Every Month has a 22nd...
Even after all this time...
I still look at the clock at 6:50am...
I still hold my breath like I did as he drew his last breath...
I still feel the warmth of his hand in mine
as he squeezed it for the very last time...
I still hear his heart beat in my ear as I laid my head on his chest
for just one more nap...
And I still love him and miss him and wish our story could have had
a different ending...
Original FB post date 4/22/2019
Memories are a fickle thing.
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| Amelia Island January 2017... Before my world ended |
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| Cake Time- Wasserschloss Im Glatt 12/ 2018 |
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| My sister with her 1/4 cake sized slice and tea |
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| My late husband... aka Uncle Grinch I LOVE the Grinch... the Dr Suess one too |
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| Bucket List: ✔Whale Watching ✔Make a new bucket list |
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| Winter Sky Sunset... How can we not be worthy when Nature gives us such dazzling art to enjoy daily? |
I am the wife HeManHubby... or, I was... until he got sick and died 4 years ago.
I am BusyMom to 6 amazing children..
GoodMom, who is still doing great and working and raising FancyPants and GMan;
BratChild, who has graduated with 2 college degrees as single mom, and McCutie is thriving.
After HeMan Hubby died from cancer, I sold the house we built, the one we raised our 6 children in... and moved in with SmartGirl and ManChild. We get along pretty well.
TeenBoy has become an amazing young adult, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest , looks very Grizzly Adams-like and loves the laid back hippy-ish vibe where he and Gypsy fit right in. I guess I'll have to call him GrizzlyMan? Well, he IS nearly 27 now so...
And then there was SIX... what can I say? He, too, is grown, living his own life and doing pretty well at the ripe old age of 23.
Yes, I am still their mom, but these days not quite the BusyMom I was...
I have endured becoming widowed, contracting Covid-19 and nearly dying, the loss of my ability to work as a nurse due to the long term health complications of something called Long Covid, or as it is more commonly called- Long Haul Covid and I am a Long Hauler.
I am a survivor of life's challenges, disappointments, smack downs, and completely life altering and soul crushing experiences.
Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Veterans Crisis Line: 1-888-777-4443
A Book I recommend for every one as an audio book read by the author with extra content not in the paper edition:
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson aka TheBlogess
My goal, wish, sincere hope, is that by opening the discussion, by being honest about my struggles, others will feel encouraged to reach out to those who are struggling; that those who are feeling the things I feel, or have their own mental health issues, will be able to open the conversation with their family, friends and really get this topic into the mainstream.
Let's talk about when you are not OK.
Let's talk about suicide and how prevalent it is now, how it is affecting all people of all colors and education levels and how we cannot afford to lose one more person to it.
If talking about my self doubts and feelings of being less than can make a difference for just one person...then overcoming my fear to tell the truth was worth it.
Follow me on social media and check out my website- where all my passions come together! IG @dawnranae_h
FB: @colormeeverthing website: www.colormeeverything.com
FB Group: Beautifully Broken with DawnRanae
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6PTb3VZrgmcWFzh0gwSioC?si=NWBwNI4wQweVyRMVGscvWg&utm_source=copy-link
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| Living My Best Life--- August 2021 Trip to Cape Cod |
Do feel like you have lost who you are?
Like you don't even know who you are or what your place in the world is?
What your purpose and passion are any more?
I know exactly how you feel.
I understand the frustration, the feeling 'less than' and like you are just going through the motions...
Not really living, and barely feeling like you exist.
As a widow I experienced this loss of self, of purpose, of worth and value when my husband died.
All that I was, and thought I would be, died with him.
I struggled to find my identity.
I was no longer a wife. My children were grown and starting to live their own lives so I wasn't needed to take care of them....
So I immersed myself in my work. I worked 2 jobs.
I ate little, and slept even less.
I carved out time for fun, but I felt like I was living someone else's life.
And then, I got Covid. As a nurse, working with people in their homes, we were never really sure where Covid may be hiding. Some patients were positive, but the ones who never got tested, or whose families were not being careful... well, it takes a mental and physical toll on you when you are trying to fight an unseen foe.
