Personal Journal

Untitled.

I'm not letting myself sleep at the moment. Jean is fussing, and I think she's got a headache from brain swelling. So she's had some morphine tonight - 3 doses since... in about 4 hours, which is below the current threshold where I have to get a doctor involved.

I'm not scared of losing her, I 'm scared of not being there when it happens. The days since whatever day it was that Jean toook 2000 cc's in the doctor's office blend like none I've ever known. I never wrote my journal entry about being scared to go to sleep. Being scared back in the chemo days and when we thought we were doing well, that she'd wake up in the middle of the night in pain, or sick, or demented and depressed. I experienced all of those.

Now I'm afraid to go to sleep for fear she'll need me, need the morphine. Dr. E, our vet and a dear friend, got us a baby monitor so I could sleep better. It worked last night; I got six hours. But yesterday was a good day for her, with food and lots of water and some communication. Today wasn't as good - was bad. She's not responding to me at all today, really.

I was gone for 4 hours today, Brenda, another tech from our vet's office, spelled me so I could get a gift for the office christmas exchange, and have a dinner, and get groceries. That was a bad idea, in the sense that there was too much time to think about things. And to realize that I wasn't at home, where I needed to be.

I'm too tired to write, and Jean's breathing is the most irregular that it's been tonight. So I'm wondering if the time is tonight, but I don't really think so. I'm ready for her to go. I told her that too.

I told her that when she's ready, I want her to go. Because there's nothing left for her here, but there's something for her over there.


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn