Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Feed back please – chat room

I have received a suggestion that setting up a chat room right here on the blog may be of benefit to some. I am all  for anything that may help anyone in any way. I also know that there are those, that at times visit while in great pain or grief. Being able to chat “live” with someone who is loving, supportive and non-judgemental well may be a comfort. Something like that I am all for. In addition it could be a community gathering spot for the cyber friends that come to develop our little community here. I really do like this idea but am a little reluctant simply because I know very little about chat rooms, how they are run…. For me it would have to be something that can basically just run itself as I can commit some time to it each day but that amount of time would vary depending on my day.

As was mentioned to me, the blog is at times read all around the world which mean in all time zones. If set up as I would like to would it need to be monitored? The more I think about it the more I like the  idea. There is a huge potential to help others.

Please let me know what do you think?

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Wonders of CPAP

CPAP -Constant positive air pressure.

I have written a coupleof times about my sleep apnea. Well last week I got a new upgraded CPAP machine. It is wonderful to wake up and be awake. I joke about how when I wake up, it still takes my head about another hour to wake up. It is my wonkie head and I am in like a fog. I wake up and I am awake, wow is all I can say, what a difference.

I have read about and heard about people abandoning their CPAP machines because they are to hard to get used to. YOU ARE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE. Stick with it and you will get used to it and it is so worth it. Yes, it can take some doing to get used to it but I have been wearing mask for 7 or 8 years now and if I lay down for a nap it feels strange if I do not have the mask on.

What does it feel like wearing one of the masks. Well imager riding in a car traveling down the highway doing  100 kms per hour or about 65 mph. Stick your head out the window facing into the passing wind and breath. The inhale is very easy as the force of the passing air just pushes the air into your lungs. It is the exhale that can be a little more difficult Now imagine breathing like that all night lone.

Does it take getting used to, for sure. Is it worth the effort absolutely. Do not give up on it or go back  to it is you already have. You will not regret it.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Preparing for the death of a loved one

I just read a very touching comment left by a person sitting at their mothers bedside. Sharing their last moment on this earth together. How many times have i said I believe it is harder on the families when the situation gets to that point. Forced to sit helplessly, wanting so badly to be able to do something, anything for their loved one.

It is a fact of live that we already have or most likely will face that situation at some point. How do we prepare our selves to deal with the passing of a loved one. I am not sure you can ever totally be prepared. We may even know a loved one has a terminal illness or is even just well advanced in years. We know their time on this earth is limited. Some where in the back  of our minds we accept this. Maybe we accept the idea more in the abstract or something. We know it to be a fact but somehow that thought remains almost unreal.

There is a huge difference between knowing something in your head and feeling it in your heart. I don’t know but I think for most, I think the real feeling of it in your heart only comes when we get THE PHONE CALL. The phone call that ……….. has happened and you should get to the hospital immediately . It is then the true weight of the situation hits you with that hollow empty feeling inside. We can no longer keep that bit of information or reality tucked away in the back of our minds. Suddenly it is reality and it hits you smack in the face.

My heart and prayers go out to each and every person or family in this difficult time.

I am open to ideas or suggestions, how do we help families prepare

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Appreciate the gift of life

This old body of mine doesn’t seem to bounce back the way it once did. The antibiotics are slowly doing their job so I shouldn’t complain. It has given me a little more rest/think time.

I received an email that got me thinking about gifts. Over our lives we have all received  scads of them. Some have come in  very elegant wrapping with a beautiful bow on the top. Others have come wrapped much less ornately. Others yet, maybe even not wrapped at all. Now how do we treat all gifts we just rip off the wrapping to get at what ever is contained within. It is what is contained within that is what we want, will possibly enjoy and even treasure. When it comes right down to it, how the gift is wrapped makes very little if any difference at all. The gift is not the fancy wrapping or ornate packaging that may surround the gift,  it is none of those things. The gift is what is contained within.

Now that got me thinking about life. Life is a gift from God. In my head that is a fact I have known and accepted all of my life. Sadly, for me it has only been this past few years that I have been able to take that knowledge from my head and feel it in my heart, which is where it really counts. Life well, It is one of those things we just take for granted. I am alive today and will be alive tomorrow, next week, next year……

With my heart I have been through a couple of episodes when the doctors just didn’t think I would survive. By the grace of God, here I am. I have come to realize every minute of life is a gift and should be appreciated as such. This gift of life is not like say the gift of a book, where we read it then put it on a shelf and can be comfortable knowing it will always be there. The gift of life is given to us on an ongoing basis, moment by moment, minute by minute. We have repeatedly received this gift so often and for so long we just take it for granted it is a gift that will just keep coming. We have to learn to appreciate the gift of each moment as we really never do know when this seemingly endless supply of gifted moments will suddenly stop.

