My Story Chapter Four

We were under the impression that all our help and services had been taken care of while I was still in rehab and upon arriving home everything would already be put in place. But since my stay at the rehab center was in Allegheny County, PA and we lived in Westmoreland County, PA, this was not the case. Eric and I found ourselves alone and without help and money to assist with my care. It was time to start asking for help.

Eric is the type of man who would rather starve than ask for someone’s help. But after watching me almost losing my mind AGAIN he finally broke down and took my advice to call my priest. We were stunned at the number of people who let us down. My family, let’s face it, had no time for me, our friends seemed to disappear like ghosts, and not one member in my church congregation came forward with a little money or a moment of their time. I remember my 78 year old mother driving 25 minutes from Greensburg where she lived to sit with me until Eric was done DJing for the night. That’s what we did before I got hurt. We had a DJ business called “D Flawless”. My part of the couple team effort was to design and print flyers, travel around the local scene to speak to club/bar owners/operators trying to fill our month with regular bookings. I was also in charge of the audience and club managers, taking care of requests, dedications and parties. Eric kept a few of our regular bookings after I got hurt because other than my disability check it’s all the income we had at the time.  I also remember lying in my bed taking cat naps while Eric poured the sidewalk one slab at a time 100 feet down around from back door  the entire length of the house and driveway so I could get my wheelchair in and out of the house in case of an emergency.  Our neighbor Bill, who Eric had gone on regular fishing with, looked on and never once offered to help.  

         It took 6 months to set up all the help we needed and by that time Eric so physically and mentally worn out from taking care me and the house on his own he had fallen into a deep depression. Unfortunately, I was still in so much shock and depression of my own I unable to be there for man I loved more than sunshine itself. I didn’t know it at the time but he had turned to another woman. Someone he began chatting with on the internet. I’d heard these kinds of stories before but I never thought it would happen to me. While I was struggling with whether or not there really was a God and if so why was he punishing me so severely? Why didn’t he just let me die? I couldn’t sleep at night after 11 years of having him spooning with me or making mad, passionate, and bed rattling love. Now almost a year has gone by and the few attempts we did try when I first came home were pretty disappointing for both of us. I hadn’t regained much sensation anywhere below my injury yet and I was taking as many pain pills as I was allowed so at least once I fell asleep. (yikes!)        

Now when I brought up sex he quickly turned the conversation to something else or he would he give some excuse why we haven’t and that we would really soon. I suppose he eventually got tired of my constant nagging about the subject because he finally got angry and told me the REAL reasons. He was so tired and depressed that he prayed to God to take him because he wanted to see his Gram again and thought suicide was a sin. He tells me now that he begged me to lighten up on him. He says I would wait until he went to sleep and THEN call him for something.  He tells me he had a gun in his mouth ready to blow his own brains out. I had terrible anxiety, before this accident ever took place, feeling so trapped in own my body was almost too much to bear. I swear I don’t remember Eric crawling on his hands and knees to get me drink of water. But he says it’s happened and who am I to argue? I’ve been very sick since being hurt with high fevers, brain seizures, and a coma.

So when Eric informed me that he had met who he thought was his soul mate over the internet, she lived in B.C. Canada, her name is Devie and he was planning on taking a trip to go and see her; my reaction was mix of hurt, fear, anger, disbelief, regret, and a pain that cut through my soul with razor sharpness. I wept, wailed, and begged him not to go. My younger and closest sister had been working for me for about almost a year but she said she couldn’t handle her mixed emotions and just wanted to go back to her young son, Shane to be there for him as he started school. I couldn’t really mourn the loss of Mary as my personal attendant. My emotions were a jumble. I felt as if I would lose my mind at any given moment. He told me he had to know for sure what he wanted; a life with a woman who could take care of him if he wanted (she owned her own restaurant) able to pick up his hobbies again that he loved and missed like playing his guitar, fishing, and gardening or this life being a paid caretaker(the state was finally paying for caregivers for me) getting up in the middle of night to turn me on my side, trying to keep on remodeling our 100 year old house, and taking care of all the things he didn’t trust my other caretaker to do. I was allotted 76hours attendant hours per week counting his 40 hours. Eventually he left me with my attendant Elaine and her friend Dale,

me holdig a gladiola from our garden