I have been left with long term Covid. Neurological and physical problems that NO ONE has any idea how to treat.
This has meant that THE ONE THING that I was able to escape into... my work as a nurse... has been taken away, and with it the last bit of my identity.
So, I have been on a journey to rediscover ME.
To find myself, my reason for being, my place in the world, my PASSION.
And I have found it in the programs I designed to myself!
I have been taking some classes and workshops to become an Empowerment Mentor... and I am now offering my program,
Lean Into YOU!
To You, free of charge, because I believe it's time for YOU to start living the life you dream of living...
It's time to LEAN INTO THE LIFE YOU IMAGINE
So---
IF you answered YES to any of those questions above...
This challenge is for YOU!
We will work together over 5 days to help you to rediscover who you are, who you want to be and why this is so important for you to keep showing up for YOU!
Join Me Oct 4th - 8th at 12 noon EST
Each session will be about an hour.
And YES... there will be homework... but it will be the good kind!
I promise.
To register for the Lean Into YOU 5-day challenge
go to www.Colormeeverything.com
and follow the link directions at the top of the page.
Or click HERE and send me your name, contact info and what you want to gain from this challenge!
June 22 2021
I went away for a weekend last , nearly 5 days in hotels.I am struggling with so many covid related issues...
Here's a little secret...
When we lose a spouse we do not get over it...
Your Story Isn't Over
As we go about our lives,June 17, 2021
Today would have been our 25th Anniversary.
How ironic that I found myself here, at Hopkins, walking through the sky bridge from the parking garage and into the building, where we spent so much of our time in that last year together, on this day of all days, for the first time since you've been gone.
I tried not cry, but when I realized I had parked in nearly the same exact place we would park to make it easier for you to walk across the bridge with your broken hip- because you refused to use a wheelchair no matter how much pain you had- I cried behind my sunglasses and mask crossing the bridge and navigating the halls we used to walk to your treatments and testing.
The memories came flooding back.
Of the pain and the feeling of devastation when we got the final report...
But also of the love and laughter, the joys and adventures, the memories of all the days before you were sick and the days between the bad days...
Of the day we went to Annapolis and said I Do in the courthouse, of you down on your knee to propose with a real diamond ring and band on our 17th anniversary- it is the only time you were ever able to surprise me!
And as I cried you laughed and gathered me close and said ' don't cry, be happy, we have the rest of our lives together' then you kissed my forehead and held me close.
Today I have so many emotions, memories, dreams left behind and dreams yet to be dreamt...
And in all of that, the one constant, is the love I feel from you that I carry forward with me, in my heart.
Happy 25th Anniversary
John LeeRoye Bassford
I would do it all again, even if it ended the same way, because Love like ours is rare and a thing to be cherished. Always.
Miss you and love you, my JohnnyAngel
What is your worth?
Did you know that everyone has value?
That every person on this earth has something that someone else needs...
No matter where we are in this life....
someone else has been there before...
someone else has experienced the same feelings, heart aches, ups and downs, triumphs and sorrows...
Someone else has wisdom to impart that they have learned along the way.'
These Life Lessons give us insight, and knowledge and wisdom that others need to hear.
These Life Lessons offer hope and clarity and help others to get through the tough times and to begin to dream again.
So... Do Not Ask Yourself What is Your Worth...
Instead.... Remind Your Self that YOU HAVE VALUE AND THAT YOU CAN HELP OTHERS FIND THEIR WORTH TOO!
I always thought I knew what my life would be like.
I was going to grow up, become a doctor and work with mitochondrial research.
I was never getting married... but if I did, I was never having kids.
And then I had kids--- six of them!
And I got married--- 3 times!
And when my life was finally perfect, I was loved and I loved unconditionally...
My children were all growing into amazing, intelligent and really good people!
And then my husband got sick and then he died.
And my kids were grown and on their own.
And I was alone and afraid and all my dreams had died.
A dear friend made me drink a cup of her special coffee and it changed my life. No, seriously, it really did Happy coffee helped to combat the anxiety, sadness, despair I was feeling after my husband died, helped me to get my energy back, balanced my hormones so that I could function again... and I was losing weight!
