It's July.
Last year in July, my world changed forever.
What I thought would be a lot of work for a month turned into a year of Hell on Earth.

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I am getting less and less healthy. My body is breaking down faster and faster. I have fewer days where my mind and body are well enough to do anything.

I promised to go to new doctors two years ago and find answers. I want to make someone fix what has broken in my body and mind for so long. Just as I started that process, I had to go to Florida to help my Mother for four and a half months. I was dead when I got home. It took me a year to recover from those four and a half months. I told my Mother I was never going back to Florida again and that she had to move back to Wisconsin. She did not believe me.

I went back to old doctors who do not look for answers but make it so I can have a few days a week where I can think. I knew I needed to try to find health answers again, but everywhere around me were things I had to put on hold and now needed to do.

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July of 2023 came. My Mother ended up in the Hospital in Florida. She called to tell me this and said I didn't need to go down there and help. In the background, I could hear her neighbor yelling that yes, my Mom needed help, and of course, I could fly down to help.

I explained again that I wasn't kidding when I said I would never go to Florida again. When she left the hospital and returned home, she needed to look at all the places I had sent her information no and find a place to live in Wisconsin. She had her way and had stayed too long in Florida alone.

Lucky for her, they didn't have to do surgery, and she went back to her Florida home with a clean bill of health.

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Mom was flying to Wisconsin last August to go on a trip with her sister. I told my Mother to get her house on the market before she got here in August.

August came, and so did my Mother.

She wasn't well. After she landed, one of the first things we did was go to Urgent Care and get her legs looked at. She had open wounds on both her legs that had not healed in four years. They had almost been healed when I had left two years before but were worse now than ever.

Her house sold in three days. My son and beautiful daughter-in-law flew up from Colombia, South America, and oversaw the packing. They then drove Mom's car to Wisconsin with all the essential and priceless things for me. They were there when the movers dropped off all the boxes. They unboxed everything they could and set the apartment up as best as possible to look like her house in Florida. If not for them, I would still be unpacking Mom's stuff. They earned their halos that August.

Mom made it on her trip with her sister and had a ball. She also made it on a trip with her old friend for a week up north. When she returned from her last trip, her apartment was ready, except she went to the ER because she fell early one morning while at my house.

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From that day on, we have been to the ER more than six times. She has been in the Hospital six times. She has been in a rehab place twice? Maybe three times. I lost track of that.

Mom had one major stroke. She was malnourished. She had open, bone-deep wounds on both legs. She has a rare blood cancer that was not treated correctly while in Florida. She needed a heart procedure so she would not have a stroke again because she could not take blood thinners from having a brain bleed years ago, which ended with her having a shunt in her head that drained the fluid from her brain into her stomach.

Each week over the last year has been filled with doctor visits. Most weeks, we had three visits a week I had to drive her to. Just as I thought we were moving forward, something else health-wise would happen to my Mother. We made more doctor appointments to deal with the newest health issue.

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Through it all, I had to give up writing, drawing, painting, and much more. Running to all these appointments drains me each week, and I sit and cry as I watch the piles form around me and have no energy to deal with them.

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On the bright side, as of right now, Mom's blood cancer is under control with the new medicine she has to inject into her body once a week. The side effect of the new medicine is her bloodwork number is perfect! She needs to rest the day she gives herself the shot each week, and last, she gets a horrible itching rash all over her body.

Last week, we saw the Dermatologist, and so far, the medicine and creams are working well to stop her from itching until her skin bleeds. Knock on wood; this keeps working. Resting and taking it easy one day a week will not hurt anyone. Just do not make plans that day.

The Watchman heart surgery has healed perfectly, and we do not have to see her heart doctor for another six months. Her legs finally healed, and each night, for one hour, she had to put on a huge black leg sleeve connected to a machine that massaged her legs to keep the blood flowing so the open sores would not come back.

She finally feels like her apartment is home—mostly. She is finally making friends where she lives and interacting with many people there. That makes me feel better than her, but I will take it.

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I am tired.
I miss writing.
I miss making stories.
I miss drawings.
I miss painting and coloring.
I miss being able to see the top of my desk.

I miss spending my good days creating.

It's been a horrible last year, but next month, we are only looking at three doctor appointments for Mom so far. Three in one month I can handle.

Now I just need some time to rest—real rest and a clean desk with no piles of stuff around me.

It will come in time.

I can not believe otherwise.

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