If you read nothing else, please take this with you:

"Like surround sound, there could be nothing better surrounding me now than
where my children have placed me."

*********************************************************
Jim is upstairs showering and shaving, readying himself for his big day.
This is probably the first tie since I have been disabled and bedridden that
I am glad of it because there is nothing I can do to help.  My nervousness,
want-to-do-something, and all those co-dependency traits just have to sit
here, and do whatever can be done from here.  This.  I asked him if he was
nervous.  "Oh, yes," was his reply.  This is an almost 69 y/o man who has
spent only two nights in a hospital, and those were for tests.  He says it
is this unknown (being put to sleep) that scares him more than the cancer.
With the danger of my being put to sleep associated with the myasthenia
(anesthesia and myasthenia are not friends), I never got the chance to be
afraid, and that is the way it will probably be for him, too.  He'll
probably be joking with the nurses; probably be telling them about his d-i-l
nurse over at one of the other hospitals in town who is out in the waiting
room for him.

The best way for me to tell you of my decision to stay here, and not go to
Memphis for his surgery is to print my decision here.  The Delete key
resides at the top of your computer.  ;-)  Just needing to share with you
all.  Time and *other stuff* intrudes on repeating it now.  I am doing a
week-long, day by day thing as this is a turning point for Jim and me.
Monday was a day of decisions.  I started it on Sunday, as the First day of
the rest of our lives.  Jim came up with the title.  My decision to stay
home was made on Monday.  Tuesday is in final editing.
Sunday:
http://andlifegoesononedayonestepatatime.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-day-of-rest-
of-our-lives.html
http://tinyurl.com/56xvgm

Monday:
http://andlifegoesononedayonestepatatime.blogspot.com/2008/04/decisions-on-monda
y-second-day-of-week.html
http://tinyurl.com/656a8d

"Now, Monday, April 28, 2008 turns out to be a significant day of The Week,
the turning point for the rest of our lives.

Early in the day, Dixie Health Care calls to inform all concerned that the
hospital bed will be delivered about 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. this afternoon. That
makes a *happening now* sound to me, whereas before it has been a futuristic
sound without clear boundaries of starting or stopping.

Now, this is the beginning for the bed; like everything else, the end is
open. Well, we can draw it in a little bit because of the month's rental on
it. Son-in-law Mark, with Debbie in the picture below, was there to accept
delivery of the bed, so I guess that means he is also accepting his
mother-in-law moving in with them beginning Wednesday, but with an
open-ended stay. That sounds like a brave man to me! I text him and ask him
to take a picture of the bed for me, and just look at the mess he made of
that. Wonder if he was trying to send me a message? Awww. I cannot do that
to Mark. He is too good a son-in-law. I have to take responsibility for
messing with the picture.

I have my sister Brenda to thank for the bed. Nothing could be much more
appreciated. She and I are many miles apart with so much going on in both of
our lives. She is finished with her chemo and is doing radiation now for her
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer.

Monday has also been a really bad day for me. The surgical area of the
insertion of the port has been very painful. I talked to Donnie, nurse
daughter-in-law to see what she thought; she wasn't sure. It has been one
week today since the surgery, and I expected it to be a non-entity by now.

The IVIG side effect headaches have also shot out all of a sudden. Those ole
scalawags! Cannons exploding, blowing my head into another world.

Never once, until today, did I ever think of the surgery affecting *My*
Myasthenia Gravis. That, plus the pain, has caused me to sleep most of
today. Yeah. Just when I don't have the time for it the most! When there is
much to be done. That's okay. I'm not going far - one block down the street,
and there is no set time like going to doctor appointments. I can always
come back later for anything that I miss.

But . . . what position will this put me in come Wednesday? Something that
needs thinking about. Seriously.

I got word that son Jim got a call about 6:30 this morning on his house
phone that came from my cell phone. I text him and asked him what kind of
message it was that he got. He called me to explain it to me. In talking, he
told me that if I decided not to try to go to the hospital Wednesday for
Dad's surgery, that he would be there for me to text or call as much and as
often as I needed. He told me he would repeat things for me as much as I
needed him to do. Is that not a blessing to know!! He wanted me to be sure
that I did not think he was saying anything about what he thought I ought to
do, just that *if* I did decide to stay home, *he* would be there for me at
the hospital. he reiterated it over and over, even saying he could not say
it enough. I could really sense that he could understand where I would be
coming from during the hospital and surgery time down there, and if I were
here, and he was trying to put me at ease. It was just about all a son could
do for a mother if not physically with her. If I did not express it clearly,
that's okay because I understand it inside of me where it is important,
really important.

The grammar books probably sprouted wings and flew out the window with that,
but that is the way it came from within me, and that is more important than
being grammatically correct.

We continued to talk, and as we did, he put me at such comfort, such ease,
that it was easy for me to decide what I needed to do Wednesday, one of the
days of This Week, this turning point week.

Thanks to my son, and to our conversation, I was able to know while we were
still talking, what was the best thing for me to do Wednesday.

**I am staying here.**

As much as I want to be there where Jim is - and this *does* keep slipping
back up - I feel it is best for me all the way around to stay here with, as
I put it to him, his sister Debbie hanging on to my coattail, taking care of
me.

Like surround sound, there could be nothing better surrounding me now than
where my children have placed me."

Jim and I have seen these two adult children through thick and thin, raised
two of their children, supported them through their *trying stages* when
younger, seeing them all the while *take, take, take*, wondering if we had
failed somewhere to instill the *give, give, give*, appreciative qualities.

Nope.  When the chips are down.  They were/ARE right here.  Not only as they
were taught, but as the examples they saw set before them.  When I
complimented Debbie recently, she said, "It was the way I was raised."  I
have the first-born with those qualities, and I have the *Original Baby* as
she is known, with those qualities.  They balance each other, complement
each other.  She will even have the privilege of admitting me for my next
IVIG!   I've not mentioned it to anyone else, but the absence of the middle
child is pungent with me today.  Missing from working with his siblings.

Well.  I do not want to go, but guess I must.  Jim is gone.  Debbie's Mark
has taken him down to the hospital.  Debbie is here.  She's brought
breakfast and Starbucks, the only coffee I will allow myself.  We're having
a girl's day out here.  Is it okay to say I like the change?

I will let you know how things go today.
Thank you all for being here.  Though the family seems to have changed a
little here lately, it feels good having all of you around.  *s*

Billie