Chapter Two - Dating disasters and other delights

I’m a bit late this week with writing this, life has been busy. I have had my second block of night shifts and I have to say it doesn’t really get easier. Everything is thrown out of kilter from the obvious lack of sleep right down to what and when you eat… and it takes a while to readjust… three days off does help with that tho!

I have been lucky this weekend. I got to spend some very happy time at the beach with a group of fabulous women, celebrating a birthday. I was a little bit hesitant about going away. Worrying about my mum was a big part of that, but also not knowing all of the people who were going to be there. Sometimes it takes me a while to get comfortable in a group, and I thought coming off Night Shift might have made that harder, but I have to say it was absolutely one of the best things to do! There was stacks of food and drinks, beach walks and markets, fresh air and sunshine, sunrise on a cliff and skinny dipping in the ice cold ocean. My cup is full, my energy has been recharged and my back is sunburnt… I feel fabulous!

My mum is doing amazingly well… we are all so impressed with just how she is recovering. I think we are (her included) all realising just how big of a deal this whole thing has been, and how lucky she – and the rest of us were. Claytie has been very much part of our thoughts through all of this, because we all know how it could have been! It has brought up a whole lot of what ifs… which is a game I hate! It doesn’t change anything and just makes everyone feel bad. We are lucky, and I am so grateful for that.

We are also coming up to our hell dates – my wedding anniversary, Clayties anniversary and then his birthday – all two weeks apart. I can feel the anxiety starting to build around all of those dates, which feels silly (?) in some ways. They are really just days on the calendar and don’t really make a whole lot of difference to how I think and feel about Claytie, and yet they carry with them, a whole lot of weight. I’m not sure that will ever change either! Someone at work the other day commented on their mother in law ‘still being sad’ 12 years after the death of her husband, and I thought to myself how lucky the speaker was to not know what that feels like. I know that I will never not be sad thinking about Claytie not being here with us.

I know he would say to me ‘it is what it is and there isn’t anything you can do about it’… and I am trying my best to take that on board. some days are easier to do that than others, but I think I’m doing ok. I have some fabulous people around me that help a whole lot, and some fun things coming up next week. I am grateful for what I have.

So I need to start this week with an update on my mum. She had her surgery after some delays (an ICU bed shortage meant we had to wait an extra day for her operation) and she is now doing as well as can be expected. Seeing her in Intensive care after the surgery was much more confronting than I had expected and tears happened (obviously!). It is a relief that the waiting for surgery is now over, it was a nervous thing for all of us, and an exercise is patience. Now that she is done, the doctors are pretty happy with her progress, but it will be a long road to recovery. Thank you so much for all the well wishes that came our way last week… you guys are the best!

The boys are feeling much better about Nannie too. Going and seeing her in hospital before the surgery did settle some of the ptsd, and the daily updates since are also helping. It’s been a huge thing for us and has brought back all kinds of traumatic memories from the day that Claytie died. Those memories are honestly never very far away, but we all have to find a way to live around them. This has been really hard, but we’re getting there.

It has absolutely been a very long week! Between work and hospital visits, I have no idea which day is which… tho that’s not always a bad thing! I did have a couple of days off in between and managed to tick a few things off my list – I had a couple of things to sort out with my unit to make it ready for a new tenant. A trip to ikea for some curtains ended up with new bed linen and a whole lot of candles – it’s a dangerous place!

Work is starting to feel more settled, although there are a couple of people who are still taking some of the shine off. I did raise some concerns with the boss and was told ‘that’s just who she is’. An explanation that covers a whole lot, but is also unsatisfactory. If you know someone is difficult and mean for the sake of it, surely that should be addressed rather than accepted!? … anyway, I need to park that for my own sanity and just be myself. I am loving most of what I do at work (soooo many stories!), so that is a bonus.

A high point for me this week was breakfast with a couple of very handsome chaps (you know who you are!), followed by an adventure drive in the countryside – thanks for your company, I had a lovely time! I also managed to get to trivia this week (shift work has impacted on that a little bit) and a very entertaining couple of hours at Karaoke with some of my favourite singers on stages finished the week.

Hopefully this next week is suitably uneventful. I have another stint of night shifts coming up which will be interesting, and I’m looking forward to a couple of days at the coast with friends at the end of the week all things going to plan. Ongoing hospital visits with my mum and trying to keep my anxiety at bay will fill in the rest of the time.

