Two years

Today marks two years since losing my first-born son, Brendan Bjørn. I was blessed with him for 17 years, 7 months, and 17 days. He died on the 17th of May 2022, after having slowly declined over a few months, his gut unable to absorb the special peg-fed formula which had previously sustained him. He wasted away (what an awful expression, but I’m at a loss for other words to describe it so accurately) in front of my very eyes. Simply put, it was horrifying. I couldn’t change what was happening. I had no control. The child I had fought year after year to keep healthy and alive was dying, and I could not make him better this time. I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t change it.

I could not stop it.

I’ve not been the same person since. Two years on, and I know that I will never be the same person I was before he died.

I’m still trying to pick myself up off of the proverbial floor.
Some people understand this fact.
Other people seem to be indifferent to, or unaccepting of, this fact as they haven’t walked in these painful shoes.

I wish I could adequately explain to you all just how fragile life truly is in a way that would shake your soul as impactfully as losing your child teaches you. That kind of way that isn’t just a surface cognition of the importance of life, but the deepest, most primal realisation that embeds in your very core, flying through every part of your cellular make up. Yes, the spiritual awakening or realisation that ironically, painfully, also destroys a part of your spirit when you are holding your dying child as they gasp for their last breaths is that deep.

I wouldn’t wish this experience on my worst enemy, but the understanding of the fragility of life, well, that I would wish on the world. Maybe then the world would be a far better place.

I was watching a show last night and there was a line delivered by one of the characters that resonated with me. I played it over again. I soaked it in and said to myself, yes…this. The character was talking to someone shortly after losing the man she loved. She said: “How careful we’d be if we [knew] which goodbyes were our last.”

Yes…this.

The difference when you’re the parent of a very medically-fragile, profoundly disabled, life-limited child, is that you already KNOW to be careful in that regard. You know in your heart that every goodbye, every goodnight kiss, could be the last. Even so, when that time does come for it to be the last goodnight kiss, the last goodbye, the pain isn’t any less than if you didn’t know it was going to happen. I actually wonder now, is the pain even greater because for so many years, parents like me on this journey worked day after day, year after year, desperately trying to keep our precious child alive; to put off that last goodbye or last goodnight kiss?

Two years on and I still ache to give him one more goodnight kiss on his tremendously soft cheek. I close my eyes and I can feel his face in my hands. I see his blue eyes beaming up at me, just as they did for over 17 years. I can feel his thick, brown hair as I run my fingers through it, and I can hear his laughter. It’s when I open my eyes to the reality of the day that the wave of grief crashes down to drown my moment of peaceful memories.

Today, I will take many moments to close my eyes and once again feel my beautiful angel Brendan Bjørn. And when I do open my eyes, I will look at my younger son, Declan, with so much love and admiration. This journey with Brendan Bjørn wasn’t just mine. It was his, too, and that cannot be forgotten. He was right there with me 2 years ago today, holding his big brother’s hand while I held the other. He was there comforting him, loving him, and talking to him as his only brother left this world. Indeed, the future journey is now for him. I’m just fortunate enough to have been along for the walk with them both.

The coming of a new season

As I type this latest blog, the rain is battering down on the window of my cousin’s farmhouse. The snow blanketing the ground is giving way to the coming of a new season and the grass is beginning to make its first appearance of the year. It’s a good time for new beginnings, it tells me.

Declan and I have moved to Norway.
Brendan Bjørn is surely here with us in spirit, too.

Another big bit of news (as if what I just said wasn’t big enough, right?) is that we sold our disability-modified bungalow in County Wexford to the HSE Disability Department with the plan for it to become a respite house for disabled children in the region. This is part of Brendan Bjørn’s legacy, to be sure. My hope is they will call it Brendan’s Bungalow (this was Declan’s idea for a name to honour his brother).

I couldn’t have asked for anything better than to have the home filled with the love and laughter of such special children like my angel boy. And of course, not to forget parent carers, to give them a bit of respite from the often exhausting work that is being a 24/7 carer.

My heart is truly full knowing the home will serve such a needed and beautiful purpose!

That’s not to say this hasn’t been a very difficult decision and process. On the day we moved out of the house, I stood in what was his bedroom and I bawled my eyes out. Sobbed uncontrollably. This was the room where he laughed, loved, and enjoyed his family and life. But this was also the room where his last months then weeks were spent in pain, struggling, slowly drifting away from us until the horrific final moments of his gasping for those impossible to find breaths.