Without the Happy Co products I do not think I would have been able to survive. I would not have been able to begin to live again.
I got a new job I loved. I met new people I had fun with but they didn't quite understand me. I joined widow groups so I could find people who understood me even when I didn't understand myself.
I found my tribe of crazy widowed people online.
We went on trips together, we met for dinners and picnics and we were there to life each other up on the hard days and celebrate the good ones.
And through these, i began to feel like ME again.
I began to have dreams and make plans and set goals for myself.
I began to see the all the colors in my life come back to their full brilliance ...
They began to light my way and show me the path to living my life and feeling EVERYTHING!
And that is how COLOR ME EVERYTHING was born. I decided to create art using photos I have taken and unusual words or poems or phrases I have created and put them in an online store. These words and places in my photos have helped me to heal, to grow and to believe in myself again...
I have re-discovered how to LIVE LIFE FEELING EVERYTHING and i want to share that with the world!
Who knew life could be so EVERYTHING?
And who knew EVERYTHING could be WONDERFUL!
How Did I Get Here?
I wrote this about 3 weeks after my Covid infection.
I wrote it down over several days...
It was so hard to read and to write, most days I could barley think coherently...
Some days I could not read , write or think at all.
All I could do was lay down and cry in pain...
I found this journal entry that I have no memory of writing.
I have short term memory issues now and am finding notes I wrote to myself, Facebook lives I recorded, that I cannot even remember doing.
This is hard to see and acknowledge ...
the lost minutes, hours and days...
and to realize that I continue to have all of these symptoms, even 6 months later.
This is the journal I wrote to myself in early January...
January 2021-
I spent 5 weeks in the basement. I went in the week before Thanksgiving, and came out on Christmas day. I was finally night-fever free and I had finally tested negative.
The symptoms came on every day for nearly 4 weeks. The headache, loud humming in my head and nausea started first. Then came the vomiting and diarrhea. Next, all over body pain, the most concentrated in my lower back and hips and down my thighs. It felt like the bones were being burned and crushed at the same time. The mental confusion and inability to think and read and write started and is ever present still. I would sleep for 20 hours a day for days at a time, then be awake 20 hours a day for days on end. The symptoms continued to add on with the night sweats starting about day 7. Somewhere along the way the left eye began to lose vision clarity and have a haze at the peripheral vision. I also was having severe chest pain and it felt like every heart beat my heart was being stabbed. My 02 levels would drop to 90 but my heart would race to 130s to keep the oxygen level up. My body was compensating. I could not walk across the room without severe dizziness and heart pounding, shortness of breath. Talking and walking was a chore. My breathing was labored at rest. My fingers, toes, and left side of my face are numb. And all the symptoms would come and go, no rhyme or reason, every day, throughout the day, with no end in sight.
I cannot manage from day to day with any real routine. Sometimes I am feeling good when I wake. The headache level is good at 5 but as the morning goes the dizziness or balance issue worsens. I cannot drive unless it is a no dizzy day. I get maybe 2 or 3 a week. I will go to the store for an hour or 3, just wandering around to get some exercise and take advantage of being out of the house. But when I get home, I crash in exhaustion and find that I just cannot function.
Driving takes a lot of concentration because of all of the stimuli. I can't handle too much noise, light, activity around me or I just can't focus. This makes doing things very hard at times. And is exhausting mentally and emotionally.
If I cannot work as a nurse, cannot drive with any regular schedule, cannot read and comprehend and think clearly on a regular schedule , then what will I do, how will I take care of me and make money?
I really want to start a podcast taking about the trials of widowhood, depression, COVID. And I want to start an online community for women who have experienced life altering events, people like me, to be able to speak to each other in a safe place and find help and support and advice and wisdom from each other.
I am doing my facebook lives as The Crazy Covid Lady in the basement. I Started them Dec 19th after 4 weeks in the basement.
I want to help people and my podcast, Beautifully Broken with Dawn- Learning to Let Your Colors Shine, is my way of trying to do that.
