What do you think?

[Anne Bonny]

I posted this about myself on a dating site. I believe it is accurate, objective any thoughts?

Like Caitlin Jenner...I love women and sometimes I am very like her because my gender is a blend of masculine and feminine not enough to ever lead me to transition but I am what is known as gender fluid so my appearance can run along a spectrum...masculine...but sometimes kind of in between androgyny or feminine, but I am definitely heterosexual always have been, always will be. It is not really very likely that I will be able to find someone but I cannot change who I am and if I must now live alone I will have to be alone. At least I am honest and will be with any who feel they are fully able to love all of who I am. I will need to find a woman with an open mind who can understand, accept and break free of the paradigm because strange as it may sound much of the time I am just an ordinary guy in every way. This does not make me perverted, immoral, or homosexual, or someone waiting or who will someday want to transition...nope I am only attracted to and only want to be with women I am a man's man well until my gender pulls me in a softer direction can't help who I am been this way my entire life. My personality is fixed in place, how I think, mannerisms...they too are really masculine, my interests are too, my voice...all that really changes is how I feel inside...sometimes I feel more sensitive and to feel consistent when I feel feminine I then change the exterior appearance that is really all there is to it. All while remaining fully and firmly and exclusively heterosexual and attracted only to women period. Oh well...is what it is.

[SilverLady(SO)]

Excuse me, but unless something has changed I believe that you are still legally married to your wife? Therefore, unless you have no desire to abide by your wedding vows you have absolutely no business being on a dating site until after such time that your wife has passed away.

Yes, I know that your wife is in advanced stage of Alzheimer's - and yes, it is a terrible, wasting disease for which there is no cure - that still does not grant you the right to 'fool around' on your spouse. Period.


Honorable people do not have relationships (ie, dating, affairs) with anyone but their spouse / significant other / long-term partner.

As they say in the military: Man up, Marine!!


- SL

[Anne Bonny]

No one has or is going to reply. I am still faithful. I have no one. But let's see. I am committed devoted and I love though that love is different than what we had in marriage. I have been and will be here for her to her last breath. Hospice personnel remark on my outstanding care. I am an RN so I know what to do it is basic bedside care and monitoring. I alone 24/7×365×7 years + and counting. She does not know me, her boys, her mother or anything about anything. Sleeps 20 hours a day only up to a wheelchair for 5 hours. Can do nothing at all for herself...she is total care. The process started 11 years ago. I have lost all of our retirement and at 59 active healthy years of my life. So I suppose in my mid to late 60's you are saying if she is gone only then will I be free to live my life again as I myself begin to decline am move closer to my own death. So I cannot even develop a friend...I am not a homosexual...I do not want male friends. I am not a monk. I am though an agnostic. I have no friends she was it and she was my bridge to people because she had many friends. I have always been a loner...so no worries I haven't a clue how to go about finding anyone. Besides women tend to be preditory more so than men so I would be at greater risk of being taken advantage of. I will not marry there will be no children at our age. I will look for a retired professional with her own retirement, home...fully independent to go dutch on travel expenses. I will want none of what she has because I also am fully independent. I really do not believe my chances are very good at all but I will see if my wife goes in the next year or two after that I am not about to be interested in a wrinkled old hag in poor health and on the decline. The window is closing on me due to age...the 60s are disgusting.

[Ralitsa]

I agree with SilverLady. I suppose you could specifically identify that you are still married, and explain about your wife, and that you are only interested in a platonic friendship at this time.

[Anne Bonny]

In reality I am on the site more because I need to have hope than to really find someone. I have been on this site for probably a couple years. Yes I am quite honest I have on there that I am married, and in the profile section I explain all of that and that I am a sole caregiver. I receive the occasional sympathetic message but no one has ever shown any interest or asked to meet up, though I have messaged back. I have never asked anyone to meet up that will have to come from them and even that is unlikely you can tell a lot by the pictures, and the information they have given about their selves to see 99.999% of the time we would be incompatible. I do not message because most state they are Christians and it is important to them, I also know even if they are not because I am gender fluid there would be no interest, they are going to have to tell me that they are interested and fit my criteria...it would be like finding a needle in the haystack literally.

I do objectively believe perhaps by the fall or next year or the following one my wife will no longer be suffering. She no longer talks there may be the rare yes, or calling out of a name softly of who knows...or just jibberish. She lays in one position in the bed on her back only shifting her lower body some or occasionally trying to sit up or reaching out with the arm she still uses into the air, staring as if conversing with someone speaking jibberish. Or she sits in the chair propped up with pillows packed around her or her oxygen saturation falls and when it does I put connect her to the oxygen concentrator. If I am not feeding her she drifts off and leans to one side so I move her back to bed.

