Losing My Wife to Hospice.

Click here for more info on Post Polio Syndrome.Well folks, it has been several months since I posted anything to my blog. Do I have a reason for taking this long to post.

Yes as a matter of fact I do. My wife Claudia has been getting steadily weaker since last Thanksgiving. Then on Thursday February 17th she had a rather violent attack of Post Polio Syndrome. This attack pretty much left her fully paralyzed. She was no longer capable of helping me get her out of bed and transferred to her power chair or to the toilet, or to the shower and back again. In fact, she couldn't even feed herself anymore. The pain was so bad that she punched to emergency call button she wore on her wrist in order to be taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, the doctors at the hospital would not believe anything about Post Polio or its effects. Finally Elizabeth and I got the Social Worker involved and we were able to get Claudia placed in a hospice where she could get the pain relief she needed.

For those of you who don't know anything about polio, it is a disease that attacks and kills the nerves and as it does so the pain feels like you are burning on the inside. Claudia had very severe polio as a child, and Post Polio is the disease returning. Normally it is a gradual wasting disease, but sometimes it will manifest in a violent manner, as it did with Claudia, and leave the person much worse off.

After 40 years of marriage, this comes as a severe loss to me and to Claudia. I am in a fog right now, and I am having a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with our loss. While I would love to have her back home again, I physically cannot take care of her anymore. I can't pick her up and move her. Nor can I take care of all the other things physically required for somebody who is bedridden.

At first, Claudia was located close by in Fayetteville, but she has now been moved up to Marrietta, which is close by our daughter and her family.

The plan is for me to move up to the same area, so that I can be close by Claudia and by our daughter and her family.

For those of you who may be curious, I have added a link to a website that gives and accurate description of post polio syndrome, its symptoms, its progression, and the fact that there is no cure nor any effective treatment.



Sadly, that is all for now,
gahillbilly

"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"