Now’s the time to be a heroin addict

The aftermath of a stroke leaves scars

Medical license gone after years of practice, teaching, learning, publishing, saving people’s lives, helping, diagnosing, easing parents’ fears, parenting, advising, recommending, watching, learning

Drivers license gone after family trips to the cottage, Washington, New York, commuting to clinics all over the place in any weather, driving kids to school and then to university and then to jobs, visiting patients in their homes in the old days and at the hospital evenings, weekends any hour of the night

Places to go are limited to where someone else will drive him — a haircut, the bank, the mall he can’t remember, his office to empty it out still furnished with mid century modern chairs and sofa because that’s when he opened it after funding his way through medical school by working everywhere he could — the slaughterhouse

I call him on my way to work and we have such a nice conversation and he asks — When will you call again? and I feel sad for his loneliness and my busy-ness — something’s gotta give between my work, my kids, my home and I feel as though I am getting sick again — so rundown

But no one tells you about how sad it is, how stressful it is. Or maybe they do and I didn’t notice. I think people ask about health, cognitive ability, physical ability but we don’t talk about mental health and well-being — how you mourn the loss of who you thought you were.

for him as a doctor, a father, a husband, a grandfather who stops by on his way home to see his grandchildren, a friend, an historian, a runner then a walker after the heart attack, an avid reader and joker, an independent intelligent man who liked shopping for weird foods, who took us to the strangest places

for her, as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a runner, a spinner, an aerobics queen who treasures her friendships, a traveller, as a woman who has been strong and independent with a husband who always provided for her and her family — traditional roles, yes, but it worked. Now she has to provide — emotional support, physical support, driving support, and she has lost something too — her independence, freedom not to worry if he is home alone, her ability to see her grandchildren on a whim, help when they are home sick — he has to come first now as he is the most vulnerable

They say depression is normal after all these changes.

They say it is expected that you have have increased anxiety.

And yet for me, I wonder why, even if it is normal and expected, why one has to suffer through it.