The care I provide takes a full 8 hours, monitoring is 24/7 and it is not all at once so I only have about 3 hours in the morning, and perhaps 4 in the afternoon but am not free to leave her for more than 40 minutes when she is in bed with the head of bed elevated 30 degrees and she is on oxygen, the fan on and light jazz on the TV, shades set to reflect the afternoon sun out.

I am trapped here have been for the past 7 years and now I am in the last of my 50's at age 59 an entire decade of my life just gone, unless you call watching television, and typing on the computer, jogging for 30 minutes and sitting sipping coffee worthy of being called an active life...I don't in reality there are two victims the patient and the years of life taken from the caregiver. I have no one, get it!? NO ONE! to help me shoulder this burden, if I were to become sick or incapacitated I suppose a social worker would have to figure something out because no one in her family, or mine, or my immature sons struggling to start their own lives helps me with anything. I do pay a very good Nursing assistant $450. per month so that twice A week I can get out of the house for a couple hours and when I do get out where can I go? What can I do? It is like being on a leash like Cinderella when the time is up I have to return to my jail. Who can really be spontaneous or do anything with a very narrow window as the stop watch ticks down?

If I did not believe I would get through this...Well I did pull out the 20 guage and a box of Field Load shells, cracked it open, laid a shell by the barrel and took a photo... Right that is a very dark place to be. but you know though I see no reason why I would want to go on living especially if I believed I was not going to get out of this...I might seriously find a way if that were the case because this kind of life is pointless...I am suffering too, my life is being wasted and lost too...yeah I would rather not be here anymore if this is it.

But I have seen the result of someone who shot theirself on a telemitry floor head wrapped in kerlex bandages, slobbering on their self, angry depressed wife at the bedside...they lingered a couple of days in their suffering before they died...and I had a friend in Nursing school who did this leaving a very angry wife and two beautiful children to fend for their selves. So A gun is not a sure thing, and the biggest thing is I am just not the type of person who would be able to off myself.

I have always figured worse come to worse I could become a beach bum on maui and ride the wave of life to the end because I am going to be dead at about age 80 anyway or whenever my body finally fails me. But I am trapped and depressed. I have a right to have a life, why am I cheated and everyone else gets up without a care in the world going about there business doing spontaniously whatever they please whenever they please but I am chained here to this house carrying out a grueling schedule of heavy care with no idea when it will all be over or how old I will be...what the hell am I not to have any life back until I am well into old age and decline with declining health a few years away from needing care myself as I myself wait to die? What the hell is the point to all of that?

I do a 3.16 mile run, 100 sit ups, 45 push ups, 52 hand grip squeezes, take my vitamins, drink my 4 16oz glasses of water and try to stay under 1750 calories a day. I dye my hair and try to maintain myself physically and mentally as I manage my investments, the house and hope at some point she will no longer be suffering and I will have my life given back to me so that I can begin to re engage and find a woman in a good state of preservation who is very inclined to fitness and only wants to travel and sail and ride and have fun.

But I am stuck here. Has anyone here ever had to carry out TOTAL CARE for a completely helpless person who is practically unresponsive...they still know how to drink and swallow and they still expel wastes, they sleep, or they hallucinate for the small time they are awake. If you do not do it for them or ensure everything is right for them then it is not done and will not be done.

Put them in a rest home!? I would be bankrupt I would rather be dead than bankrupt. A Nursing home is not covered under insurance.... would be all out of my own pocket at a cost of $100,000 per year - could you afford that? No I have hospice because for now my insurance continues to pay as long as decline can be shown or even they will leave they do not really do all that much anyway.

My life is horrible. If wearing a dress makes me happy and being who I am no one has a right to tell me I am nuts. I have to do whatever I can I did get to sail my boat a couple hours last week...singlehanded - alone but at least I got out. today I don't have a clue what I will do with my hour or two - it is pointless.