No, I couldn’t stay. The memories are too painful.

I was afraid his spirit would remain in the house, and as I stood there crying, I asked him to stay with us. It was in the airport a few days later, as we were going through security, that I knew he did just that. Every time we flew in the past, airport security would, for some crazy reason, think Brendan Bjørn was a likely candidate to swab and pat down for explosive residue – his wheelchair, his bag, the palms of his hands. Then there I was in Dublin Airport security, just a few days ago now, with his ashes in a box in a bag. I was asked what was in the bag and when I told the man, he was very kind and told me to wait. He came back with his supervisor and she told me they’d have to swab the box.

And there he was, Brendan Bjørn, having a laugh going through airport security one last time. It was that moment I knew he was with us and it made me smile.

The past few days have been non-stop here in Norway trying to get things organised and settled for our new beginning. There is still MUCH left to do, but for today, I’m taking a bit of a break from the whirlwind. The familiar sound of rain on the window is acting like a tonic to calm my worries, even if just for today. I think an afternoon nap may even be in the cards.

I have so much to be thankful for, and indeed I am.

Here’s to Ireland.
Here’s to Norway.
Here’s to the coming of a new season.

A New Year and Counting Down

Tomorrow brings the start of 2024. I won’t write about resolutions because they never last through January, do they? Instead, I’m going to write about things past and things to come. Dreams dashed. Goals to conquer.

And of course, I will write about matters of the heart.

2024 means that I will no longer be able to say “My eldest son, Brendan Bjørn, died last year.” It will now be said, “My eldest son, Brendan Bjørn, died in 2022.” You may think that slight change of wording isn’t important, but in matters of the heart, it certainly is. There is this feeling of it putting his living memory further behind in the years…and a concern that others may think the grief is now more distant rather than it still permeating every fibre of my being, every waking moment, and every breath taken.

Those of us who have lost a child will understand.

January 2024 will mark 16 years since I worked my last professional job – one I absolutely loved – as a School Guidance Counselor. As some of you know, I was fired for the simple reason of being pregnant and unwed. I was told that I ‘cast grave discredit upon the parish and school’ and that I ‘tarnished the reputation’ of the school (FYI: it was a Catholic school in the US). I was escorted off the school grounds with 2 days notice, no income, no health insurance, and unable to say goodbye to all of the students I had grown so close to, many of them crying as I left…just as I was.

This defining moment in my life will definitely be a chapter in my book and 2024 will see me dedicated to finally finishing that book.

February 2024 will find me and Declan leaving Ireland. This beautiful island has given much to us, but also taken a lot from us. Have no doubt, though, Ireland will certainly always be etched upon our hearts. And, when the time is right, I will announce a wonderful legacy of Brendan Bjørn’s here in Ireland that I’ve been working on. But for now, suffice to say, we will be moving near to family. I will be settling Declan in the most solid, secure, and holistically healthiest surroundings I can think of so that when he grows to be a man, he is surrounded by what I wished for in my own early years but didn’t have.

A parent’s dream should always be to wish more for their children than what they had. May it be so.

Syttende Mai (17 May) 2024 will be 2 years since we lost our beloved Brendan Bjørn. Declan and I will be celebrating the day as Syttende Mai while simultaneously holding close and honouring his memory. I’m not sure how we will manage that mix of emotions, but we will try our best. And again, we will do this surrounded by the warm support of family and hopefully by then with a few new friends as well.

October 2024 will bring what would have been Brendan Bjørn’s 20th birthday. I can’t even fathom that now and I’m sure the day will hit me hard. May I always be comforted by the 17 and 1/2 years I was blessed with him.

And finally, Christmas 2024, you will find us sitting around the family dinner table sharing a big Christmas meal, highlighted by love and laughter and what I know will be a sense of peace as the year will wind down to another close. It will be a sense of peace that my heart so desperately aches for and indeed it needs.

I know this coming year will be quite challenging in all we have planned. I’m 58 and my soul is weary in many regards. Yet, I hope that with these changes, it will be revitalised. I pray that I will be able to finally get my health issues tended to and bring them to a much more manageable, less troublesome, place. I look forward to finding work that sustains and fulfills me. And most of all, I hope Declan truly blossoms with our new life, in a new school and the change of environment.