So this week has been the highest level shit show that we have had for a long time. My mum had a heart attack on Monday. She is ok, and will be better once she has some surgery to fix the bits that aren’t working, but we have all been massively shaken and triggered.

The whole family are all being super positive. We know (once again) how lucky we have all been with what has happened. My sister was at home at the time to call the ambulance, it was a quiet day in the emergency department (I was working at the time). In the scheme of things, she did not have a long wait to be seen. We know that a she is in the best place for now and has fabulous health professionals looking after her; and when she is transferred to the cardiac specialty hospital for her surgery, she will again be in the best hands possible. They do this stuff all the time and know exactly what they are doing. For all of us tho, it’s new and scary.

To have my mum going through such a full on thing has given us all a massive fright. She is the true matriarch in our family, and is the strongest person I know – she is not the one that this shit happens to. She has been the person the boys and I have all turned to since Claytie died, and has been the one holding everyone together. The ‘what-if’s’ going through everyone’s minds are a challenge, but luckily for us we are a fabulously close family – we know that she – and the rest of us have got this and that she will be fine!

For the boys this has been an extra challenge. Two of them were at home when Claytie died and had to help with CPR and letting people know. We have all seen first hand the ‘could have been’, and none of us have recovered from that! Then, earlier this year, in middle of the drama that happened to my family at Christmas, someone who was very close to us had a ‘turn’. At the time the boys were told it was either a heart attack or a stroke and was being investigated. That is all the information they were given and they were all incredibly concerned. We have since found out that it was a stress/panic attack and that the person is fine… but for the boys it was really scary to be given such news and then nothing further. In fact we were all actively excluded from the entire situation and that has damaged the relationship enormously.

This time, with my mum, it is a very different thing. All of the information is being shared – possibly more that she would like, and no questions are off the table! The boys are all really shaky, but we’re hanging in there. It’s hard for me as their mum, to put on a brave face when it is my mum in trouble. We’re all doing our best to prop each other up, but I’m not going to lie and say that it is easy! We are all on the edge of our seats to find out when her surgery will happen – some time early next week is what we have been told. Waiting for things to happen is always a challenge, but we know that the staff are dotting i’s and crossing t’s to make sure it all goes smoothly!

Mama is in reasonably good spirits – but I am pretty sure my lack of patience comes from her! She has decided that she working on a hospital based murder mystery, and hopes it will lead to some speculation as they put her under anaesthetic -she thinks she will talk out loud and drop all kinds of bizarre hints. My uncles suggestion of getting her a cone (the kind a dog would wear) to stop her licking her wounds post surgery is also being considered – we’re just not sure how that will go down in ICU (haha).

We’re all doing our best to make the best of a yucky situation, and we’re absolutely hanging on to the luck that we have had! I’m not really one for talking to god, but am not opposed to good vibes being sent her way, and if thoughts and prayers are your thing, we’ll take those too! Cross everything you have for us, and I will keep you posted on how it all goes x

This week has been a weird, yucky one for me – a pity party in a million ways. One of those weeks where I don’t much like myself, and get stuck wallowing and feeling sorry for myself. I spend a lot of time in my head over analysing everything and it is an uncomfortable way to be.

I was sitting in the bath the other day, thinking about a conversation with one of the boys. I had been talking to him about how lonely I get. I have friends that I call on and talk to, but they are not always around or available when I need – and I totally understand that. They have their own lives to live and I get it… I also envy it. They have what I should have… what I did have! I can find things to fill in my time, but it is sad on my own and it feels like I am counting down each day- only I don’t know what I’m counting down for!… most days I feel like I have nothing to really look forward to, except for more time on my own.

I know exactly what I want… and I know that I can never have it. I want what I had with Claytie. I want my old life back just the way it was. Anything else with anyone else feels like a really poor imitation. I feel detached from everything and am just going through the motions. I don’t know what else I am looking for or what I will be happy with, but I do know that I haven’t yet found it. Maybe I won’t ever find it… and that’s a hard, sad thought too.

I find myself compromising, and accepting a lot more from situations than I should. I feel like I am way too accomodating and put myself last in a whole lot of ways. I recognising it while it is happening, and I know I should value myself more than I do, but loneliness is such a harsh thing to live with and sometimes crumbs feel better than nothing.

