Ken died quietly in his sleep. It wasn’t expected he had been so well and happy this last week it was the last thing I expected. I only hope that I can keep his love of life and adventure going for at the moment I just wish I was with him
We still have Little dog Sky. I think she knows because she has been my shadow all day. Everyone has been very kind and it doesn’t seem real.
Where I am at the moment I am not sure. I miss Shula more than I can say, not the end of her life which was thankfully taken out of my hands but just her understanding of how I felt. We took long walks, she ran, sometimes it was frustrating when she did not always come back when I called but from when she was born wild she was a free spirit. Sometimes she just needed to run I just had to wait for her to come back. She always did, so happy it was hard to be cross. She was such a happy dog everyone loved her and she excepted Sky into our home. I am not sure how well Sky is coping with her loss but she is more clingy than before. Ken has his own problems with Parkinson’s so all though he was sad he has excepted that she has gone. For me I just try to think of the early days, her first walks outside our villa, exploring the green zones. Meeting with other dogs, just socialising her, taking her to training classes. I didn’t agree totally with the trainer but went along because she enjoyed it and loved being with all the other dogs. I miss her so much. I am trying to make up for her loss to Sky but how do you do that?
So far I have added some red baubles but have some gold ones coming but not until next week so it will be slow progress. Wish now I had brought my decorations back from Spain each year the tree there was overloaded.
I don’t feel a bit like Christmas but think I should make an effort for Ken. Last year we didn’t do anything, our first year for years that we weren’t in Spain where we always had a tree and friends to Christmas dinner. This year I am making an effort I am not sure we will ever be able to create the excitement of Christmas past but at least we are making the effort. Ken loves the tree, he is in a lot of pain so has gone up to bed so I will start to decorate it so when he comes down tomorrow he will see it. I have ordered more baubles but they will take some time to come so it will be slow progress. I haven’t yet found something for top, in Spain we had a star. I am looking on line, when I was a child it was always a fairy doll but don’t want that, maybe an angel or another star.
Sky in her favorite spot, she seems to be coping well after the loss of Shula for which I am grateful, I am not so sure about Ken or myself.
Since Ken’s diagnoses of likely Parkinson’s disease and although the neurologist consultant wrote to the doctors surgery regarding the monitoring of the prescribed medication we heard nothing. I did after a few weeks ring the surgery and a locum rang me back only to tell me it was nothing to do with them and I should get back to the neurologist which I had consulted privately. I referred him to the letter which was sent to the surgery of which I had a copy but he suggested I ring the number on the letter despite the fact that I explained that was just for his secretary who had no contact except to make appointments and bill for his services he was not interested. Since then Ken has had a couple of falls which I have managed except the last one where he fell in the bedroom and couldn’t get up. I covered him up and we waited a couple of hours hoping he would regain enough strength to get on the bed but that didn’t happen and he started to ramble so I rang for an ambulance which of course didn’t come. They did ring back to see if he was conscious but didn’t seem concerned that he was rambling. I was a bit annoyed at this point and asked why someone in the street managed to have an ambulance at least four times a week for well over an hour when it was just because she was old, lonely and depressed but we had waited hours. Finally between us Ken managed to crawl into bed and I stood the ambulance down. Much to my surprise an NHS team arrived, they did check Ken and said they would refer the matter to our doctors surgery, re the medication review also if there was help available if he fell for which I was quite prepared to pay.
Long and short of it I had a call this morning from the doctors surgery and we went through the whole sorry saga and we have agreed on a slow increase of Ken’s medication which I will need to monitor for side effects but know I can ring for advice. The problem of help if he falls and I can’t manage they are looking into, as am I. The phone call has helped no end knowing that I may get some help and we are not totally alone coping with it.