I say goodbye to 2023 with so many goals, hopes and dreams in store for 2024, while also remembering the past – both distant and recent – which has brought us to this point today.

2024 will definitely be a momentous chapter in the book of our journey.

May your New Year bring you blessings and dreams fulfilled, too.

On turning 58 and turning the page

Today I turn 58. It’s the second birthday for me since my beloved son, Brendan Bjørn, passed on.

The first of my birthdays that I celebrated with him was my 39th. It was a day of mixed emotion. I had finally become a mother two months earlier, after four losses over 20 years. Yet, I had learned the month after his birth that he had significant brain damage and his future challenges were a long list of possible outcomes, most of them absolutely terrifying to me. As his 17 and 1/2 year long journey unfolded, many of those potential challenges transformed into realities.

I wonder, as I sit here in a quiet house sadly devoid of his laughter, typing this and contemplating turning 58, what should I do with my remaining time in this life? And if I’m to be completely honest, lately I’ve wondered just how many more years do I have left? I know, I know, it’s a question that we all might ponder as we approach certain milestone ages like 60.

I also know I can’t have the answer to that ominous question, and I actually may not want to know the answer even if I could. What is left, then, is the realisation that with however long I do have left on this journey, I need to make the most of it, not just for myself but also – and actually, primarily so – for my youngest son, Declan. I lost my own mother shortly after my 24th birthday. She was only 60 years old. I do not want my son to experience that, too.

So, it is time to earnestly commit to becoming as healthy as I can be (physically, emotionally and spiritually) and to forge a new path for me and Declan to walk along. In the next couple of months, we will be starting a new chapter in our life’s book; a book which, so far, has been adventure-filled and monotonous, joyous and heartbreaking, glorious and tragic…and everything in between.

I trust that Brendan Bjørn will be on this new path with us, watching over us, and guiding us as we step forward. I can feel the radiant warmth of his love as he smiles at me from the place that he is now. It sustains me in many ways. He gave me the most incredible of gifts in his short life: Becoming a mother and Teaching me about genuine unconditional love.

For this birthday, I carry those gifts from him with me. I always will do, in fact, for they are priceless, timeless and the most precious of gifts imaginable. I carry those gifts with me for my other son, as well, and will convey them on to him in hopes that he, too, will carry them throughout his own life.

The circle of life goes on and the path continues.
The page is turned and the new journey lies ahead, just waiting to be explored.

Here’s to 58 years.

Time at a standstill

Dear Brendan Bjørn, today marks 18 months since you left us. I don’t know where the time has gone. Yet, as time is often so elusive, it seems like just yesterday I watched you struggle to take your final breath. 18 months. How can that be right?

Time has flown by while being at a standstill.

Your brother and I, as I believe in my heart you know, have had plans to make this house that I sit in typing at this very moment, a place of respite for other special children like yourself. A place to give exhausted parents, like I was, a bit of a break from time to time. Both of us want to honour you in this way – to have that be your legacy.

I hope it can still happen, my sweet boy, but I am losing that hope. I’ve waited for over a year for this to come to fruition…and didn’t put the house for sale on the open market as a result…yet here we are: At a standstill with no confirmation on what is happening to see this home become a benefit to others in such dire need of respite.

Time has flown by while being at a standstill but we can’t stand still any longer.

Next week, I’ll place the house for sale on the open market. I hope you understand that I tried. I will find another way for your legacy to bloom. It’s been over a year of talks and on-site reviews of our house but here we are, treading water and disappointingly getting nowhere. Your brother and I talk about what to do and we both agree that I have given the health service ample time to proceed. In fact, I am angry at myself for having trusted them in the first place that this would actually happen considering all of the fights for basic care for you while you were alive, including fighting for non-existent respite services in our region. The irony of that, right? I really should have known better. But…but…your brother and I both so desperately wanted this to be a respite home in your honour. He even suggested that your name be incorporated into the name of the respite home. I’m crying now thinking of it all – the loss, the missed opportunity, the failings.

So, we waited.
But we can’t wait any longer.

Continue to watch over us, please. Walk with us and guide our footsteps forward. Know that there are no words adequate to describe the depth of how much we miss you and love you, always. And my sweet angel, Brendan Bjørn, when it does come time for us to leave this home and make a new home elsewhere, follow us there. It will be the place that some day, hopefully far into the very distant future, I will be laid to rest with you in my arms. It will be our final home. It will be your brother’s future, too, surrounded by family to enrich his life as he grows to become a man. And may it bring you even more joy to see as you look upon us there.

