OK, so .... one more major update for now.

[unixronin]

I have another update from my parents.  They don't know where there would be to put all of us; there'll be no room in Nan's house, and we won't be able to afford a hotel.  At most, there might be room for me to go on my own, and ...

"Even more frankly, I am not sure that I could cope myself with this stressful event AND visitors to cater for - even if they are beloved family.  I am working hard at trying to avoid the stress that leads to my devastating migraine attacks, which is no mean feat nowadays."  (From my mom.)

There's considerable doubt at this point whether Nan will even survive until they get there (they're flying to England on Tuesday), and she's slipping into dementia from all the blood chemistry weirdness.  My aunt Pat in Ilfracombe waited three precious days trying to decide what to say and how to say it before she passed the latest news on, and that delay appears to have closed the window of opportunity.  In short, the odds are she'd be dead before I could get there, and that even if still alive, she'll be either comatose or too deep into dementia to be aware of anything.

I don't want to remember Nan that way.

I want to remember Nan as the happy, laughing grandmother with the broad Devonshire accent, who always had a smile for everyone and always had the energy for climbing the Capstone or a walk across the Downs.  It sounds like it's too late to see her again that way, and I don't want the last time I see her to be as someone who's barely aware of her surroundings and needs 24-hour hospice care.

So taking everything into consideration, I'm taking discretion as the better part of valor and calling the effort off.

I want to repeat my most heartfelt thanks to all of those who have given or offered help (novel_tharkun, Snack, ehintz, ttocs, technoshaman, omahas, tww1fa, beckyzoole) or expressed support (ilcylic, juuro, iphy among others), and I hope all of you understand how much it means to me that people we've (in some cases) never met are willing to go to bat for us like this.  But I want it clearly understood that I appreciate and respect all your generosity too much to take it when it seems it's really too late to do anything but stand at her bedside and wonder if she knew anyone was there anyway.

Thank you all, immensely.  I just wish things hadn't gone downhill so suddenly.  More, I wish we weren't in such a lousy situation and had been able to visit back when she first started going downhill, or last year before she got this bad at all.

I'm going to stay up and call my aunt in Ilfracombe in a few hours, to ask how Nan's doing and if she's still lucid enough to talk to her on the phone (I don't actually know if she's even home from the hospital yet; I know they're going to bring her home, but I don't know when that's happening), and if we can do that, then we will.  But I think trying to do any more than that now would be more for our benefit to feel that we'd done all we could than it would be for hers.  novel_tharkun found another flight leaving from Dulles tomorrow that could get just me there on Monday, but it'd clean us out, I don't know if even that would be in time, and it would burn resources that are needed here to support cymrullewes and the girls.  cymrullewes insists I should go, but I feel it would be irresponsible.

 

There's a time to hang on, and there's a time to let go.

This is one of the times to let go.

---

There's a house on the hillside,
Where the drifting sands are born,
Lay down and let the slow tide wash me
back to the land where I came from,
Where the mountain men are kings
and the sound of the piper counts for everything.
Where the real mountain men are kings
and the sound of the piper counts for everything.

Feel the naked dust beneath my toes
while the future sun calls winds to blow
and the past and present black-eyed crow
flies hunting high and circling low
between dream mountains of our Eden.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I've been thinking. I don't want to spoil the good memories I have if she's not gonna know I'm there anyway.

I may bounce some drawings off you later for some ideas on a modified shifter for the 929 to try to make best use of what ankle motion I have left. Basically, I'm thinking of replacing the peg on a shifter with something like a slightly asymmetric U turned on its side. The idea is I won't have to get my foot under or on top of it to shift, just slide my toe into it from the side. I'm thinking it may reduce the total movement I need.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

We could even change the axis of motion from "up - dwon" to "side - side". Just drop you heel on the peg, with your toes in the "u", move "towards the bike" for down shift and "away from the bike" for upshift. That way if you start losing motion, you can use your thigh for the kicker. In fact, if you get really stuck it all comes down to groin muscles ("squeeze") to down shift to 1st. Easy peasy to make the linkages.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I doubt that'd be productive. At least what up-and-down motion I have doesn't hurt. (he says, foot deciding to hurt as he tries it.) Side-to-side motion is a strain right away, and pulls strangely. I have very little side-to-side strength in that foot. At least up and down, I can fairly easily lift from the thigh if need be.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Ok. Just something that had occurred to me as I was typing it out. We'll build whatever it takes to make it work.

-Ogre