Life with Cindy

 Life with Cindy presented it owns unique challenges as it was. Cindy moved to Georgetown from Oklahoma for a job in a stucco plant. Not long after moving there, she suffered a stroke. That was the beginning of the end for her. She wasn't able to go back to work after that. 

She had a son who lived with her, and he was in the national guard. When I first met her through another friend, he was overseas in Kuwait. She needed help doing basic cleaning around the house and help with their dogs, Titan and Baby. (Some of the sweetest and most loyal dogs I have ever met.) 

So every couple of weeks, we would go over and help her. She paid us entirely too much to do so, and even though I tried to not accept all of it, she was stubborn. When it came down to it, she was my guardian angel.

When we royally screwed up with a possible rental, she saved us. We moved in and we were able to help her out as well. She didn't charge us anything to live there, which was great. Just a few weeks after moving in, an entire section of downtown caught on fire. It was intense and scary for our town. What was worse, a month later, the amazing pizza joint I worked at caught on fire as well, putting me out of work for a while. 

That was fine with her, because it ensured someone was there with her through out the day. She was getting weaker, unable to stand for long periods of time or even to walk really. It also gave her son peace of mind that I was there.

My husband and I would often fight and argue while there. Now, he had calmed down some since we had others there as witnesses. Cindy would often laugh about it later, saying she had never met anyone quite like us. 

Unfortunately, at this point, Cindy's drinking became a problem. All she did was drink beer and do shots of whiskey. Now, I don't really blame her. She was in a lot of pain all the time, and like me, hates modern medicine. Things did become uncomfortable though. She started hallucinating. She would wake us (see: me) in the middle of the night seeing things or people that weren't there. She would become very angry if she didn't have her whiskey or beer. My husband started avoiding going out the front door so he wouldn't have to deal with it.

What no one really knows, is at this point, I started drinking... a lot. I was trying to cope with Cindy's worsening conditions, not having a steady job, and the unfortunate habits of my husband.

This grown man took to urinating in bottles to avoid going to the bathroom so he wouldn't have to "Deal" with her. He never really had to deal with her, unless I went out with my friends on the weekends. Now, by the time I usually left, she was sound asleep, passed out from the alcohol intake. It's not like he had to help her with anything.

He would leave those bottles around the room until I took them out. That habit followed him until I left him. It is vile and gross, not to mention embarrassing, to wake up or come home to bottles of urine because a grown man was too lazy to get up and walk 10-15 feet to a toilet. He would be so into his video games, he just wouldn't care.

Enough about that, back to me. I started drinking a lot. One night, I got so drunk that I tried to bring home the bar owner, bouncer and a bar tender. When my friends realized what was going on, they took me home. I am not usually that type of person. A few weeks later, I was so drunk that I went home with another man and stayed the night. That was the longest night/morning of my life. I was stuck nearly an hour from home with someone I sort of knew. He was one of the guys that would meet up with us at the bars. Having to explain that to my husband was a nightmare. It actually took me a few years to admit what really happened. I was (and still am) ashamed that I did that. 

Alcohol is not as fun as people make it out to be. As Cindy got worse, so did my drinking. The sad thing is, no one noticed. Not one person realized how dependent I had  become on alcohol. This is the first time I have ever mentioned it. Maybe my life was such a train-wreck at the time that no one thought that anything else was issue. I am not sure.

Hospice was eventually called on Cindy and her son eventually checked out. He didn't want to deal with it. I became the contact point for them, and her son just told any health worker to talk to me. I get it, it's a terrible thing when hospice gets called in. I've been there before with my grandfather. It sucks, but she had no one else. Even though we were trying to move out at the time, we were not able to leave before she passed away. We came home from running errands one afternoon and I could not tell if she was breathing. I called the hospice nurse and she arrived to tell me the news I already knew.

I knew then that I had to stop drinking like I was. I had to get my life together, and fast. Once things were squared away at home with hospice and all, and Cindy's body was removed, we all went to the local bar. I needed to be out of the house, as well as her son and my husband. We played some pool and ate some food. We all agreed that we weren't going back that night. Eventually though, we all did. Her son scared the hell out of me when he turned the living room TV on.

We had a few weeks left to find a place since rent was paid up. We all took our time on moving out. My husband and I had a long time friend offering to room with us in a 3 bedroom house with him and his kids. We took him up on that offer. Not that we had much choice, but it seemed okay. Boy, was I wrong.