I have to stop writing because my head hurts so badly and my left eye vision is fading out. Like when a candle flickers then goes out, only it doesn't go out completely, it just stays faded. I know, weird.
It's all weird.
It's all too much sometimes.
But... I will be OK...
Eventually, because what other choice do I have?
One small step---
I began journaling today after a few days of mental and physical exhaustion.
The post covid syndrome sucks the life energy out of me with the least bit of exertion some days;
my mental
clarity and ability to think, speak coherently, focus and remember
simple tasks comes and goes without rhyme nor reason. 
Original photoart by DawnRanae 2022
Today I decided to journal about that one small step.
The one that I took to come out of 5 weeks of isolation in the basement, the one that led me to It's Your Turn, the one that compelled me to join Made To Do This....
And the hundreds, thousands, millions of small steps I have taken along this life journey to get to this place I am now in.
A place where my call to serve remains, but my ability to continue as a nurse is very likely not realistic.
Because I contracted coronavirus from a patient.
Because coronavirus infected my heart and brain.
But I have persevered and overcome many hard times.
I have been a teen Mom, a statistical anomaly graduating from high school in the top 5% of my class and graduating from nursing school at the same time, a victim of domestic violence...
And then, my wonderful husband, my lifelong best friend and the one who always lifted me up and gave me confidence to believe in myself...
Was diagnosed with cancer, and died.
Leaving me with no money and a home I could no longer afford, 3 kids in college with tuition I could not pay.
But the worst part was, my ability to dream had died too.
If I can overcome all of that...
I can overcome any deficits coronavirus has left me with...
I can achieve my goals...
I can dream again...
All it takes is that one small step.
This blog is that One Small Step today.
Tale of 2 Vaccines
I got the text that my vaccine was scheduled for Sunday April 4th at noon.
I was so excited and responded YES immediately.
Ok, that WAS Easter, but hey, if they want me at Six Flags at noon on Easter...
I AM THERE!
Then I got a text that my NEW appointment was Friday April 9th and M&T Stadium.
Then I got a confirmation for Noon on the 4th.
all of that happened from March 26 to March 31.
So I called the Health Dept on the 31st to make sure I knew what day and where to go. I surely didn't want to miss it!
A spoke to a lovely lady who said there was no record of M&T appointment and the 4th at Six Flags was my 'Official' appointment.
Then I got a text, at 10am on the 4th, that my NEW appointment was for Friday the 9th of April at 845am. Ok, now I get to spend Easter luncheon with the family. Yay!
The 5th, Monday, I got a text that my NEW appoint was scheduled for Tuesday the 6th.
I responded YES. Then realized it was for M&T , not Six Flags.
And now I had not 1, but 2 vaccines scheduled!!!
What a dilemma... ok, not really.
I went to M&T on Tuesday the 6th at 845am!
And this is how that appointment went...
Today I got the first Pfizer vaccine in my right arm. Vax 2 is scheduled for 5/5/21 at 945am.
I was really excted and nervous to get this vaccine. As I sit here, in the waiting area post shot, I am trying to catch my breath and get my heart rate down. It was 100 but is now 82 after 15 minutes of rest. The heart rate is still irregular and I have trouble catching my breath with the mask on.
I arrived at 830am and received my vaccine at 917am. It was 45 minutes of constant walking.
Walking across the parking lot to the entrance.
Walking through the lower promenade of the stadium in the que, like lemmings, or perhaps more like sheep being herded toward an unknown fate. The only difference is that unlike sheep, we are all here of our own accord. The hundreds of us in this never ending, continuous, moving line that winds it's way around and around, back and forth, throughout the stadium concourse, toward a big, white tent.
At some point, an iPad is thrust into our hands and we are told to enter our information for pre-screening.
Just before reaching the tent, the end of the journey?
Someone takes the tablet and asks us the standard questions we have all grown accustomed to...
have you traveled out of the US, been in contact whit someone with COVID, had COVID symptoms in the past 14 days...
The same ones we are asked every where we go in these COVID times.
Finally, at the entrance of the tent, is another que.
Id in hand, we are directed, one by one, to a registration desk... mine is Lucky 7!
