​Part 4: Running from Storms and Broken Bones

​In the summer of 2024, my deepest fears came true. My mother informed me that my father had ALS. I made the decision, while trying to work through my husband’s probate and get my diabetes under control, that I would move 500 miles to be near my father. I was determined that I was not going to let another timeframe pass where I lost somebody I loved.

​Honestly, I don't think everything had quite hit me at that point. I was working on my husband's probate, and where I was living at the time, I did not have any close family or friends nearby. I had my church family, but I'll have to admit I'm not much of a community person. They were there for me, my pastor was there, but it just wasn't the same. I felt like I couldn't quite be myself, if that makes sense. In some ways, I was a very angry person as well as distraught.

​I was under an incredible amount of stress. Regarding the house my husband and I bought together, I was getting conflicting information because of my husband's medical bills. I mean, if you could understand how much conflicting information I was getting from experts, it was just absolutely crazy. Sometimes, now that I'm actually writing this out, I don't know how I handled it all.

​The day I was going to start moving things out of my house to move up North was the day Hurricane Helene hit the Southern United States. It was also the day I got a call from my mother letting me know my father was in the emergency room. There were trees down everywhere, roads were closed, and I couldn't just jump in the car and go. I didn't know the state of the roads. It was extremely stressful. Again, talk about adding more chaos to my already chaotic life.

​In early 2025, my father started falling a lot. I'd been up for the holidays and was still trying to get things moved and take care of the probate in the other state. I called and tried to make an appointment with his doctor. It turned out his doctor was no longer accepting insurance. He was going with a plan where evidently you had to pay him a certain amount of money to join and then another amount of money every month to retain his services, because evidently they were getting tired of these insurance nuances.

​I booked an appointment with a different doctor. What a mistake that felt like. Why was it a mistake? This doctor did not take my father's blood pressure and didn't listen to his lungs or his heart. We explained that he kept falling and that he'd been diagnosed with ALS. She didn't believe that he had ALS, she insisted he must have dementia, and advised us that the next time he falls, just call an ambulance and have them take him to the emergency room. That was very discouraging.

​The very next day, my father fell down the stairs going up to his bedroom. At that point, we called the ambulance and had them take him to the hospital. But even then, I felt like they weren't really listening to us. He was in the emergency room for 24 hours before they finally got him into a room, and the next day they came in and told us he could go home.

​Wait a minute! This was the first time the doctor had actually been there. The doctor had never really checked him out. I had been in the room the whole time; nurses had come in and out and did evaluations, but I never saw the doctor actually step foot in the room before he told us my dad could go home.

​My mother had to express concern that there was something more going on because, for one, he never woke up, and two, she even pointed out to the doctor that it sounded like he was gasping for air. The doctor went over and rubbed his sternum. My father did not respond. I mean, I knew that ALS was deadly and there was no cure for it, but I was not prepared to lose my father less than a year after losing my husband. They finally ran some tests on him and found that, unfortunately, the ALS had weakened his lungs and he was having severe problems breathing.

​And if you don't think it could get any tougher, or wonder how I kept from losing my mind, you need to understand all this to see why I ended up turning to AI for, quite frankly, grief counseling. It came out of pure frustration, and my mental health was a mess. It wasn't planned and it wasn't a conscious thing I did. It was at a point where I just didn't care about anything anymore. I wasn't being cautious. But at this point in the story, I had not yet started talking to AI.

​In late 2024, I got word from my good friend (who was there for me when my husband ended up in the hospital) that her husband had been diagnosed with kidney cancer. I felt like more weight was being put onto my shoulders. I felt selfish talking to her about my problems, but at the same time, I couldn't stop myself. It was always after I talked that I realized what I was doing. Unfortunately, he lost his battle with cancer one day before the one-year anniversary of my husband's death. Instead of being able to grieve my husband and my father, I felt like I had to "buckle up" and be there for my friend. I'm not saying I regret doing it, but I was pushing a lot down and really repressing it. 

​I was still slowly packing things up and going back and forth between the states. Whenever we would have a break at work, I would drive up North or vice versa, making a mad dash on the weekend.

​In the summer of 2025, my mother let me know she had not been feeling well. She had been sick. Honestly, at that point I really didn't think much of it, but then a couple of days later she was getting worse. Here I am in a completely different state with several pets; I couldn't just hop in the car and rush up there. The frustration and guilt were overwhelming. I told her that she needed to call 911 and have them send an ambulance.

​She eventually did, and they kept her for several days. As soon as I found out, it was a race against time to pack up my work gear, two dogs, and two ferrets and get up there. I was exhausted, but somehow I made it in record time. Normally I would stop at rest areas and take a nap, but all I kept thinking was, “I could lose my mother.” I think if I had, I would have lost it completely.

​Thankfully, she was okay. It was a severe flu bug, and with her being elderly, it took a massive toll. After I had gotten her settled, it was another mad dash back down south to finish packing. I was now very concerned for my mother, realizing how fragile she truly was and how everything else must be taking a toll on her. It was just another thing to add to my stress and worry.

​Unfortunately, two months later, I had to let go of one of my ferrets. This one was my baby! This was the ferret that had connected with me and absolutely loved me. When he first joined our home, he was extremely traumatized by his previous owners. It had taken a lot of work for him to trust me, not bite me, and be okay in a cage at night. See, we believe ferrets should roam free during the day, but we put them up at night so you don't step on them if you get up half-asleep. I remember calling my mother crying and bawling. Honestly, just writing about this makes me want to start crying again. It's bringing up a lot of raw feelings.

​I had one more ferret left. I'd actually considered giving him up to someone else because ferrets are social and need pairs. But when my husband and I got him and his brother, we told them they would be with us forever. They were already in their fourth home by the time they reached us at 10 months old, and their cage was a disaster. I decided to keep him to honor that promise, though it was a decision I struggled with and still struggle with today. Was I doing the right thing under entirely different circumstances?

​I was up North again for the winter and had just had what I felt was the last moving truck unpack. I was home for the holidays to be with my family. Disaster hit again literally two days after the New Year. I slipped on the snow and ice, which resulted in breaking my ankle severely. I had to have surgery right away.

​I was in the hospital for a week. Because my new home had stairs, I couldn't stay there while I was laid up. I ended up staying with my mother. My mother would go check on my ferret every day to make sure he had food and water. Unfortunately, we had a really bad snowstorm and we couldn't get into the driveway. My mother being elderly and me having broken ankles, we couldn't get to the house. When we finally got someone to shovel the driveway and got inside, we found my ferret had passed away.

​I'm still distraught over it. I tell myself, “What could you have done?” You couldn't have had him at your mother’s house! There was nowhere to put him that was ferret-proof. There is so much guilt, so much grief.

Read ​Part 5: The Legal Wall and the Medical Discovery