Look around at your life. All that you see around you is the wrappings that the gift of your life has come in. Some fancy, some not so much. Is it the wrappings that determine the quality of a gift?

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Pneumonia

Gradually over the past week I have been feeling worse and worse. The ultimate chest cold. Difficulty breathing, heavy congestion in the lungs, sweats and chills.. Today Vi grabbed by the ear and off we went to the hospital. Me, whining all the way, “I don’t want to go the hospital and have to walk in and tell them I am here because I have a cold.”

Huh, who knew, I have pneumonia. Will likely be lying low for a few days.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – controlling your feelings

An up date on my detached retina. Everything is going very well. If anything I believe my vision out of that eye is better than it was before, go figure. If I just look out of that eye vertical lines still appear a little wavy. Looking through both eyes and I don’t even notice it any more. At the time the 2 weeks of laying face down was a pain but getting better eye sight out of the deal made is very worth the effort.

As I am sitting here that has really made me think. I know I have written about this before but when I first learned I had to spend 45-50 minutes of each hour lying face down, I was not a happy camper. The first couple of days were long and boring with my back starting to get stiff and sore. I had thoughts like: “I don’t knowhow many days I have left and I don’t want to waste any of them just lying here like this.” But then the realization came back to me, I am the captain of my own ship of life. I have the ability within myself to make a conscious decision every morning as to whether I am going to have a good day or a bad day as is everyone else.If you are unable to change a situation or circumstance make the best of it. From that moment on none of my days were “wasted”. I used the time to recharge my emotional and spiritual batteries. which is something we all need to do at times. With that simple change in my thought process I changed boring wasted days to content, refreshing days. With the added bonus of improved vision it is a win/win for me. Now, I do know also that without that change in mindset the boredom would have played on me to the point where I would have eventually just said to heck with this and spent far more time up and about than I should have. Life is what we make it. Every situation is what we in our minds make it. We just need to think about that, realize that it is true and work it into our lives.

Your feelings and emotions, you are the only one that controls them. No one can make you mad, no one can make you happy. That is sometimes a hard concept to grasp and is one I struggle with. It seems the natural human reaction is: of course someone can make me angry, if someone does………. it is going to really tic me off and I am going to let them know about it. Try thinking of it as, someone else’s bad or inappropriate behavior reflects on them and them alone. It doesn’t have to affect me in anyway unless I allow it to. It takes work, it takes practice and I struggle with it at time, but I do know it is possible.

Can you imagine a day, imagine a week, image a life time in which we were able to never allow the negative, inappropriate actions or words of anyone else to bother us? What do you think about that?

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – A nice neighbor

I had a very pleasant couple of hours Monday morning. I went across the street and had 3 games of crib with our neighbor Paul. I have written in the past about my dear Aunt Isabel and of how when she visits we play a lot of crib. At some point through her visit we will sit down to play for “the championship of the world”. We both have a lot of fun with all of our “big talk” of how we are going to beat each other. Winning or loosing doesn’t even really matter for that “official tournament” it is the back and forth banter, I love it. Now I say the winning or loosing doesn’t matter and it doesn’t or could it be that I seem to have lost each and every one of our championships. lol. Yup, Aunt Isabel has taken the championship title home with her each and every time.

Well I have a new secret weapon for our next tournament and that would be Paul. Now let’s just put it this way. One of us won all three games, the first was a skunk, the second a near skunk and the third just a sound thrashing. OK, I admit it, I came back across the street head hanging low with my tail between my legs lol. Paul I thank you for the good games. I would like to be able to say I took it easy on you but we both know that actually wouldn’t be true, geesh, what can I say.

All I can say is Paul I look forward to our next chance to play and you had better be nice to me or I will be sending Aunt Isabel over

 

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – deal with stress

I read, appreciate and treasure each and every comment left here for me. I seem to be lacking the umph to respond to each individually as I once did but please know they are all read and appreciated.

I just read the comment left by our dear blogging friend souldipper please check it out. It speaks to wanting a life with peace and serenity. I think it would be safe to say that is something we all would love to have, peace and serenity. Where do such feeling come from? They come from within ourselves. The outside world doesn’t create or give us those feelings (all though it can help make it easier for us to attain them it seems). No, we create those feelings within ourselves or more likely we deprive ourselves of those very feelings. More often than not it seems we allow the negatives of stress and worry to over take our thinking. With my gimpy heart it is important for me to avoid stress and generally I am pretty good at it. But, I do remain “on guard” so to speak as negative thoughts can so easily sneak up on you.