No I am not happy, I really do not care about life anymore I only have a slender hope that sometime in the next several months to a couple years she will finally die. I blame the bubbles Christians for not allowing euthanasia so that people like my wife could have expressed having a dignified and compassionate death under the current conditions could have been provided. She did not so even if it were an option I could not avail myself of it. Why arn't all the bubbles Christians going to come load her on a bus and take her away to be responsible for her care and feeding until she dies completely free of charge Life is so sacred and special to them let them bear the consequences of what they advocate instead of not allowing those who opt for it the ability to have a compassionate and dignified death rather than carry on in their suffering and undignified life, and sparing the life of a care giver...my life is not worth anything? You know in the mythology of the "Bible" a man labored 7 years so he could earn the right to marry the woman he had chosen, he was cheated and had to labor an additional 7 years while he was stuck with the older fat ugly hag of a sister. Well...I have labored 7 years shouldn't I have my life back even if I have to try to do that with two bags of concrete strapped around my ankles? I continue to provide outstanding care with only a few hours in the mornings and a few hours in the afternoon in my own home only able to leave a maximum of 40 minutes or a couple hours twice a week when the sitter is here...I am not allowed to even try to have some tiny fragments of a normal life? I mean this is my objective reality, it is not an exaggeration in the slightest it is now 9:53 at 11 am I must get up and provide AM care...well Saturday so the sitter will be here ($52) for 4 hours and I have to help her transfer my wife to the chair and then back to bed at 3pm when she leaves and I sit and click on the television with my brain exploding. yeah - my life sucks and people cannot even imagine they have no clue what I am having to bear and have born for the past 7 years every single bubbles second of every single bubbles day.

Christianity is really ripe they would say "Hallaluja! give glory to god for your great blessings what a blessing it is that god has done this to you and your wife...what an example you are as a faithful husband...you are a topic of sermons, a subject of prayer,,, you are learning so that later in life you can spend your life helping others in this situation and give all glory to god and on and on you are earning a star in your crown...what BULL manure!!!! THEY ARE COMPLETELY DELUSIONAL AND INSANE CULTISTS.

No...I am an objective realists I deal with reality as best I can to obtain the best outcome that I can I endure and iI will get through this...one day I will die and no longer be aware I am no longer aware and my minerals and elements will return to the universe to form into something else. That is reality.

I do not see intercourse with anyone, It would have to be with someone who is very special to me as my wife once was, still is but that was all over 7 years ago except for my commitment, devotion, and a kind of love until she finally draws her last tortured breath and is finally at peace. Our marriage was 7 years in the past and all that I have left are pictures and memories of something that was over 7 years ago in my now rather distant past as even that fades.

[Anthony Simon]

I did pull out the 20 guage and a box of Field Load shells, cracked it open, laid a shell by the barrel and took a photo... Right that is a very dark place to be.

It's a very angry place to be IMO and, also IMO, that's your most serious problem, your anger. I have a lot of anger and it generally hides pain which I can't cope with.

[Anne Bonny]

Thanks Anthony, people I don't think are able to understand what I am living through. No one is really there for me so I just endure. I don't want to do it anymore but I have no choice. Tough. I do whatever I can run...exercise...tv...blogging as now, I do try. My gender...hum bought a new tube of lipstick, and mascara....ordered some nice sandals....I am close to stepping out when over on that side.... losing my partner she is all but dead now..yep...issues..anger.

[Eileen (SO)]

Your situation is sad, Anne. You do need some companionship with someone that can ease your burden. People in hopeless situations turn to Religion for that support.
Your life sucks? Imagine some inner spark of cognizant thought in your wife's head, knowing her condition and her burden on you?

Eileen

[Anne Bonny]

Thanks Eileen, I did "go off" but I am told by Hospice If I did not feel all of these things they would think something was wrong with me none of these feelings are unusual neither are the thoughts.

I do not hold any blame for my wife for something that just happened to her...very unfortunate genetics...somewhere perhaps carrying too much weight no inclination to exercise ... well, she was a brain! just super intelligent, photographic memory...those college papers just flowed very naturally from her while my brain would bog down and just go ugh! Anyway she was a college professor, she taught nursing more specifically nursing leadership and administration was her passion though her experience was CCU, SICU. With the weight came type II Diabetes, with that oh and she had developed sleep apnea which I noticed early in our marriage so she slept with a sleep apnea machine...anyway with that came an increased risk of dementia and unfortunately at age 49 the first undetectable cellular changes in her brain began to happen, took me 4 years to one day throw down the pen in the midst of doing bills with very real concern pick up the handset and make an appointment.

I loved...love my wife but she is just gone she was gone 7 years ago in that she was no longer the person I had married but the commitment, the devotion, and a different form of love carry on. It is very unfortunate but all that I really have are pictures and memories which are now fading and are somewhat distant going back prior to 7 years ago and back to 1991 when we got married.

No I do not discount, and my wife used to advocate having done a paper on people who were in comas and recovered and then were upset and knew all that was said in their presence that you must take care because there may be more awareness than you could imagine...but after 11 years of the ravaging effects of Alzheimer's type dementia..I wonder though I still take some care. Sometimes I tell her if she needs to go we will all be alright and that I love her.

