Shacknews LoL

Rest in Peace, Bob Newhart

RIP Richard Simmons

https://abcnews.go.com/US/fitness-guru-richard-simmons-dead-76/story?id=111912398

The peegies in observation of Memorial Day!

Chase: https://i.imgur.com/7VjnYaK.jpeg
Odin (left) and Benedict Cucumberpatch: https://i.imgur.com/wR4901r.jpeg
Vincent Thundersqueak: https://i.imgur.com/ryA7CqE.jpeg

Happy Mother's Day from the peegies!

Benedict Cucumberpatch and Odin: https://i.imgur.com/XOPqRuN.jpeg
Chase: https://i.imgur.com/r4eJ08g.jpeg
Vincent Thundersqueak: https://i.imgur.com/38XYBWo.jpeg

No selfie today, I woke up to find out that Kiki had been hit by a cat and killed :((

Selfie Saturday!

Kids have friends over, everyone is still asleep in the basement, post workout kitteh time

https://i.imgur.com/DYiY52S.jpeg

We got Ember's ashes yesterday, really surprised and touched that they just did that for us, I guess it's standard there, when we were in Ottawa it wasn't even an option from our vet. It even came with a nice sympathy card signed by the staff.

https://i.imgur.com/4XRFKnM.jpeg

No plans today, housework, then maybe some Halo CE and Satisfactory on deck (controls are rough but the game seems fun!).

That's it!

What's everyone doing today? What are you watching or playing?

Post your faces and have the best Saturday you amazing people!!!

❤️

Of course many of you have gone through this long before me and that’s why I’m finally posting this. Y’all are smart empathetic people that have helped give me insight for most of my life. I suck at dealing with death. My cousin died when I was 12 and it just never made sense and so I ignored it. Same when my grandmother and grandfather and aunts and uncles passed. I cried some and I don’t really cry. But I never really process it.

Covid was really cruel to my father in law. He lost two brothers and a sister (none were anti vax and all took precautions - but that disease was a real piece of shit). When my in-laws passed I felt really shitty because I didn’t really cry. They were just gone. I liked them but it just never hit me.

And soon it will be my mother in law. The hard part about my mother in law is I’ve known her for 24 years and she’s been on death’s door the whole time. In 2000 her PCP gave up on what turned out to be a Crohn’s diagnostic. In 2009 she was diagnosed with an insanely rare form of bladder cancer - probably from her Crohn’s meds or from working 40 years in a hospital lab. Again all the doctors said no way and told her to say her goodbyes. She didn’t listen. She beat cancer. She had chronic pain and there was always something but she survived a gnarly car wreck, she was in the ER for something every year. She has had more surgeries than you can imagine. She’s been told no to surgery more times that most people have surgeries and she has made it. She had less parts and more attachments but she made it.

But this spring was different. She got really bad and had in home hospice. Her family gathered. We prayed. She said she was ready. And then … she just didn’t die. 30 minutes later she was hungry and she ate a little and was on the road to recovery. This fall she was mobile once again. All her various bone breaks had healed. She was OK. She made it through Christmas and her birthday and was even getting a little stir crazy.

But that’s probably why she was moving around on Tuesday when she had a bad fall. And that’s all that it takes when you spend a decade at 1hp. My wife took her to the ER. Nothing was broken and there was no infection. But she just wasn’t recovering. And this weekend she has moved fast. She made the call to go for hospice again and to stop meds again. She’s at home. All the grandkids made it today. She probably won’t make it through the night.

My wife is an RN. Her two sisters and brother live in KC and don’t really care for her at all. It’s basically been my wife, her dad, and sometimes my wife’s aunt taking care of her for 20 years now. My wife is handling it as well as one can. But I worry about her. She’s so pissed at her sisters and just ready to fight. Her sisters are pretty awful so I get it but I want her to just let it go and ignore them and move on but she can’t. And she’s been the caregiver now for so long that when this is over - I don’t know what she’s going to do. She is losing her mother and her purpose.

I have no idea how my father in law will do. I could see him going another 20 years. I could see him having a heart attack and dying this week. They’ve been together for 50 years. He took the in sickness vow very seriously. He’s had so much loss I’m not sure how we will handle it.

I don’t know how my kids will do. My daughter is the eldest grandkid and has spent more time in hospital rooms either her grandmother than one should ever have to. My son traveled with my wife to Houston for the cancer treatments in 2009. He has only ever known her in sickness. And then there is my 6 year old who loves her grandmother so much but is just confused and sad about this whole thing.

And I’m just me. I’m still not processing it. I’m looking at others, thinking about others. But inward? I don’t know what I have. And I say that’s ok - it’s not about me. When my mother goes - I’ll be wrecked. I’ll be a mess. But it’s just like so many other emotions of mine that just never developed.

Last photo of the old man https://i.imgur.com/rW5U4LJ.jpg

some of you may recall back in the late summer we got a doge and then lost it within a week and a half.. this was after we had suddenly lost our 5 year old Aussie Shep to cancer.

at the point we lost Cody (the doge) we swore we were done with dogs because we couldn't handle the heartbreak that goes with losing one.

Then time passed.. and we started to feel better about it (well, mostly my wife - she's the dog person, I'm the cat person) and then this little guy just became available through the same rescue group we got our Husky/Shep mix through. he was rescued from an illegal breeder in KY and is evidently a full bred German Shep.

https://imgur.com/G8T5nza
https://imgur.com/qQ1Iuy5

So thanks to all of you who said to just give it time. you were right.

We pick him up next Sat - very excited.

oh and the name?

well this is Bonnie, our 8 year old Husky/Shep mix
https://imgur.com/DiML4jg

the new guy will be Clyde. :-D

The last 9 months have have rough.

Since last Thanksgiving:

- Grandmother got a form of leukemia
- Father in law needed aortic stint, pacemaker, defibrillator
- Grandmother died
- Sister-in-law died (which meant wife and mother in law had to go to Canada for a week, leaving me alone to take care of 2 kids and father in law)
- had big scare with other grandma, and she got moved to dementia ward of her care home
- Wife had heart surgery, with complications (she’s fine now)
- I had ankle surgery
- Father in law died

I need a nap lol.