Hi Keith,

Sorry to hear about the health issues. I hope thing go better in the future. Your comment

"This was not how we expected to spend our retirement years, but we DID expect to spend them together." is one of the most destressing parts of the pandemic.

My wife developed four new fractures in her back near the beginning of the pandemic. It was a real nightmare. Five days in the hospital alone. Five days I had to totally depend on the medical staff there to do everything correct.

That was only the beginning. We could not get a pain management specialist. I only had occasional access to our primary doctor. I had to run a damn emergency room in my living room for about a month. As I had to give Eva pretty large amounts of pain meds, there was always the fear of her reacting negatively and stop breathing. Yes I have the meds and the skill to deal with a bad reaction but that is super difficult to do alone. My fear level was pretty high for a while.

I sat up at night to see if she was breathing OK. That was hard to assure. I finally called a friend in California and he was kind enough to send me a CO2 monitor FedEx overnight. It had a alarm so I could sleep setting up next to her.

There are a good many older people here on this site I believe will also understand your comment.

I also have a wonderful wife of more than thirty years. I can't imagine life without her.

Perhaps there was never the idea that we should have these types of conversations on this site. I think they are important and bring a different level of togetherness between people here.

Billy

“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”