But for today, it’s 18 months. How can it be?

To you, my angel, on your 19th birthday

My dearest Brendan Bjørn,

Today is your 19th birthday. It’s the second birthday Declan and I will solemnly celebrate for you, but heartbreakingly without you. I wonder if you will be watching. I wonder what it’s like where you are.

There is so much I still wonder…

I still wonder if I did all I should have done, could have done. I wonder if I did what was best or if I could have done better. Those last weeks and days still haunt the deepest parts of my being. Still.

I wonder if you are at peace with your parting from this life. I hope, I pray, that all you experience now is complete and totally blissful peace and joy, because that, my beautiful son, is what you shared with me for 17 years.

502 days since we watched you struggle to take your last breath. A day I wish I could stop reliving in my mind.

502 days since my world was turned upside down, leaving me spinning and without direction.

My beloved, precious son, may I always remember that moment 19 years ago today when the doctor said from the other side of the blue sheet draped at across my chest during the C-section, “You have a boy!” My heart leapt and from that moment on was filled with the greatest of possible loves, that of a mother for her child! That love for you remains, Brendan Bjørn, and it always will.

On the bookshelf in the room with me here is a photo of you with your beaming smile. It, like you, lights up the room. It was taken on your 17th birthday…your last birthday with us. That is, your last birthday with us in person. I hold on to the belief that you are still with us in spirit, watching over us as we try each day to move ahead with you forever in our hearts. I hope we have your guidance and blessing with each decision made as we take those steps forward.

Thank you for the gift that was you for those 17 years, 7 months, and 17 days. From the day you were born, I wanted to give you the world. As it turned out, you gave me, and your brother, love that was not of this world. Thank you.

Happy heavenly birthday, my angel boy. I love you forever and ever and a day.

“I hope you’re dancing in the sky
And I hope you’re singing in the angel’s choir
And I hope the angels know what they have“

my prime meridian

“The prime meridian is the line of 0° longitude, the starting point for measuring distance
both east and west around Earth.”

I’m standing on that precipice of decision.
This is the moment of my own Prime Meridian.

This ‘moment’ has indeed been months-long rather than a fleeting moment. I think life changing decisions require contemplation, even when desperately trying to maintain balance on that precipice. In truth, my moment has extended in time because it’s not just my own Prime Meridian that will change, but that of Declan’s, too. So, careful contemplation and logical thinking delays the step off that precipice into the new starting point.

So much has changed in my heart since losing Brendan Bjørn 14 months ago. Some things I was certain of a few years ago no longer hold true. Some plans I had are no longer wanted. Some feelings I thought unshakeable are no longer present. And, some feelings are now present which weren’t present even just two years ago.

My Prime Meridian has changed with the loss of my precious son Brendan Bjørn.

Late last year, I had seriously considered moving Declan and I out to the west of Ireland to County Kerry so we could get a fresh start but a few situations changed my mind: Declan being put on 2 different – likely endless – waitlists for medical evaluation and, get this, renewed hate/bullying on social media after I had mentioned I was looking to sell the house, calling me all sorts of slanderous, hurtful names with (how can I put this?) very misguided accusations. I suppose I should thank that clique of gossiping women for bringing clarity to my decision.

Declan deserves better.
I deserve better.

A few weeks ago, Declan and I went to Arizona and I took him to my hometown for the first time. While it may not have totally been his cup of tea, it stirred in me feelings that I haven’t felt for years. Feelings of belonging. An easiness, a comfort, and an acceptance in simply being who I am. And so importantly, connection…that longed for connection which every human being desires on some level.

Yesterday, I got a big nudge off of the precipice of decision when I took Declan to a disaster of a private consultation appointment which has left me with no doubt that it’s time to reset our Prime Meridian.

I’ll be 58 by the end of this year. I would like to think I have a lot of life ahead of me, but as a fellow foreign-born friend of mine said to me last week, she feels like she’s just waiting to die here, biding her time with no motivation, no connections, not living life to its fullest or reaching her potential. She mentioned how no one invites her over for anything, dinner or Christmas or otherwise. I experience and feel the same, even after losing Brendan Bjørn, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to continue this isolated, depressive, frustrating life fighting for basic care and merely existing.