It has taken me a long time to really realize and accept it but I truly and the master of my own destiny as is each and every other person the master of their own lives. If there truly is to be peace and serenity within my heart, It is up to me to work towards and then attain those feelings. Now I can just hear so many saying things such as “yeah, yeah that is fine for you to say bout if you had to deal with…… you wouldn’t be saying it.” I know we each face a million potential stressors each and every day, enough to drive anyone crazy. If we can learn to control our emotions even just for a few short moments. Just long enough to really look at what ever issue is in front of us and ask ourselves. Is this really worth stressing about spoiling my mood, my day and just as importantly spoiling the moods and days of those in come in contact with. Before flying off the handle if I can just take that moment at look at the issue. I think by far most of the time we will just shrug it off. But, we do need to take that moment.Think right there of the stress we could rid ourselves of.

some times though in all of our lives there are issues that arise that we can’t just shrug off, what do we do then? Deal with it as soon as possible, don’t leave it hanging over you head. Deal with it and rid yourself of the worry and stress. Let’s face it there are issues that can arise that we know we are going to have to deal with sooner or later. We put off dealing with them as it may be uncomfortable or anyone of a dozen other things, so we procrastinate. Now what does that accomplish, nothing but adding to our stress by worrying and fretting. If it is something you know you must deal with sooner or later. Make it sooner make it now save yourself the stress and worry of delaying.

Dying Man’sw Daily Journal – Forgetting to live life.

Stress is a killer, we all know that yet what do we really do about it. A certain amount of short term stress in you life is actually a good thing. It can get your motor reved up and get you moving. It is the long term unrelenting stress that I am talking about here. The kind that wears on you, wears you down and will likely eventually kill you. What do we do about it, usually for me anyway it was just accept it as part of life and carry on as best I could What did that attitude bring me, 5 heart attacks and now congestive heart failure. Not a path really anyone wants to take in life.

There are a million potential stressors in life but I think it is safe to say the majority for most come from stressing about work, relationships family/friends or money. This brings to mind the serenity prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

What is likely the biggest thing we can not change? Other people!! We can’t expect other people to change to fit our expectations of them. They are who they are just as we are who we are. If we try to force or manipulate another into changing to suit our expectations. We are just setting ourselves up for disappointment. It is not fair to the other person or to yourself. We can encourage but we can not force.

So what is it we can change. Ourselves!! Now I am not suggesting we try to change ourselves to meet the expectations of another. Do that and we are dooming ourselves for a life of stress, worry and unhappiness. We must be true to ourselves. while being fair to others. When it comes to ourselves there is not a lot that we can not change in a positive way if we are willing to put in the effort.

What is the biggest and most important thing we can change in ourselves,our attitude. An attitude of gratitude, learn to become grateful for the live we have at this moment. Now that is not to say that we shouldn’t have plans or goals for the future that we are actively working towards. That is good and healthy. It is just we don’t want to be so very focused on the goal we forget to live life while getting there. If we can rid ourselves of the “my life will be so much better when……. thoughts.” Yes at the point we reach that “when” point in our lives things may change,  who knows. It just seems that by the time we reach that magic mile stone in life, it will have already been replaced by our desire our need to reach another. We are just never content. We are so focused on reaching that next on the highway of life that we forget to or are so driven we forget to enjoy the voyage.

For my human mind I seem to need to come up with a physical comparable for my mind to be able to take it in. I often refer to the highway of life. Each of us travel through life with the ultimate destination in mind of reaching Heaven. That is the ultimate destination. We each chose our own path, our own highway to travel on as we strive to reach that common destination.Our live here is a journey,is the journey. Time doesn’t stop or slow down for anyone. Our time on this earth is limited, we only have so many days on that highway. We only have so many days here and there is nothing we can do to change that We don’t get a time out to have a bad day each day, each moment gone by is gone forever.

Today is the youngest you will ever be again in this life time. You have the entire rest of your life laying in front of you. How do you want to spend it.  It really is up to you.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Precious time

“A portion of another email, author unknown:

Time is like a river. You can’t touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.

Enjoy life.”

To me that is so very meaningful. Time is our most precious commodity yet how highly do we value it. We scurry about our busy lives often complaining of not having enough time to get everything done in our busy days. I wonder though with that do we value the time or are we just using it up as we frantically speed though our day. How often have we all heard comments like,  I just don’t have time to play with the kids. I just don’t have time to relax and read a book. I just don’t have time to get away to visit parents or family in general. To each of those statements I would reply, YES YOU DO!!! It is simply a matter of choices, of setting your priorities. Sounds easy doesn’t it but we all know it is not. It takes work but it can be done, if we really want it.

Another quote from that same email:

“First I was dying to finish high school and start college. Then I was dying to finish college and start working. Then I was dying to marry and have children. Then I was dying for my children to grow old enough that I could go back to work. But then I was dying to retire. Now I am dying and realize I forgot to live.

Please don’t let this happen to you. Appreciate your current situation and enjoy each day.”

Life is a journey that I often refer to as the highway of life. Each day of our lives could be seen as one step in that journey. None of us know how many steps we have in that journey, that we have no control over. How we spend each of those days is something we have some control over.