My pre-screening is pulled up on the screen and I am officially registered and cleared to receive my vaccination today!
YAY!
Onward and Upward!
Yes, upward. At this point I have walked continuously for nearly 30 minutes and am both exhausted and winded.
My head has been pounding at a level 10 since waking this morning and the truck running in my head is at full throttle.
I have new swelling in my feet, especially the right, with bruises I cannot find a reason for.
I gained 3 pounds overnight, again, for no apparent reason and my gums have been bleeding off and on all morning.
The walking with a mask on, no feeling in my feet and a feeling of swelling in right knee growing as I've moved with the herd, is not easy and the irregular heartbeat and muffled breathing makes the fatigue more pronounced as I go.
At last... there is an escalator to the injection center on the second floor concourse. And at the top... Another que.
But, the end is now truly in sight!
There, laid out across the entire concourse, is the vaccination center. Rows of desks where the injection is given, and just beyond, rows of chairs where those who have been vaccinated go to wait their required post-vax time to ensure they have no adverse reactions.
My turn to step up is at hand and I am assigned B4.
Mary and Greg are the wonderful nurses who attend to me. They double check my personal data. Ask about preexisting conditions. I tell them Lupus, Fibromyalgia and long term COVID.
Apparently this puts me into a high risk category. I MUST wait for 30 minutes after the injection in a special section by the medical team.
And it is done! Mary administered the vaccine with such skill it was not even noticed. Greg was so kind and thoughtful, making sure I was seated in the proper area and the medical team knew I was a long hauler and to be extra mindful of my status.
As I sat there, listening to the radio that had been playing since I had entered the stadium at 830am... I heard one of 'Our' songs. It was the second one that had played since I had entered the stadium at 830am. It was comforting. It made me feel like maybe, just maybe, John was there keeping watch over me to make sure I was OK. To let me know he is still with me, even now, nearly 3 years later.
I hope that is true and by the unusual timing of certain songs, just when I need them, I think that perhaps he really is speaking to me in our way, through music.
My 30 minutes was up! 947am and I could leave. I headed down the stairs, slowly, holding onto the railing for dear life.
At the bottom I was ushered out thru a large metal gate and into the outer courtyard of the stadium where there are huge statues of Johnny Unitas and Ray Lewis, both wearing masks.
I snapped a picture of each, I mean you don't have to be a Ravens fan to recoginize, and appreciate great players, right?
I slowly made my way on the reverse route to my car. Got in and took several minutes to catch my breath and feel steady enough to make the 20 minute drive home.
About halfway home, I began to get dizzy and feel very warm with palpitations.
Luckily, I made it home and did a FB live update before the nausea, vomiting and diarrhea started. Which was rapidly followed by debilitating pain every where , a headache at level 20 and dizziness that made my balance so bad I could not get out of bed for 5 days.
The physical and mental exhaustion was at active COVID level, like when I was on isolation in the basement in November and December. When it hits, like a tidal wave without warning, it is much like I imagine a marathon runner feels after a hard run race.
It was so bad for the first week I could not function well at all. Today is 2 weeks post vaccine and I am still experiencing debilitating exhaustion, memory gaps and confusion and body aches from head to toe off and on randomly throughout each day, never knowing what will hurt and how badly, from day to day. it has taken me 2 weeks to be able sit here and write this out, but I have been making voice recordings, dictation if you will, into my phone over these 2 weeks so that I could accurately transcribe my experience for those who are curious as to how I am doing.
And that, my dear friends, is where I am today.
Less severe symptoms than for the week following Vax #1, but not yet down to the pre- vax somewhat manageable levels.
The statistics show approx 35% of long haulers find some relief from the vaccine, approx 52% have no change in symptoms and the remaining approx 13% experience relapse.
Lucky me... I am, yet again, in the rare and unpredictable group for this Long Term COVID.
I am getting Vax #2 may 5th. Fingers crossed I don't end up in bed for a week again... and maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones who gets better and is able to live , if not a normal life, then something a bit closer to what I once lived.
Until next time... Love from Dawn- The Crazy Covid Lady