I want to fully live, connected, with intent and potentials reached.
I want the same for Declan.

Yes, now is the time to reset our Prime Meridian.

one year

My dearest son Brendan Bjørn, how has it been a year since I saw you leave me? Time has been at a standstill since you took your last breath. I have been frozen, lost in the emotional chaos of grief. One year. How can it be?

I still hope it’s just a nightmare from which I will wake relieved though traumatised. But I know it isn’t just a nightmare.

I know this is life’s cruel reality one year on.

I went into your bedroom yesterday, memories hidden behind the closed door. There were cobwebs in the corner. Dust on the dresser. I felt shame and guilt that I’ve let it go like this for so long. If you saw, you’ll know that I’ve cleaned it now, although there is still much more to do.

I think it’s time for me to begin the thaw; to begin sorting through your things to pass them on to others in need. I plan to bring your talking Mother Goose to your school. I imagine your former fellow students will enjoy it as much as you did. I’ll bring other toys of yours to share, too. I hope that makes you happy, my beautiful angel.

Your oxygen tanks are still here, never having been collected. I must call about those again. There is so much I need to get sorted, so much I need to decide, so much to do. But not today. No, not today.

Today I will try to forget you in those last horrifying moments which continue to terrorise my mind.

Today I will try to remember only your laughter and the beaming smile that accompanied it for nearly 18 years.

Today I will try to feel again that sense of wholeness when I first held you in my arms all those years ago as you scowled at the bright operating room lights and I told you not to worry because I had you…I had you.

Today I will try to think on only the good moments – which were immeasurable – filled with such a magical unconditional love and pureness of soul.

I hope you know that you meant everything to me and how blessed and thankful I am to have been your mother.

I hope I never failed you.

I hope you only ever felt completely and beautifully loved, for you were the very best of this world.

Your brother misses you, too, but I have no doubts you know that, for the special bond the two of you shared was a sight to behold. How privileged I was to witness that love! I hope you’re smiling when we talk of you and that it brings you joy to watch over us as we cherish our memories of you. I have to think that you are.

I have to believe.

Today I will try to be a little better than I was the day before. I will try the same again tomorrow and then the day after. I will keep trying, for you, my beloved Brendan Bjørn, and for your amazing younger brother.

Today I will try, but I know I will fail for the most part because I am so utterly broken…still…one year on. I am numb yet I am in agony. I am lost yet I am all too aware of where I am at as I sit here typing this and realise a year ago this time you had less than an hour to live. 7:44am draws near.

You see how I’ve already failed at forgetting those last horrifying moments?

I must try to give myself the grace to just be in the day that it is because I know that is what you would want for me.

These words are so vastly insufficient, but I miss you, angel boy. Every moment of every day with every fiber of my being, I miss you. Thank you for all that you gave to me and all that you taught me. Thank you for being my son. I was truly, truly blessed to be your mother.

I love you, baby, forever and ever and ever,

Mommy

A midlife crisis at a later stage of life

Lately, I find I’m in a dark place torn between what was and what could be or what might be. I’m finding the present, the now, often too hard to exist in. And I have been contemplating how, if I’m lucky, I might have 20 years of my life left. 30 if I’m really lucky. And in that contemplation, I have been wondering what good, if any, did I actually do the past 18 years while caring 24/7 for my late son Brendan Bjørn? Have all those years advocating even done any good?

On a walk today it dawned on me: I’m having a midlife crisis at a later stage of life, likely put off because my personal life and professional career were put on hold for so many years.

I wish I was at midlife, but as I will turn 58 later this year, I realise all too well that I’m now beyond that mark. Alas, a sense of panic fills me at times as I ponder what I will do next.

My younger son, Declan, will be 15 this month. When he’s 30, I’ll be 72. Yes, that’s another thought which triggers panic within me. Questions which stem from hopes fill my mind: Will he have a career? Will he be married? Will he have kids yet for me to dote on? I know that no one has a crystal ball. I’m just writing what I’m processing in my mind lately.

**Cue the mention of diagnoses of PTSD and anxiety**

I do know one thing:

I am f*cking tired of fighting for proper and timely healthcare in Ireland.