I hear the advice that everyone gives, and I would say the same thing to anyone else – put yourself first, don’t rush things, learn to value your own company, don’t accept second best- but right now, I am living this and I can tell you it’s shit. The loneliness can be overwhelming and all encompassing, and really hard to see past, so you accept less than you should from people just to feel something.

On a good day I can distract myself with all kinds of things, but the highs don’t really last and the lows are pretty deep. I get sick of myself complaining, and I try to remind myself how truly lucky I have been – I honestly know it and believe it too – but when it’s just me on my own that can get hard to hang onto.

The thing is, I really don’t know what I want from my life anymore. I constantly feel overwhelmed by everything and it’s nasty and unpleasant feeling like this. It’s not who I want to be and I hate it, but I have no choice other than to keep going. In lots of ways it feels selfish to want more, because what I had was so amazing and maybe that’s all I’m allowed to have… but really I don’t want to be this alone for the rest of my life!

Anyway…. That’s been miserable me this week. I know the anxiety around work hasn’t helped either. Shift work has been kind of brutal – and I know I’m always more anxious when I am tired. It’s hard being the new person, learning a whole bunch of new stuff and trying to fit into a team that have worked together for a long time. They are hard nuts to crack, and there is a lot to learn, but I know I’m getting there and I’m sure next week will be better all round. Fingers crossed in any case!

So this week held some new challenges for me. I have now worked all three shift times that the department runs on, and I have to say that Night Shift is really hard! Sleeping and eating are all very disrupted and catching up with people nearly impossible! Thankfully I only have to do 3-4 nights at a time, and there are several weeks between turns. I’m proud of myself for giving it a go and I know that Claytie would be proud of me too.

Some of the things I have seen at work this week, have been quite confronting and it has taken a bit to get my head around it. The emergency department is a whole world on its own. The mix of people that come through the doors is vast and fascinating! For the most part they have been lovely and understanding of my newness and learning, and I am grateful for that, but there have been things that have happened that I have had to really think about.

One roles of my job happens near a private room that is used for ‘end of life’ patients. People who are not going to survive without the machines that they are attached to, and whose family members have made the decision to remove them from those machines. It is hard having to do the admin stuff knowing that for these people and their families things will never be the same, and understanding just how hard life will be for them going forward.

We had one such patient this week – my first. A woman who was not yet 60, brought in after a massive brain haemorrhage – a stroke. She was brought into the private room from the emergency bay and moved to a bed before her family joined her and the doctors in the room. The grief was palpable as they walked past us into the room, and once the machines were turned off, it was loud.

Other peoples grief is almost harder than my own in a whole lot of ways, and that comes as a surprise when my own is so very heavy. Listening to this family grieve their person was really hard. I know what the next bit looks like for them and it is not a nice picture. It is part of life tho and I know I will see more of these situations in the job I am now doing. I know that there will be an amount of desensitisation that happens with time, and that saddens me too – life, and it’s end, should carry weight with it and we should feel it.

The other thing that I have found confronting has been the patients who come into emergency with what can only be described as very significant mental health issues. It is really sad to see how many people have huge mental health issues (I would almost say at least a quarter of the presentations) , and how hard that is to work through.

It is hard listening to their anguish and then watching them abuse the people who are there to help. It is hard seeing them run through the department with security and/or police chasing them, pushing through people and the paraphernalia that comes with treating them. Spitting at nurses or shitting (literally) on their beds and throwing it around And it is especially confronting seeing them needing to be restrained by what looks like an excessive number of people for their own safety.

It hasn’t all been negative tho, and I am really enjoying the role over all so far. The people I have been working with have been lovely, and I am starting to get my head around the things I have to do. It is hard being the new person, and not knowing all the things that you need to know, but that will come with time and I need to be kinder to myself with the process. I am working on mindfulness and relaxation (my bath has been getting quite the workout) and that has helped with the anxiety that is constant. I keep on putting one foot in front of the other and I have Clayties voice in my ear telling me I’m doing ok.

So sometimes, something happens, and you just know you have made the right decision. My first week in my new job was just that! I have always wanted to work in the emergency department. Anyone who knows me knows that I am partial to medical stuff -particularly carnage, and my first day has reaffirmed that I belong with the crazy chaos that DEM (department of emergency medicine) entails.