Yes, She is primarily the one who is suffering and dying, but there are two victims in Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia the caregivers also suffer and the time lost from their lives cannot be recovered it is lost...years of their lives are lost, some caregivers become ill, some die so it is not as some might imagine that all we do is walk over with a cool cloth and cool their fevered brow and go about the rest of our day. I work out because the transfers about 13 a day of dead weight lifting of over 200lbs is very tough grueling work...sitting for 30 minutes to over an hour feeding her not able to do anything but that, and listen to the TV so my brain does not explode. There are medications to give, food to prepare, tracking of bowel movements to ensure she does not develop an impaction, care of her buttocks so she does not develop a pressure ulcer by providing scrupulous and timely care changing the pullups and or a morning diaper change, fortunately her buttocks are in very good shape thanks to my care. Changing the bed, the night gown, cleaning the bed and the plastic mattress cover with bleech. This is care at a high level...Most people would have placed their family member long ago where typically they sometimes decline and die in a matter of months to a year because this level of care is not provided though they are charging you well over $8,000 a month.

Oh...and do not forget the caregiver now has no one to help so everything, if something breaks down, all the maintenance, bills, grocery shopping, cars, all the responsibilities and decisions and problems fall now on my shoulders alone and there is no one there to discuss it with or to hug me telling me it will be alright...no the house is silent and the silence rings in my ears. I can call a sister, I have two who live separate lives hundreds of miles away but there is no one here for me.

My wife is here because I will not subject her to the neglect and abuse a facility even one that is "meeting standards" provides, not for my wife. So my commitment to care for the love of my life until she draws her last breath should tell you I have not cast her callously aside like so much garbage. I am unusual hospice staff tell me I am a rare man, rarer still because most would have placed their family member years ago. I am providing hospital level care right here in my home.

But I am not a machine and while I take care of myself physically (162.4lbs this morning etc...) I have to also take care of myself mentally - the social worker and chaplin are advocating I must engage in life when I can. I belong to the Gulf Coast Running Club though I am really only able to run when the runs are in my area not 30 miles up the coast my leash does not extend that far.

Religion? Some people fall into the peer pressure of this perpetuated mythology...like those who follow horoscopes or who believe in luck. But I am a rational objectivist, my philosophy is nearly a mirror image of that of Ayn Rand. I confront reality and deal with it as best I can to achieve optimum outcomes for myself. My wife is dying that is reality, when she dies she will be gone as I will when I am gone until then life is a very precious and limited quantity so we should live it to the full and achieve our maximum potential. I do not hobble myself with rituals rooted in mythology which is silly. No I stand fully erect and 10 feet tall and free. I am not a sinner which is entirely a religious concept, I have human nature and strive to be my best self. I cannot change past mistakes but I can and want to be my best self here and now in the present and into the future and someday I will be gone. So that is all very easy. I believe religion is so prevalent because people feel they need something to lean on the communists were right religion is nothing more than an opiate which is addictive and ineffective some of the most depressed, groveling, and guilt ridden people repeatedly swilling more of their ineffective opiate and begging that I have ever met are people who are religious they can believe in a huge fantasy but it keeps us from addressing reality as adults and truly feeling better about our lives and from having a correct perspective and a more positive attitude as we move on.

[Ralitsa]

You are perfectly right Anne, that most of us simply cannot understand what you are suffering. No, I don't understand it, I can't really know all you are going through, but I do feel for you and sympathize with you. But you're not totally alone Anne, you have this community and we all fully accept and support you. I can at least appreciate that what you are doing is tremendously difficult, and I admire you for that. You have shown amazing strength and commitment, and you have the right to be proud of yourself for that.
I'm sure it is very easy to fall into despair, depression, and a thousand other emotional traps. I can't suggest any ways to deal with that, but it sounds like the people at hospice have plenty of experience with that and I'd lean heavily on them. But I can say we will always be here for you to talk to and share your struggles with. And if it comes down to it, I for one, will offer to help out any way I can.

One thing I do understand is your skepticism towards religion. Sure, some people do find comfort in it, but that's one of those things that you have to believe in it for it to work. I don't know how much you read, or what is your taste in literature, but that's one thing I really find helpful. A poem by Robert Service comes to mind in a case like this, I had to look it up just now (sometimes there is useful stuff on the internet after all.) The title of the poem is "The Quitter". Maybe you'll find it helpful, maybe not. I guess we all need to decide for ourselves where to find our comfort and support. I think it's a really good sign that you are getting plenty of exercise and keeping yourself in good physical conditions, I hear that is helpful for ones psychological condition as well.
I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I'm too lazy to do much exercise. I suppose I should turn this computer off and go outside.............