Nearly ten years of that fight now and it has pretty much destroyed me. All those years in constant battle for Brendan Bjørn’s various disability-related services and healthcare needs have taken their toll. Now it’s me and Declan I have to fight for and I just don’t know if I have it in me, to be quite honest. To a great extent, the care and fight around Brendan Bjørn landed me where I am now: disabled with a number of chronic health conditions. To think that now both Declan and I are on waitlists for medical treatment, just like Brendan Bjørn was for so many years, really gives me the chills. How many years will he and I have to wait?

It should not be this way for anyone. Full stop.

I’ve wondered recently if we should have stayed in the US, but as I look at prices there now, it’s even more expensive than here in some aspects. And then there’s the violence and guns…no thanks. Been there and done that, as the saying goes. But still, part of me wonders “what if” we had stayed, would the boys have had a better life and future? Would I have? Some regrets and doubts surface in those questions.

Then there is my beloved Norway. I’ve thought seriously for a number of years about moving to Norway to be near my cousins. I would love nothing more than to have family nearby and know that one day, when it’s time for Declan to be without me, I have left him in an amazing country with a solid standard of living, healthcare, higher education and opportunities, as well as family, of course. Unfortunately, I learned a few months ago that unless I had a full time job and was therefore covered by the state health service, I would have to obtain private health insurance for both Declan and myself…but in Norway private health insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions (If someone reading this happens to know otherwise, please let me know!) so with all of my present health concerns, that simply won’t work, especially considering those very same health concerns preclude me from being able for full time work. A vicious catch-22.

So, that was a very hard blow likely ending my long-held dream.

The first anniversary of Brendan Bjørn’s death is in 13 days from this writing. I know enough to understand major decisions should not be made during times of emotional upheaval. At this point, I’m wondering when – or if – I ever won’t be in such upheaval. Whatever I eventually decide, it has to be what’s best for Declan and, selfishly said, what’s right for me, too, with whatever time I’m blessed to have left.

When what once brought peace now brings terror

Last week, my son Declan and I went on a short trip to County Kerry. As Kerry is, it was beautiful. But something happened which has now driven home to me that my life is forever changed and what I once found peace and solace in, I won’t be able to any longer.

I feel like a vital part of me has been stolen away and it’s left me emotionally devastated.

I grew up in the mountains of northern Arizona and spent most of my life living, camping, fishing, hiking and driving through the Rockies of the American West. It is inextricably linked to who I am as a person. It is in the mountains that I’ve always found the most peace and, if I’m to be honest, felt the closest to God.

Last week while in Kerry, I discovered that whatever is going on with my brain’s ability to perceive my surroundings, it is truly going to inhibit my abilities from this point forward in my life.

I first noticed this extreme sense of vertigo (which I’ve never had before) last summer while in Norway when driving over bridges or along mountsides. I wrote it off to being exhausted, having only lost my precious Brendan Bjørn weeks earlier.

It turns out that isn’t the case.

Declan and I took two drives: One out the Dingle Peninsula from Tralee to Dunquin Pier (not going over Conor’s Pass, FYI) and the other from Tralee to Cahersiveen. I was TERRIFIED. I froze. I had panic attacks. My head swam as the roadway dropped down sharply to the sea or the mountain road dropped sharply to the valley floor. If you’ve ever watched a video of a more extreme rollercoaster ride from the first person perspective and felt your head and stomach have an out of body experience, that’s it. That’s what I felt…except I was the one behind the wheel.

Nearly 40 years of driving in the mountains and through the canyonlands and now it’s done. I feel like someone has just stolen my ability to access the part of me which I have desperately hoped to recapture after so many years of being isolated and homebound as a carer. Correction. That ability has been stolen, somehow.

I had an MRI of my brain done a couple months ago to try and find a cause for these vertigo issues – or is it a sensory perception issue??? – and ironically I got a phone call while in Kerry with the results. “All clear.” It would seem my brain is normal. (I’m sure there are a few jokes to be had about that, but do resist)

I was chatting to a friend who also has long covid and apparently this is one of the possible outcomes. If it is long covid related, it’s from when I had covid in March 2020. Do the symptoms of long covid not go away after 3 years? I don’t know but I’ll have to find out.

In the meantime, I need to re-examine my plans and hopes for the future. I’ll need to work around, or with, this health related situation which has left me heartbroken on top of the heartbreak I already feel.

Somehow.
But I don’t know how.
And I’m lost yet again.