One of the first patients that came in on day one, via ambulance was a homeless man who had some chest pain, due largely to his social situation. He was admitted and taken to a room for treatment. … all standard stuff up until this point. Not too far behind him came his partner, and at this stage the story becomes much more interesting.

She arrived amidst much commotion… a very small statured woman (not sure if the term midget is sooo politically incorrect as to not be used) – but I would say barely one metre high – belt buckle height on me I would think. She was being dragged – cartoon style- through the doors by a very large (shoulder height on her) Pitt bull “service dog” belonging to our patient.

The dog was thrilled and delighted to be visiting a new place, and other than being incredibly enthusiastic, was a very nice animal. The woman attached to him, and being dragged through the department was not. … she was shown to the bay (luckily for the dog, one with doors) that her partner was being treated in, and very promptly made herself what can only be described as a nest, in the corner of the room. She got comfy, snuggled in and had a nap on the floor with the dog!

At some point during the morning, and while the gentleman was being treated, things went awry and the woman was asked to leave. She did not take kindly to the suggestion and needed to be escorted by two incredibly burly security guards. I have to confess to knowing a whole lot of the words she was using to describe the staff she encountered on her way out, but I did also learn a whole bunch of new ones. It was an insanely memorable morning and one I will be talking about for some time to come!

All of the staff I have encountered so far have been lovely, and I am learning something new every day – I do have to confess to feeling quite overwhelmed with the workload a couple of times, but I know that will get better with time and experience. There is still a whole bunch of anxiety about doing full time shift work for me – I am working my first weekend shift today, but in terms of the clientele- I think I have found my people! I love the variety of things that come through the doors. I love the chaos and the crazy, and I am fascinated by the carnage! …. Hopefully now the rest of it falls into place and I settle in the way I would like, but all in all, not a bad start!

This week has been an exercise in holding my anxiety at bay. I had my final day in the job I have been doing for the last 12 months on Friday. For the most part I have really enjoyed it. I have met some fabulous people and had a laugh most days, but a new job has come my way and it starts tomorrow. I have always wanted to work in the emergency department, so that is where I am headed. It is a big change for me. I will be working full time (something I have never done!) and I will be doing shift work on a 24 hour, rotating roster – I am incredibly nervous about it! Wish me luck!

You would think that after a huge change like my favourite person dying, anything else that happens would be easy. In fact, the complete opposite is true for me. These days I struggle with any kind of change, even the little things cause my anxiety to spike. I am constantly running through checklists and contingency plans for all kinds of scenarios in my head. It is an exhausting process. I try and channel Claytie telling me ‘it is what is it, it will be what it will be… suck it up and just get in with it’.. but in my brain it is not always that easy.

I know, in theory, that I will be fine. I am going to be doing something that I have always wanted to try, and it does feel like it is meant to be. But anxiety is a wicked thing that doesn’t really care! It seeks out and magnifies potential problems. It’s that feeling of imposter syndrome – I’m not really good enough, people don’t actually like me, I don’t really fit in…. It’s an all round yucky feeling and I know that it is not really rational. I’m just not entirely sure how to stop it, and when it is bad, then pretty much everything is impacted. I try to change my internal dialogue… I amp up the positive affirmations and I practice mindfulness, but it can be quite difficult to turn things around in my head.

Some of you get to see the actual mess that I become, and thanks for being kind about it, but for the most part I try to put a big fat smile on my face and fake the hell out of pretty much everything. It is not always an ideal response. Talking about massive anxiety with a big smile of your face sends incredibly mixed messages, and totally underplays what is actually going on for me. Things happen around me that I smile and nod about, I go along with but actually hate….but I don’t know what else to do. I get so overwhelmed it’s either fake my way through it or curl up in a ball and sob – sometimes both!

Anxiety has been part of my world for quite some time now. I am working on it and myself, and I know that I will find a way through it. It is another part of the grief process. The person that has always made me feel better is no longer here to do that. I am relying on memories of conversations to anchor myself and that is hard. It is all hard but I have no choice other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

On a completely different note, today is Mother’s Day. My mum has been my biggest supporter and she is absolutely my go to for pretty much everything that happens in my world! I am sure that I would not be where I am without her help. She is always there to talk me through the anxiety when it hits… and for anything else that happens! I could not do it without her, and I am truly lucky to have her x

I started the second last day of my annual leave with an early morning. I really wanted my feet in the sand and salt water one more time before I go back to work on Monday. It was glorious… I had a big fat full moon shining through my window as I made my way to the coast, and then the most fabulous golden colours as the sun came up. It was absolutely worth the super early start. I spent a couple of hours on the beach, looking at the clouds, people watching and reading a book and I am so happy that I pushed myself to go.

