2016.01.23

Seems like death is everywhere these days. David Bowie, Glenn Frey.... Lemmy. Angus Scrimm. So far Roger Waters is still hanging on, even though he's the one who figured out the pros and cons of it all way back in the 80s: "Why prolong the agony? All men must die."

All those listed but Scrimm died in their late 60s; like my dad.

Maybe this is a return to the normal life span. Geezers living to almost 100? What's the fucking point? Seems like we used to die off around 60/70. Makes sense to me.

But then again, for me, that's another, what? Twenty years? Errr.
 
My sister-in-law has, what appears to be, an inoperable brain tumor. I spend time with her children - my niece and nephew - and they avoid talking about it. Just as I avoid talking about MW's Huntington's Disease. Vague, oblique references to the "uncertain" future. Uncertain.

Fucking DEATH! There. That's the future. What's so uncertain about that? My sister-in-law with a brain tumor? She'll see her son graduate in 2016. Her daughter's 2018 graduation? Toss a coin.

Every time I think I've hit rock bottom, I break through another level. But come on; this has to stop. We've long since gone beyond the testing point - God pushing Job's nose in for giggles - fine. I'm still here, aren't I? And I'm willing to tote the barge for the duration - at least as long as the hull of this alcohol fueled tugboat holds back the water - but my sister-in-law? Unfair. Life? Unfair.

And, just as with my father, I am sick with worry about my sister-in-law's health but, always there in the back of my mind, are the disgusting, guilty thoughts that, hoo boy, if she has to be admitted to a hospital? Or when she dies and we have to go to the funeral? Man, dealing with MW through that is going to be absolute misery.

I wouldn't say I'm drunk now. I'm certainly not sober; but I'm not blind either. MW is out of the house now so I can write without interruption. I should be doing something better than this - pissing and moaning - but I've had a... revelation? No. A theory? No. Not even so deep. Let's call this an observation.

I'm a lapsed Catholic with a hate hard-on for God. Sure, MW has Huntington's Disease so that accounts for it, right? Indeed. But let's be honest - as soon as I left my mother's house and could stop going to church every Sunday - I did stop going to church every Sunday. I slept in. Now I'm the caretaker of a woman who is dying by fractions of inches and I can do absolutely nothing to stop the progression of death as it greys away all life from her skin, her hair, her lips and her mind. Her soul.

My brother is a Lutheran. I know, right? We were raised Catholic and he - heh - became a Lutheran when he married a Lutheran. His wife is dying from a brain tumor. Bad, yes, but it'll be over soon. Relatively soon.

My sister? Oh man, she's doing great! Healthy as an ox - great marriage; two glorious young sons - both righteously successful. College bound. Fantastic people. Rich? Yessir. House in the Austin hill country with nothing but more success on the horizon. Ridiculously perfect life.

Oh, by the way, she's very actively involved in one of those charismatic churches. Yup. One of those "God loves you and you can have everything" cults. Lakewood writ small.

So here's how it pans out, the way I see it now (sure, I'm seeing it through a bottle and a half of cheap red, but it is before my eyes). If you were Catholic but loose all religion (like me!) you are absolutely and unequivocally fucked. Hey, this isn't just me looking at my belly-button with a tear in my eye. Huntington's Disease is acknowledged as the "cruelest" disease known to man. And that's what I earned for turning my back on the church. A lifetime of suffering that is, without hyperbole, just one step north of hell.

My brother actively tossed a middle finger to the church. He became Lutheran! Holy shit! Hammering toilet paper on the cathedral door - the whole nine yards. For this he will loose his wife during the prime of their lives. Bullshit. God? Bullshit.

Now my sister. A charismatic church? That kumbayah hold hands and drop 10% in the collection plate scam? And for this she is rewarded with wealth and health and blessings beyond most people's dreams?

Hey God? Good one.  

2016.01.16

Hey now, I'm still here.

