I'm Hoping

I hate that I cannot generate a decent sneeze or cough. I hate that I have to spend more and more time on the toilet because my "bearing down" muscles are getting weaker and weaker. I hate that I take increasingly more time to do simple things like getting dressed or making coffee. I hate so many parts of my life with ALS, but I really hate it when I go from having terrific company over the weekend to being home alone once again.

They've left. As quickly as they descended, the boys have taken flight and gone home, back to BC, back to their own lives, having taken the time and money to come visit me, to add to my life. I'm already thinking about when I will see them again, how I can plan a trip to Vancouver sometime in March, a trip that would let me visit my children and grandchildren too, along my Mom and Ray. The only thing that keeps me going is this human contact, this interaction with people I love.

Today will have its own difficulties. I have tidying up to do, not much but enough that I want it done. It's silly, since Home Care will be here tomorrow to clean my apartment. Why not just leave it? Because I want it done, and I want to do it. There is laundry to be done, not just guest laundry but more my own. The counters in the kitchen need to be organized. I won't get it all done; I will just enjoy what I can do, and take my time doing it.

There there is this small matter of another UTI. It looks like I have another bladder infection or something like that. I have the symptoms, but interestingly enough this time I have had no fever so far. Still, if you look up the symptoms for male UTI, I have enough of them to make me worry. So it will likely mean another trip to the clinic, or perhaps another trip to the ER. If the UTI is persistent, it will mean another hospital stay.

I'm hoping that doesn't happen. I'm hoping I can beat this UTI with lots of hydration and plenty of rest. I'm hoping, because I want to go on the road with David in a few weeks, and I want to go to Vancouver in March. I'm hoping because I am so tired of hospitals and doctors and ambulances and medics and being poked with needles and inspected by so many people. I'm hoping; that's all I got.