This week I also went to a support group catch up, one that I have not been to before but know several people at, and it is always interesting to see where the conversation will go. Sometimes it’s is fun and superficial, but other times serious topics get discussed. This week there was quite a lot about new relationships and how hard they can be.

Everyone is filled with hope and wants desperately for things to work – a kind of picking up where you left off, but with a different person. That is incredibly simplified – nothing is ever that easy, but is a bit like how it feels, especially if your relationship with the person that died was a truly good one. The harsh reality tho, is that we are now all very broken people, and unless you’re willing to work on and be completely honest with yourself, it is nearly impossible to fit with someone else.

There is an idea in the group, that a relationship with someone who is also widowed would be easier because they will understand completely when grief hits. Several people that I know, have found themselves in this kind of scenario, and it is true to a point. It kind of works when you can ‘take turns’ to be the sad one, but that’s not what seems to actually happen. Grief is not neat and tidy and willing to wait for the other person to finish their moment. Grief hits whenever it needs to and if you are not willing or able to be completely honest, and have room for your grief as well as theirs, it can feel like a competition in a lot of ways.

Relationships in any situation are hard and need constant work – even the really good ones. Grief adds a dimension and challenge that is difficult. It is like a third person, a needy one, that keeps butting in and wanting attention, and if you don’t give it the attention it needs, things just blow up. I’m not saying that it can’t work, just that it takes extra work to navigate grief in the middle of it all.

Seperate to the Widows group, I had a fabulous conversation with a friend this week and it has given me a whole lot to think about. It was incredibly varied and wide ranging. It challenged my thinking in a whole lot of ways, but one thing stood out for me. At one stage the question was asked ‘what do you look for in people?’ It was not asked in the context of anything in particular, but rather in a general way. It made me think, and my answer to it was..’ nothing and everything!…something that resonates… some kind of familiarity… home’.

Those kinds of things are much harder for me to see without Claytie. I have lost my anchor and my certainty. That feeling of knowing who I am is gone now and that is really disconcerting. I have always known and been comfortable with myself, but since Claytie died, that image of myself has completely changed and huge chunks erased. It is a feeling of being untethered and it is not one I am at all comfortable with. The response I got was that perhaps right now I am not supposed to be anchored, maybe I’m supposed to open the sails and catch some wind.

It is a nice thought, but also a huge challenge for me. I know that I can’t ever go back to being the person that I was before. Life makes sure that you have to move forward rather than back, I guess naively I just never expected it to be SO hard. I’m trying to take the pressure off and just go one day at a time.. really that is all you can do. I am learning a whole lot about myself going through this process, somethings I like better than others, but on the whole I guess I’m doing ok.

I have been on annual leave from work this week and had all kinds of plans for being productive. As with most well laid plans, that doesn’t seem to have happened quite as I thought it would. This week, I have been tired… the sort of whole body tiredness that comes from an emotional rather than physical place, and I have instead spent quite a lot of time at home on the couch crocheting granny squares for a blanket that may or may not happen some day.

I think it has been good for me to sit and have some quiet time. I know I have needed it. We are only 1/3 of the way through the year, but a lot has happened in my world since Christmas that has needed a whole lot of processing. Losing the centre of your universe creates a kind of hyper-vigilance in all kinds of ways that doesn’t really let up. People are constantly surprising – and I know this is a theme that comes up for me quite often. I find myself drawn into games that I have no idea how to play, and am always surprised by them. I take most things at face value which is something I quite like about myself, and mostly it has worked in my favour. Sometimes though, I do get it wrong or the game changes and then I am caught out and need to process.

This is the first block of leave I have had since Claytie died, where I haven’t had a whole lot of stuff planned- every other time, there have been big trips or other social things. I did go away for my birthday weekend, but other than that I mostly thought I would do stuff around my house. I have done a couple of things – I bought my first ever new TV the other day, something that Claytie was always in charge of before, and some of my cupboards have had a tidy, but for the most part, it has been quiet time at home.