Two weeks into the new year and I'm still hanging around.

Turns out all I needed to do was start drinking the hard stuff again. Wine? Wasn't cutting it. I now use wine as a stop-gap until I can get real drink. That seems to be helping. Pour enough of the red on my heart and it keeps Ginger Baker away until I can wrap my lips around the real stuff.

Also, I've decided on vodka. Exclusively. Used to be I'd ping pong around gin, V. and whiskey, but I wised up and settled on just the one. The flying V. Gin caused too much sickness, whiskey only seemed to exacerbate my health problems, but good king V.? That's the stuff there. Sure, it causes wicked nightmares, but at least they're interesting. Plus, when I wake up in a sweat from some seriously FUCKED UP dream, and my heart is playing 1812 overture against my chest, I can pretend it is only anxiety. Nothing more.

Yeah, I'm good.

What about MW? How's that going?

Ehhhhhhhh. Okay, I guess. She's about to either quit or get fired from her job because she's been making a lot of mistakes lately. That'll be... bad.

Also, the house has become an absolute wreck. She refuses to clean; nor will she let me clean. Well, why don't I just "sneak clean"? Do some scrubbing while she's asleep or otherwise unaware? What the fuck? Am I so goddamned lazy I'm using my wife's Huntington's Disease as an excuse to live like a pig?

Ah-ha. See there? You don't know what it's like. You have no clue.

I tried. Of course I tried. But when MW noticed a clean floor when she'd left a dirty floor, an explanation was demanded. Um.... Wind? A freak wind blew through the house? Cleaned... the floor?

I'm pretty good at floating bullshit past my MW, but that's a non-starter. No. She caught me in the act and there was hell to pay. So I can't clean; she won't clean, and the house is falling apart.

A better example? The toilette bowls. I just had to take a day off work and spend $600 to replace two functional but dirty toilette bowls. MW wouldn’t clean them; wouldn’t let me clean them, but couldn’t live with them anymore. So she hired a plumber. But she was too embarrassed to be in the house when they came to replace the dirty utilities, so I had to stay home from work. Of course, she didn’t trust either me or the plumber to make sure the work was done correctly, so she was home too; hiding in the sitting room behind a curtain of tacked up blankets. She poked her head around the curtain a few times to give instructions; mostly about where the plumber should be allowed to walk – confusing the hell out of the poor guy – but the job eventually got done. The only positive about this situation is, because the toilets are new, I can probably get away with cleaning them on the down low every week or so without MW noticing.

Anyway, the upshot of all this? MW is looking to buy a new house. Makes sense. This house is dirty; we need to buy a new one.

Fuck yes. Why not? I'm all on board. Talking to real estate agents; driving around looking for good neighborhoods.... Sure, it'll deplete all our savings and put us back in an economic hole, but so what? We’re not going to live forever – why not act stupid now? It might be the last time we have to make such a serious mistake. After this, all our mistakes will be made for us.

The only good break in this situation is that, because I haven’t had a credit card in ten years, I’ve no credit and can’t get a load. Ha! I had to apply for a credit card and, am told by the bank, must make three month’s payments before I can try again to get a loan. So. That gives me three more months of drinking and grinning before I have to sign papers that’ll wipe out any hope I’ve ever had of financial security.

More than that – one of MW’s new home demands is that it be a one-story house. Somehow, someway, she understands that navigating a flight of stairs is now or will soon become… troublesome.

Who knows? Dwight Yoakum told me this drinkin’ will kill me…. Maybe I’ll get lucky before April.

