the refrigerator. She was in the ER for over 24 hours before she got a bed. She had a UTI and pneumonia (a mild case) but I see a lot of other issues as well. She sleeps way too much and is confused some of the time. Legally, she is definitely compos mentis, and she did well on several parts of a memory test (the part she did not do well with involved sequences with numbers which is something she has never been able to understand), but she is too confused, in my opinion, to go back home and deal with trying to feed herself, understand materials that come in the mail, etc. At some point she will be transferred from the hospital to a subacute rehab, and from there maybe she will go into long-term care. She can't afford to have a home attendant every day and is not currently eligible for Medicaid. I think once she is in a facility, though, they have staff that could work on that.
Well, even after over 40 years sober in AA, I think it's only now that I understand the idea of "one day at a time".
But I have to go on with my own life. Fortunately Social Security covers half my expenses and I can always squeeze in 20 hours a week of copyediting to cover the other half.
And I am going to continue to sing although I am not going to plan anything big until I know what's going on with my partner. My next project can be finding a solo to sing during the period between Christmas and Epiphany, when the choir is off.
And I have her cat, Darby. So with him and my little Cash-Kiss (my new nickname for him) it's endless Tuxedo shenanigans.
Although tomorrow I have to arrange for Cash to have his nasal poly removed (the rescue people will pay for it).
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Trovatore Take 2, and Other Things
Today was the second (and final) Trovatore rehearsal. We started from the top and included the narration. I didn't feel that I sang as well as last time (although I was much more secure with rhythms, tempi, etc.) but that may have been because I was being more self critical. Mostly I wasn't happy with the last B flat at the end - it went straight - although my teacher said it was good, just not as good as I can sing at my best.
I will do a small amount of practicing tomorrow, then have a lesson Thursday (I am not going to choir practice) and then mostly rest.
My partner is not well. Whatever she has is nonspecific, which is the problem. It is not a worsening of her core illnesses, COPD and a-fib. It is an overwhelming fatigue combined with her existence in a state that is always sort of halfway between being asleep and being awake.
A nurse is coming tomorrow to evaluate her. I will do what I can but I really need Sunday and Monday to be blackout dates with no stress. Whatever she has is not life threatening. The best thing in the world would be if she could be in a rehab for several weeks where she was fed and exercised. She does not do these things on her own. She is also now constantly guilt tripping me about not being there. Yes, if I seriously think about it the most important thing in my life is to cherish her for as long as possible, but if I don't throw my all into singing now, the window of opportunity will be past.
After the Trovatore performance I suppose I should have a moratorium on planning anything big (other than looking for an Advent/Christmas/Epiphany choir solo) until whatever is going on with her is sorted.
And on top of all this, I got a letter from LC. Several months ago, I deleted a post in which I said I hated her because hate was too strong a word. No, I do hate her. I rarely hate people. There were periods when I hated my mother, but really that has been it, certainly as an adult. She wrote to thank me for a page I had made for a memory book for her 80th birthday before she slammed the door on me (and no, she does not have dementia, that is not what is driving any of this) saying in a very high-handed way that as most of our 66 years of interaction have been good, she was going to keep it. After hand writing (with my hands shaking) three really cruel letters to her and then tearing them up, I sat down and typed something measured and reasonable, but still filled with rage. And I asked her not to write to me again. Her initial smarmy "last note" email said she would "appreciate it if I did not respond in any way", but apparently she thinks that it's OK for her to write when she feels like it, which is just not on and needs to be stopped. I had even given her an out several months ago by thanking her for the birthday flowers and offering to apologize if I had said anything offensive but she just repeated her statement that the correspondence "was not working for her" and wanted to leave it at that so that she didn't say something hurtful. But then she thought it was OK to write again. My therapist said that the two emails she wrote sounded like childish passive aggressive breakup texts of the kind that millennials send.
I really can't think of anything I could have said that would have been so offensive for her to enjoin me not to communicate with her. One thing I said in my letter was that she does not have the moral high ground, that dumping a friendship in the trash is much more morally reprehensible than talking about your personal problems when there's been a mass shooting somewhere.
Was I also responsible for the hideous end of this friendship? I suppose in a way. I thought she was the kind of friend (do these exist?) whom I could speak to (or write to) about anything I was thinking or feeling unless it was personally offensive. It was her idea to have this type of correspondence - where we delved deeply into things. I suppose that's always a minefield. Next time if someone wants that kind of interaction I will be wary. Or I just won't share things. I will save those for a therapist or for these pages. I suppose I hate her because I feel betrayed. She got me to open up and then hung me out to dry. I hope she sits with that letter I wrote and has a serious think about who was the really selfish one in this interaction. And (LOL!) a masterful touch - I had bought a book of stamps called "pets". I was quite startled to see that one of them was a snake. So I used that stamp on the letter to LC. Perfect! Her behavior to me was just like a rattlesnake attacking me by surprise from under a rock.
Oh, and one last thing about Trovatore. I realized that October is the perfect month for it, because with all the witches and curses and ghosts, it's a great Hallowe'en piece.
I will do a small amount of practicing tomorrow, then have a lesson Thursday (I am not going to choir practice) and then mostly rest.