Something big that did happen this week that I have also needed to think about, is another change at work. I recently applied for a new position – I had not really been looking, I am quite happy where I have been, but it crossed my desk and was pretty much the one job I have always wanted since starting work with Qld Health. I had my first interview in a very long time just before going on leave, and found out this week that I was successful with my application. So, in a couple of weeks time I will be changing jobs and going into the Emergency department. It’s a full time role with shift work, both of which are things that I have not done for a very, very long time!

I am nervous and anxious about another big change, but I am also excited for the challenge. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a huge interest in most things medical, I have always wanted to work in Emergency, and this role will take me as close to the full on stuff as I can get without a medical degree. I am anxious about the change, and what it will bring to my world and the routines that I have. I am very much a creature of routine and I know I will find a new one soon enough; but change is hard and I am missing my chief cheerleader. I know Claytie would be excited for me. He was absolutely the best person to settle my anxiety. He is always missing, but sometimes that black hole gets just a bit bigger. The boys have been super supportive and I know that they are happy for me, but none of it feels right without Claytie.

Change is something that happens for everyone, all of the time. I have never been very good with it – anxiety has been my friend in this department for a long time now, but the hyper-vigilance that has come from losing the most important person in my world, seems to have magnified my awareness of all of the changes that we have been through. I guess it is a proper awareness of just how short life can be. It is no longer taking a whole lot of stuff for granted and appreciating (with a hefty dose of anxiety) that change is what life is all about.

I have one more week of leave before I go back to work, fingers crossed it is slightly more productive!?

So this weekend I have had my birthday. I am now 49 years old and I am incredibly grateful for that. I have always loved birthdays and I usually try to make mine last as long as I can. Since Claytie died tho, there is a level of anxiety that comes with the day – I am grateful to be able to celebrate a new number, I am really lucky – but at the same time I am so incredibly sad that Clayties numbers stopped changing at 46. It is not fair.

I have been super fortunate to be able to spend my birthday weekend this year at the beach with some of my favourite people. I watched the sun come up and faced it front-on in my birthday suit. Standing naked in nature is an incredibly liberating feeling I have done it several times now and I love it! I can tell you my kids are probably less fond of the evidence, but mostly they just laugh at me!

My girlfriends and I have walked in the sand, been thrown around by waves, talked about all manner of things, laughed, eaten and drunk way too much and I have enjoyed every minute. It has been a proper recharge for the soul. Sunrise has been different each morning, and I have loved them all. I think that watching the sun come up at the ocean is one of my very favourite things!- and I love the wild, windy, crazy days the best.

In the last week I also got a new tattoo… an Aboriginal art inspired dragonfly. It is my second dragonfly tattoo and it felt just right to get it done. Dragonflies signify change, transformation, adaptability and self realisation, all things that I have had to learn and implement in so many new and different ways since Claytie died. I have had to adjust my whole world in ways that I would never have guessed at, and I think for the most part, I am doing ok.

My life at the moment feels a whole lot like I am at a crossroad – there are a bunch of things going on for me, some good, and some not so fun. It is times like this that I particularly miss Claytie. He was always my sounding board for every decision, and while I have people I can talk to, it will never be the same. I have had to realise that I have to make sure I put myself first and trust my gut to know what’s right for me. That realisation that I am on my own, never gets any easier… my person is gone.

There isn’t a single day that goes by, that he is not part of, and I wish more than anything that this wasn’t the way our story turned out… but then I remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, I am not actually anything special, none of us are. This shit happens to people every single day. We are all going to lose someone life changing at some point in our lives. For some it is early and for others late. Some get a timeframe due to illness and for others like us it happens in an unexpected instant. It is horrendous any way you look at it, but it is life, and none of us are exempt. For me, that reminder helps a whole lot more with living than I would have expected.

I do the things that I have to do, so that I can do the things that I want to, and I do it because that’s what Claytie would have expected and done himself. It would be easy to curl into a ball and be miserable, but that is not who I am and it is not who Claytie loved. I live my life for both of us and I don’t ever overlook how lucky I am. I have a whole lot of things that I hope to be able to do before my next birthday, on my own and with other people. I am grateful for the luck that I have had and I hope that I continue to be this lucky.