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Old 01-01-21, 03:36 PM  
sherry7899
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Thank you so much for your kindness from sherry7899

Thank you so much for the outpouring of kind words and support. I appreciate it more than I can express.

Thank you, Linda for posting what I could not bring myself to type out yet. It still does not feel real.

I will likely take this post down in two days because it is raw and personal and I don’t want it left up . But I feel like this is a family here that reaches out to each other, so I wanted to respond.

This will be more detailed than it probably should be and very upsetting to read, so if you are very sensitive, please do not continue. It is also way too long, and I likely will not even be able to post it all.

My husband had been sick for several weeks which started with a sinus infection. Because of Covid, he could not see his doctor. He had a telemedicine appointment and received a prescription. After completing the antibiotics, he still was not feeling well. I suspected he had developed bronchitis.

During that time he never had a fever. I monitored him constantly, and likely drove him crazy. He is very stubborn and did not take one day off of work to rest.

He did another telemedicine appointment and received a new prescription for bronchitis and an inhaler. They did send him for a Covid test, and it was negative. He had been taking the new prescription and starting to feel better.

On Saturday since of course there was nowhere to go we spent the evening watching The Odd Couple tv series on dvd, and I went to bed. He was coughing much less and seemed to have more energy.

As usual, I woke up before him on Sunday, did my workout, checked on him and found him still asleep and breathing fine. I did some things around the house and went to check on him around 10: 30 am.

He was awake but said he did not feel well. I asked him if his chest hurt or if he was having trouble breathing. He said no, but he was really pale. I grabbed the phone to call the doctor. Of course he argued with me about that. I got the answering service and they said the doctor would call back.
A minute later he went to sit up and I saw his toes were blue, and then he collapsed. He hit his head on the corner of the walls behind our bedroom door. I called 911 and called for my son. We struggled to turn him onto his back. I attempted CPR which I don’t know if I was doing right and my son ran to open the front door and shut our cats behind closed doors.

The rescue squad worked on him for almost an hour but could not bring him back. I had asked about taking him to the hospital five minutes away but they had all the same equipment and said I would not be allowed in there.
The police came to stay with me before the rescue squad left. I called our best friend and told him what happened. The police offered to send someone to tell my mother in law (she lives an hour away) but I did not want her to find out from strangers so I had to tell her.

I called my sister and she and my brother in law came over. Our best friend took care of calling the funeral home the police officers had suggested.
I wanted to say goodbye to him. I told my son he did not have to go back upstairs since he saw his father die. He stayed downstairs. I went upstairs . My husband’ s body was blocking the door and I had to step over him to get in the room to say goodbye. It was surreal and horrible and something I would not wish on anyone.

I could not watch them take him out of our home. I can’t sleep in our room. He passed away right by the door, and any time I absolutely have to go in there, I leave as quickly as possible. I cleaned up his blood from when he fell. I have been sleeping on our daybed in our finished basement…well, what little sleep I have been getting. I see it happening whenever I close my eyes.

I was up the entire night Sunday. My son went out for melatonin to see if it would help him sleep. I am thankful he was able to get to sleep. I spent the whole night roaming the house with our cats trailing me wondering what had happened. At four am I gave up on trying to rest and wrote his obituary.

continued...
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Old 01-01-21, 03:37 PM  
sherry7899
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
It is odd what goes through your mind. I was mad at myself that I had done all our laundry on Saturday and did not have anything of his that he had recently worn. Then I thought of something. I had cursed him all our married life about kicking off his socks while he slept. I was always finding them under the bed. This time I was glad he had done that. I put them away to save .

I was numb all day Monday. Frank’s doctor called to talk to me first thing. I was thankful for that. I thought I would have to fight through a maze of phone prompts and be told he’d call me back. From what I described, he thinks it was very likely a blood clot. He said it would have happened instantly and he would not have suffered. I am very grateful for that.

Tuesday I fell asleep for about two hours and woke up in a panic at 2 am thinking that if something happened to me my son would not know what to do . I typed up a list of all the phone numbers he would need for family and friends, account passwords and where to find important papers. I also wrote a letter to him and emailed both to my sister and our best friend.
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Old 01-01-21, 03:38 PM  
sherry7899
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
My husband was a big believer in receiving signs from people we love who are physically gone, and also thought people could somehow mess with you after they are gone. That has happened several times already.

Every Sunday we watched a favorite singer songwriter duo The Kennedys do a concert on you tube.They have a different theme every week and you can make requests. I did not know until days later the one this Sunday is The Beatles, his favorite group, and specifically songs from 1963 and 1964. He was born in 1964. Frank stopped making requests each week because he always asked for obscure geek level songs that they did not play. I guess they wanted to keep it more mainstream. We are friendly with them since we have been following them since 1997 and talked to them numerous times. I reached out to Maura Kennedy and asked if they would play “No Reply” for Frank this week. I hope they will. It will be really difficult to watch their concert alone, but I want to do it.

