I think I’m getting into a good rhythm these days. I stay hella busy, (can we bring back hella? Did it ever leave?) my sister moved in with me, (she thinks it’s temporary…HA…she’ll never be able to leave Arie) and I’m having more good days than bad. Eric is still my first thought in the morning, and my last thought at night, and [let’s be honest] is part of most thoughts throughout the day. I like to talk to him a lot while I’m driving, but thankfully it just looks like I’m using bluetooth.

Anyways, all this is to say that I’m surviving and having no trouble finding joy and laughter at some point in each day. With that being said, today I was very sad for some reason. There’s been a lot of sorrow surrounding loved ones lately, and my heart breaks for so many friends. So, when I’m feeling down, I like to think of things that make me happy, or that make me laugh – genius, right?

Today I started making a list of pro’s of being a widow. I didn’t get very far, but I will continue to work on it. Here’s what I’ve got:

• I pick the movies/tv shows
• I order make what I want for dinner
• I can do anything I want to the house (to be fair, Eric usually let me do anything I wanted to the house)
• I don’t have to justify a new pair of shoes (they were on clearance)
• Tax benefits…I mean there’s got to be one, right? RIGHT?!

Another thing I can do whenever I want to smile, is look down at my wrist. I was gifted a beautiful watch, that tells a great story of the way Eric and I handled our situation.

In the last few weeks of Eric’s life, he was in an increasingly high amount of pain. The meds he was on were outrageous and continuous. We would be up at least every two hours throughout the days/nights to make sure that he never got behind on his doses, but even with all our scheduling, the pain always crept up. One of the many pain meds I was giving him was liquid morphine. He would take 1.5ml every 1-2 hours. On one of his worst days, we couldn’t do anything to make him comfortable. He had 6-8 pillows strategically placed around his body to try and alleviate some of the tumor bone pain, but he wasn’t able to stay in any one position for more than 30 seconds. The ongoing pain gave him panic attacks, which only compounded the issues. I called the doctors emergency line, and was given hella (haha) terrifying instructions. I was told to give him 2ml of liquid morphine every 15 minutes for 1 hour. {See previous dosage above of 1.5ml/1-2hours}. The doctor actually said these words to me – “don’t worry, I’m not trying to make you kill your husband”. Whaaaaaat?!?!?! I was then told that I would also need to closely monitor him to make sure he was breathing at least 10 times every minute. (Average adults usually breathe between 12-20/minute) Essentially they were trying to knock him out so that we could get back on top of the pain. But also, ya know, not kill him. So we got set up. One phone timer set to 15 minutes for the morphine doses, and one phone timer set to 1 minute so I could count his breaths. A daunting task that had us both freaked out. And right before we started Eric said, “nice knowin ya sweetie”…we laughed, and then we got to work.

And that’s how we lived. Laughing and joking, when we could, determined and strong when we needed to be.

Blessedly, a friend that I told that story to remembered it, and had ‘nice knowin ya sweetie’ engraved on the back of a watch. Together, with the rest of my little commune, they gave me that watch at Eric’s visitation. I truly cherish it, and almost never take it off. It reminds me of some of our best moments during some of our worst times.

And that nice anniversary gift I bought myself a few weeks back? Another watch band. 🙂