The year 2013 pretty much sucked as a year. The year started pretty normally. Me continuing the elusive job hunt, Rich working part time, Monica plugging away at her Senior year at Moreau and Alyssa, Dominic and Daniel all doing well at St. Bedes.
I had taken a job at Kohls at Southland as a part time admin (mainly putting together the store schedule) just before Thanksgiving 2012. I thought it would get me out of the house and put a little extra spending money in my pocket while I continued the elusive job search. It made things a little easier on the savings over Christmas.
Rich started feeling poorly and was having some back pain. The doctor suggested some exercises and then suggested physical therapy. None of this helped him. Finally the dr. referred him off to a GI specialist and they could find nothing wrong. The back pain continued.
Monica's choir was performing/recording in Disneyland and Rich and I drove down together to attend Disneyland and see the choir competition. Valerie, Vince and the other kids came down for the weekend at Disneyland. We all had a very enjoyable time. Rich and I decided to drive home up the coastal highway 1 on the way home and stopped in at Solvang for lunch. He was still not feeling well and not eating much but I thought the food was very enjoyable.
We got home and Rich was still feeling pain/poorly so he went to the hospital ER some days after our trip. They did a CT scan and found some abnormalities and suggested he return to his GI specialist. Shortly thereafter, we learned he had pancreatic cancer. At this time I quit my part time job at Kohl's and began caring for Rich, running him around trying to get his affairs in order. The kids and Valerie were at a loss. I was at a loss. When I wasn't going at 100 mph I could just cry. I didn't know what I was going to do without Rich to pick on, kid around with, depend upon, etc etc etc.
Pancreatic cancer is an awful disease. It is debilitating and progresses rapidly. It is very painful to the patient and the pain regiment is ineffective. I still beat myself up over not being able to do something more quickly to get him into UCSF. I don't think either he nor I fully appreciated how truly fast this cancer was going to progress but I battled daily trying to get UCSF to take him to treat him and there is sure alot of red tape. The cancer was confirmed by the doctors here but he had not had a biopsy and until he did they would not see him. So I began all the scheduling of all the Pre events that had to take place and meanwhile Rich suffered, got thinner and got weaker. As things were beginning to look pretty dire the family came to help. God bless my brothers and sister! I could not have done this without them.
Rich succumbed in May, right before Monica's graduation from high school. This broke Monica's heart which in turn broke my heart. Alyssa and Dominic were both just lost. Dominic had a bit of a temporary relief in latching on to his other uncles but this was lost when they all went home. He continues to struggle and continues to need a male role model to care for him. The kids are pretty much ignored without their uncle Rich here to pay attention to them. I do what I can but without the income I cannot do with them what Rich did.
The house had been in need of a lot of attention and Rich had been putting it off for later. Shortly after he passed, alot of what needed attention could not be put off any longer. The laundry room window was rotting out of the wall where it was leaking. I got a contractor in to replace the window and learned the entire exterior wall was full of dry rot. The deck in the back yard was falling apart and John started working on tearing it out and rebuilding it. The gazebo was looking pretty weather worn and the paint was peeling off the house. The yard was entirely overgrown in the back. So I got going and got it all taken care of. If I stopped I was going to go crazy with grief. (not to mention the house was going to fall apart).
We took Rich's remains back to Wyoming in late June and came home with bedbugs (or maybe they came from Disneyland trip?). Anyway, they seemed to be predominantly in Valeries room so we had it sprayed. It didn't seem to take care of the problem so we had to go for the whole house heat treatment. But before you can do that you have to remove all plastics, vinyl, wax, paintings, dvds, cds, anything that might be damanged by heat, etc etc etc. So we rented a POD and had it delivered to the driveway and set to filling it up. We washed every thing down (every single CD, DVD, LP even) and packed it into boxed and packed it into the pod. This took a couple of weeks. Kurtis who had been out to pick up the airplane was a big help in this effort! Then came the heat treatment. It killed everything in the house. At about the same time, I had the downstairs attic insulated and rodent proofed. Then came the unpacking of the POD, washing everything again (just in case we missed something) and bringing it all back in the house. Another couple of weeks and the POD was empty. We not only had the POD full of stuff, but the shed and the gazebo. It was a nightmare. Not something I want to repeat. Then they suggested we have the carpets all steam cleaned just to be sure. So we did that. THEN simultaneous with all this, I was trying to get Rich's room cleaned up / cleaned out. I decided I was going to move upstairs and it would not do to have the kids downstairs alone without adult supervision so told Valerie and Vince they could move into my old room, Daniel to the girls old room and the girls to the upstairs bedroom that had previously been Valeries. Of course, several beds had to be thrown away during the bed bed infestation and when all this furnature started moving it was really noticable how badly the walls needing painting! So off to home depot for paint and etc. Another two weeks washing walls and painting. I won't even go into detail on how disgusting some of this was. All of this happening and me not knowing exactly how to pay for any of it. Funds are limited and tight.
This is done now. The yard and deck still need lots of attention but we need a little break.
Monica started at Chabot College in September. Another heart wrenching moment. Alyssa filled out her application for Moreau. Alyssa is going to high school. Seems like just yesterday she started kindergarden. Life goes on and I know Rich is up there somewhere laughing at our foibles but dammit we sure miss him here.
As stated at the start 2013 pretty much sucked. AND NOW IT IS OVER! THANK GOD!