Waiting at home for a phone call which MIGHT not even come tonight. We were told today that death would happen soon, but no one can give exact estimates and “soon” is a very vague term. I spent six hours in Grandpa’s hospital room with my family this afternoon and finally we got so tired some of us left and are trying to get back into having shifts of people staying with him. I’ve been up 12 hours, which isn’t so long but I have been sleep deprived because people do their laundry in the morning which is right next to my room and my dogs go apeshit and wake me up so really I’ve probably been sleeping about seven hours a night for three weeks. It’s very exhausting because I need way more sleep, like ten hours a night, just because that’s the way I have been my whole life.
I think I am moving into the Angry phase of whatever this grieving process is. I’m easily fed up with people online, especially the way they say nice words but it doesn’t really mean anything cause they aren’t coming by with food or something more useful, I’m wondering why our family seems to be doing this alone except for the people at the hospital, I’m super mad at the hospital for ignoring our wishes so long and working like they were trying to save him when we clearly wanted palliative care and said so over and over and he didn’t get assessed for palliative care for a week after he was admitted. I feel the clear need to have a living will for myself because he didn’t have one like Grandma did and we’ve had to talk about things the doctors have suggested like feeding tubes and iv fluids and other unnecessary things that would prolong death. I am irritated that I feel like I can’t openly talk about this whole process because it would annoy some family members and OVERALL I am angry at society for making dying so taboo that it isn’t talked about in our education system or society so people have to go seeking out information when it finally presents itself. And I’ve been trying to apply for a job back in Toronto that I would be really good at but the organization in charge of funding it isn’t being compassionate at all about the fact I am out of province for my Grandfather’s death and can’t sign a paper in the office in front of someone. So there are a lot of things pissing me off and I feel like I’m going to be stuck in Saskatoon forever and never get off welfare and never be able to grieve properly. And there are some issues with persons with addictions in my family who are of course not handling this in a healthy way. But none of us are really handling it well cause it’s oncoming death and we aren’t given resources to support ourselves through this and it just seems to be us not wanting him to ever be alone even at night which is really wearing us out.
That’s a long list of things to be angry about.
My only time alone is late at night like right now. Aside from that people are with me ALL THE TIME and for an introvert like me it is really hard to not be able to recharge by listening to my tunes and dinking around on the internet. And the worst part is as a bipolar person I have been taught all about how important self care is and being an advocate for my own mental health, but when someone is dying it becomes all about THEM and I feel like a shitbag for being stressed to my limits and needing to take up my own space and time for myself. I really really want to go home and I can’t until after the funeral and we cleaned out his apartment so at least I don’t have to deal with that cause I know if we had waited I would have to stay longer after the funeral to help out. My Mom’s house is PACKED with people right now, there are five of us staying here and that isn’t including the downstairs tenant. And four dogs, and two of the people here are smokers so they go in and out all the time and Little Mister is ever vigilant and barks every time and I get so fed up with all of them I wanna be like “Shut up Mister, and YOU stop freakin’ smoking or stay outside!” OMG! I think of all kinds of things I want to yell at people but I don’t but I want to and honestly I have so many cutting remarks going through my mind that I’m not saying.
And I miss walking my dogs, cause we have no energy to do anything outside of all this hospitaling we are doing. We don’t even have energy to cook, so we are eating out a lot, and I am fucking sick of FUCKING TIM HORTONS!
And I feel pressured to be so fucking grateful for anything, for the fact I am still alive, for having time with my family, to be this perfect family member for a dying person and do everything properly so we don’t bring shame onto the family.
OMG THE PHONE JUST RANG!
Oooookay and the person who answered it didn’t tell us what it was about. So I have gone to bed. If I find out from Facebook that my Grandpa died I’m gonna be SO PUT OUT!