Another sign-we are huge fans of Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul. I am sad that he will not see how Better Call Saul ends (if I can even make myself watch the last season when it finally airs) His favorite character is Mike, played by Jonathan Banks. In the middle of one night, I was flipping channels since I could not sleep. I came across the show Designing Women , which was on for seven seasons. They were showing an episode where Jonathan Banks was a guest star, playing a comedic role, which was rare for him. I have not seen that show in over twenty years, so it is truly bizarre that it happened to be that episode. Also, there are at least three funeral homes in our town, and the police referred us to Saul’s Funeral Home.

Lastly, was trying to get Frank’s obituary posted correctly. Frank prided himself on having longer hair. He hated his hair really short. Unfortunately, I could not find a suitable picture of him to use with longer hair-none of them captured his great smile. I saw that the obituary had been posted. I had read it a minimum of fifty times before I sent it to make sure there were no errors. My husband was an editor and writer and would be mortified for there to be any mistakes. There was an error that had not been there when I sent it. I guess they type it out themselves. I called to get it corrected, which they apologized and said they would fix it. At that time, I could see Frank’s picture. I checked it again , and they had corrected the error, but now there was a new error. I called yet again, and they apologized and said they would fix it. I went to check it, and that was fixed, but now his picture was missing. I called back and they said they could see the picture. I could not see it. I rebooted our computer and brought the site up. It was not there. I rebooted my kindle and brought the site up and it was not there. I called two friends to check, and they could see his picture. I still could not see it! Hours later, it was finally there. I feel like Frank was trying to tell me he was not happy with the photo selection.
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Old 01-01-21, 03:39 PM  
sherry7899
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Needless to say, I had not really been exercising. I have not really broken down to cry. It is ironic, because I cry at everything but I have not been able to get it out. One morning very early I went on you tube and found Brett Larkin’s Meditation for Loss/Grieving. I wrapped one of my husband’s jackets around me and listened, and finally was able to cry, but I have not been able to since then. It is just stuck, tensing up my chest and legs.
I have not been able to purposely listen to music, either. We are music geeks. We met in a record store.Our vacations were not going on vacation, they were going to concerts and buying music. It was too painful to play anything. I had been doing NIA dance classes that you could rent from a studio in Denver and had been loving them. The studio owner is a sweetheart. She posts clips from each class, and I usually eagerly watched them to decide if I wanted to rent them. The last one she had posted was all songs by Seal. I took a deep breath, started the clip and the first song with vocals was “Prayer for the Dying. “ I took that as a sign and ordered the class. I could not do all of it do to exhaustion, but it felt good to move. The studio owner offered to let me keep access longer so I may try some more tomorrow. I did not feel like I could dance this morning, but I wanted to do something. Frank loved going on incredibly long walks, so to honor him I did a new Team Body Project walking workout. I don’t know where the energy came from since I’ve barely slept, but I did the whole thing this morning along with a short SaraBeth yoga practice. Movement is healing.

Frank worked at Dow Jones/WSJ for 21 years. When Rupert Murdoch bought the company in 2008, they got rid of the senior editors. Frank was very loved by his co workers. Several of them held a zoom meeting to pay tribute to him. I was told about it and I asked for everyone to drink either flavored seltzer or coffee, his beverages of choice. Everyone did and several were also Phillies fans like Frank, so they wore Phillies hats. I dialed in but did not appear on video. It was really lovely.

Thank you for reading my novel. I will leave this up for a day or two and then delete it.
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"Say you are tired and you will be. Believe you are strong and you are." (Sean O'Malley)

The cat in my avatar is my sweetheart named Bonkers
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Old 01-01-21, 03:49 PM  
hdw
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Join Date: Dec 2001
(((hugs)))
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Old 01-01-21, 04:02 PM  
FirmDancer
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Join Date: Apr 2002
(((hugs))) Thank you for sharing your story. Your love is beautiful.
-Anita
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Old 01-01-21, 04:07 PM  
cyana
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Sherry - I did Brett's meditation from YT to "send" to you and your son on the 28th. I kept getting a visual of myself hugging you tightly. Sending much love your way.
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Old 01-01-21, 04:07 PM  
Taramisu
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: NA
Sherry -

Thank you for sharing this. I have no doubt it was difficult to write but maybe it was somewhat therapeutic as well.

My condolences again to you and your son, and know that your DH is watching over the both of you now.

Your VF family has you in our thoughts.
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Old 01-01-21, 04:09 PM  
suzanne63
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
I am so very sorry my sweet friend. I wish I knew the right words to say to make you feel better.I am praying for you and your son and you are in my thoughts and prayers always.
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Old 01-01-21, 04:09 PM  
bubbles76
 
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: New Jersey
Much love and (((hugs))).
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