Does this require more of an explanation? Those unfamiliar with the disease may think so. If all you know about Huntington ’s disease is from TV, then probably. On TV it is like a silver bullet of sickness. Terrible stuff, but –in one way or the other - resolved in 45 minutes (thank God). Maybe a season or two (I’m looking at you, House), but otherwise…. Bullshit. No, HD is a lifetime of suffering. And, depending upon circumstances, more than one lives are dragged down into the marsh of dementia. I drink a lot to prevent these thoughts, but oh thank God we never had children. It is just me, I alone, dealing with this. I’ve even isolated MW from her terrible, terrible family so they don’t have to acknowledge the fact that the next time they’ll see their beloved daughter/sister/cousin will be at her goddamned funeral. I’ve jumped on that grenade. And I’m going to lay here, fifteen, twenty more years before it blows. I and I alone.

So when I bitch about the house being in disorder or how MW is losing her job and those uninitiated wonder why I can’t be more proactive or helpful, my only response is death. Death is the ultimate answer for my ineptitude and folly. If I were to sit MW down, tell her that she’s sick, that she has a terminal disease that, yes, can be “managed” through medication and therapy, but not cured, then where have I put her? I’ve put her right in the fucking grave. I’ve shoveled six feet of dirt on MW’s lovely face and garnished it with a rose of prescription medication.

Remember – we both watched her mother suffer for 15 goddamned, terrible, insufferable, dehumanizing, fantastic, Godless, abhorrent years of the disease. “Hey honey, you have Huntington’s disease! But good news – I’ve just bought a lifetime supply of Depends and Ensure, so… Yummy!”

Making the decision to not tell her? Well, that’s an invitation for chaos to reign over our house. But what the fuck? The house is only myself and the stupid dog. We’ll live or we won’t, who cares?

2016.01.09

I'm having a real hard time with this.

MW has Huntington's disease, but I'm keeping this fact from her. In the shadows of my heart, I think she suspects the truth. Every so often she’ll drop a bomb like – “How will you act when I’m really sick?” or “Would you take care of me when I’m really sick?”

Like that.

So far I’ve been smart enough to play that noise off and continue with stat. quo. Smart? Maybe suicidal enough….

Here’s where I’m at:

I’m sick.

I’m not sure if it is a symptom of my enthusiastically embraced alcoholism, my self-diagnosed hernia, or something more sinister; but on a daily basis now my heart will pick a random time to start hammering against my chest and I’ll find myself short of breath. My vision will become unfocused. I’ll start to sweat just sitting still. Of course this perpetrates a kind of panic, with me looking for an escape – where will I go to lay down? Can I get there in time?

But…. Not because I’m worried about dying. I’m not. I just want to be out of the way. I don’t want to be an inconvenience for anyone. I certainly don’t want to wind up in a hospital. Rather a morgue.

Look. The only thing keeping me alive now is the fact that MW can’t function without me. Truthfully, it’s not like she’s doing great with me. So were I gone?

Better. All around, better.

Probably. Maybe. Who knows? Goddamnit.

One thing is for certain – I can’t just get sick. I can’t wind up with a health problem that requires any kind of prolonged treatment. I can’t have a stupid cancer or heart problem. I can’t have surgery – hell, if I could do that, I’d get this nuisance hernia fixed. No. Nothing that would require MW to be responsible for the house for anything more than a six or eight hour period would work.

It’d be better I die. Then she’d have no choice but to have real, professional people intervene. Not just me fucking everything up all the time.

So this is the tightrope I’m on – is the sickness where I’m at now bad enough to knock me off into my reward or is it some survivable trifle? If I were to stop drinking – ha! – would my heart settle into a peaceful rhythm? Have I gone beyond that?

Would it make a difference?

Every night lying in bed, aching and miserable, I swear I’ll never imbibe another ounce. Come morning I’m doing a mental inventory of every bottle in the house, planning my day. If I knew this would land me in the hospital, I’d stop. I’d totally stop. I’d be a religious convert. John Barleycorn must die like he was in a Tarantino movie.

But….

If my drinking will kill me? Like, one moment typing on the computer; next, gone?

Well. Pass the bottle.

Because at that point MW will be someone else’s problem. Someone more qualified than I.

I’m a monster. I’m a monster, aren’t I?

Hello?