[Anne Bonny]

Ha. Thanks Ralitsa. Yeah...I have read some of his work...will look it up...The Quitter. I am in a difficult situation...no exaggeration on that point. I just keep fighting...keep on going, some day it will end unless I go first I suppose...then I would be out of my misery no longer aware of anything...just gone.
http://m.poemhunter.com/poem/the-quitter/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Great poem I am just a boxer...Simon and Garfunkle

[Anne Bonny]

One last thing over the past 4 years I have had to witness my wife as she endures seizures, she has had 15 the last on a Saturday morning about 7:30 Saturday before last. Lasted just a few minutes...face contorted teeth clenched foaming at the mouth a blank dead stare no breathing as her body is tensed up jerking involuntarily...you never really get used to them...a terribly horrible thing to have to witness the one that you love going through always thinking..."Is this it?" Sometimes in a few days she returns to baseline sometimes as with this last one she slips down a little further. You give a little sublingual Ativan to break it some increase the air to 6 liters turn them on their side...afterwards clean them up. Hard to watch heart in your throat as your voice turns to a high anxious crying pitch...Pat! I'm here.... yeah...I don't smile much in my photos or much as I have been enduring these last 7 years. 3 years of Ranting and Raving I double deadbolted all the outside doors removed all breakable or valuable items. My escape was to lock myself in the office...turn up the TV so I could not hear her...and get on the computer. With the 3rd seizure she was as she is now in a wheelchair no longer able to stand or walk and much quieter...I removed the deadbolts placed the regular ones and put the valuable breakable back out. Yeah, all alone. No I do not smile much. I face and bear all of this alone. Where is anybody? Oh her mother is driven over for four hours every other week borderline personality...complaining sometimes yelling at me. But I cannot cut off a mother from her daughter. Suicide? No probably not...but you may be able to see why my life why I would no longer want to endure this...if this is going to be it for me. Yeah. Oh well. Back to trying to sleep.

[Bernice]

No one has or is going to reply.

I'm guessing most of us have no idea what to say. We cannot support you in any physical way. We can listen, and we do listen. We cannot comprehend anyone being a sole caregiver for someone who needs as much care as your wife needs.

My own mother was very fortunate to be a triple dipper in her senior years. Thus, she could afford a professional nursing home. All I had to do was go in and point out that the caregivers were not providing the level of support they contracted for. It didn't make me very popular. Additionally, my mother was pretty sentient most of the time until her last stroke. So, my mother could tell me about some of the shenanigans. She would joke that if she had to sit in manure, at least it was her manure, and not someone else's.

You are burning your candle at both ends. You desperately need help. You don't need me to tell you that. You need me to tell you where to get help, only I have no clue. But I can listen. We can listen.

Hugs,

Bernice

[Anne Bonny]

Yeah...thanks Bernice...I got it. I am just fine today shifting moods are part of it all and are quite normal. This does not discount that this care is ongoing throughout every single day as described. Yesterday I finally came to the realization that I have to get out of the way...I wrote about this in my diary and with online female pen pals...My care has been "Aggressive" in that I ensured she met quotas for calories and liquids and was up out of bed for a certain amount of time. She is surviving because I am the one preventing nature from taking it's course so now I am maximizing her time in bed as she sleeps 90% of the time even in the chair which is uncomfortable and I have started timing meals starting with 30 minutes, at that time if she is not finished because she is asleep or it is just taking too long whatever is left goes in the trash. I just wasted a full glass of lemonade which I normally give her prior to putting her back to bed after my run because she was in a deep sleep - common sense you cannot try to wake her up and stuff paper towels under her chin as some sloshes out...I am done. She is losing weight, more bed time will lead to more debilitation, the cut in calories I no longer give her a coke at night trimming calories by 140 every day from now on....she will continue to lose weight. In the next months to a year or so she will be gone.

[Bernice]

It sounds heartless, but your decisions is probably best. Nature can be cruel. All you have done is to let nature take its course. My mother had to go the same way. There were some who thought I should prolong her life as long as possible... but her medical power of attorney was clear, at least to me.

People will warn you that you will miss your loved one, that you will miss the job you have done. That may be partly true. I'd love to go back and spend another Sunday with my mother, were she still mentally fit. I do NOT regret letting her go when the time and circumstances called for it.

Be well, my friend.

Hugs,

Bernice