My partner is not well. Whatever she has is nonspecific, which is the problem. It is not a worsening of her core illnesses, COPD and a-fib. It is an overwhelming fatigue combined with her existence in a state that is always sort of halfway between being asleep and being awake.
A nurse is coming tomorrow to evaluate her. I will do what I can but I really need Sunday and Monday to be blackout dates with no stress. Whatever she has is not life threatening. The best thing in the world would be if she could be in a rehab for several weeks where she was fed and exercised. She does not do these things on her own. She is also now constantly guilt tripping me about not being there. Yes, if I seriously think about it the most important thing in my life is to cherish her for as long as possible, but if I don't throw my all into singing now, the window of opportunity will be past.
After the Trovatore performance I suppose I should have a moratorium on planning anything big (other than looking for an Advent/Christmas/Epiphany choir solo) until whatever is going on with her is sorted.
And on top of all this, I got a letter from LC. Several months ago, I deleted a post in which I said I hated her because hate was too strong a word. No, I do hate her. I rarely hate people. There were periods when I hated my mother, but really that has been it, certainly as an adult. She wrote to thank me for a page I had made for a memory book for her 80th birthday before she slammed the door on me (and no, she does not have dementia, that is not what is driving any of this) saying in a very high-handed way that as most of our 66 years of interaction have been good, she was going to keep it. After hand writing (with my hands shaking) three really cruel letters to her and then tearing them up, I sat down and typed something measured and reasonable, but still filled with rage. And I asked her not to write to me again. Her initial smarmy "last note" email said she would "appreciate it if I did not respond in any way", but apparently she thinks that it's OK for her to write when she feels like it, which is just not on and needs to be stopped. I had even given her an out several months ago by thanking her for the birthday flowers and offering to apologize if I had said anything offensive but she just repeated her statement that the correspondence "was not working for her" and wanted to leave it at that so that she didn't say something hurtful. But then she thought it was OK to write again. My therapist said that the two emails she wrote sounded like childish passive aggressive breakup texts of the kind that millennials send.
I really can't think of anything I could have said that would have been so offensive for her to enjoin me not to communicate with her. One thing I said in my letter was that she does not have the moral high ground, that dumping a friendship in the trash is much more morally reprehensible than talking about your personal problems when there's been a mass shooting somewhere.
Was I also responsible for the hideous end of this friendship? I suppose in a way. I thought she was the kind of friend (do these exist?) whom I could speak to (or write to) about anything I was thinking or feeling unless it was personally offensive. It was her idea to have this type of correspondence - where we delved deeply into things. I suppose that's always a minefield. Next time if someone wants that kind of interaction I will be wary. Or I just won't share things. I will save those for a therapist or for these pages. I suppose I hate her because I feel betrayed. She got me to open up and then hung me out to dry. I hope she sits with that letter I wrote and has a serious think about who was the really selfish one in this interaction. And (LOL!) a masterful touch - I had bought a book of stamps called "pets". I was quite startled to see that one of them was a snake. So I used that stamp on the letter to LC. Perfect! Her behavior to me was just like a rattlesnake attacking me by surprise from under a rock.
Oh, and one last thing about Trovatore. I realized that October is the perfect month for it, because with all the witches and curses and ghosts, it's a great Hallowe'en piece.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Trovatore Take 1
Yesterday was the first of two rehearsals for Il Trovatore. Because of everything that had been going on this past month - the loss of my Siamese, the introduction into my life and heart of my new kitty, my partner's continuing decline, computer problems - I had not had time ever to run through the entire program to see if I could pace myself, so I was worried.
Actually, my teacher had told me not to be, but I was still worried.
Well, my fears were groundless. I sang a personal best, and if I can sing that well in the performance I will be happy.
This doesn't mean that I can "rust" on my laurels, however. My teacher gave me a practice template, which I will stick to, and I will need to eat healthily (not too many sweets), rest, not get into screaming matches with people, and try, as much as possible, to avoid stress.
That latter is easier said than done, because my partner has sunk again into a scary nonspecific malaise (she nodded off during the ballet last week), and is less and less able to cope with daily living. Some things may need to change, but she is not at death's door, and can survive certainly until my performance is over. And someone is bringing her.
So wish me luck; that I can keep up this level of singing.
The accompanist told me how much more "bloom" my voice had on top, and he last heard me in May.
Actually, my teacher had told me not to be, but I was still worried.
Well, my fears were groundless. I sang a personal best, and if I can sing that well in the performance I will be happy.
This doesn't mean that I can "rust" on my laurels, however. My teacher gave me a practice template, which I will stick to, and I will need to eat healthily (not too many sweets), rest, not get into screaming matches with people, and try, as much as possible, to avoid stress.
That latter is easier said than done, because my partner has sunk again into a scary nonspecific malaise (she nodded off during the ballet last week), and is less and less able to cope with daily living. Some things may need to change, but she is not at death's door, and can survive certainly until my performance is over. And someone is bringing her.
So wish me luck; that I can keep up this level of singing.
The accompanist told me how much more "bloom" my voice had on top, and he last heard me in May.
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