(#5274) More about the homefront...

      I have resigned myself to not expecting John to recover from this stroke. He was sent home under a hospice directive and I cannot change that even though I now have the power to do so. I wanted John to fight for his life in a rehab center where he could have gotten physical therapy and the attention he needed to at least give him a chance to overcome the effects of the stroke. But since he is in a hospice setting it is difficult to reverse that in my area because the low income beds are full and as each day passes with him here at home only getting medications to withstand the pain his chances of surviving are slimmer and slimmer.
     John shares some responsibility here as well as he will not listen to good advice concerning his actions and he won't try to do any rehab on his own. It is like he has resigned to his fate and just awaits it's inevitability. My instinct always tells me to fight back but as I am now being inundated with his slowly declining effects I myself have had to readjust my attitude and not demand or care too much about that which is out of my control. I had been keeping him off too many of the drugs that render him unable to try to function and now am letting him have his drugs as he wants them. If he isn't going to fight for his life then I cannot make him.
     I don't know for sure how this is going to end but it will be on John's terms not mine. His incessant calling out my name at all hours is starting to decrease because he is more groggy than not lately so my sanity is improving because of it but the cost is that John is now on his way out of life. I am preparing myself for that. The stroke caused a lot of damage within him and he knows that. He is the judge of his life and I won't stop him from choosing how his end comes even though I believe he should fight for every breath he can have. It is all so tragic and having to live close up to this is not what anyone should have to go through because there really is no upside or silver lining to someone dying right in front of you and having no real way to stop it.