Firstly, thank you to everyone who has sent kind words, loving thoughts, prayers, inspiring music and wisdom my way recently either via the Golden Hall OOC thread or via Discord/Facebook, etc. It is sustaining me right now.
In summary for those who don’t know, my gran has been unwell for a while now with advancing dementia, a syncope disorder and a few other health issues. We struggled to get her the support she needed at home for a long time due to bureaucratic restrictions and technicalities, but after a sudden deterioration around 18 months ago she moved into a care home and joined a wonderful community of residents and carers and found a new balance to life.
Unfortunately, in the last couple of months her health has deteriorated with a few bad falls and hospital visits, followed by refusing to eat, drink or take medication. Two weeks ago her GP warned us that if she continued to deteriorate in this manner we could be looking at end of life.
For a couple of weeks she seemed to stabilise at a bedridden, minimal intake position. However in the last couple of days she has rapidly continuing to deteriorate so much that they are now allowing visits in anticipation of final hours, even though they have confirmed cases of Covid in the care home.
She herself is Covid free, and the care home staff have managed to isolate and stop the spread of only a couple of cases two weeks ago with no new cases for a fortnight, and they are doing unbelievably well at controlling the virus against all the odds. They are absolutely brilliant and even the visits are carefully monitored and risk assessed, and thanks to them I have been able to visit my grandmother yesterday and read her some bedtime poetry (good old A. A. Milne). But she is fading away and I feel like it is now only a matter of time.
Because I’m first point of contact and Lasting Power of Attorney, the burden falls to me to be in contact with the carers and keep all the rest of the family informed and in touch, and co-ordinate visits and so on. At the moment it’s all I can really do right now to support the family and be there for my gran while still looking after myself and giving myself time to process and grieve. I was her primary carer for many years, and in the last few years battling against Dementia we’ve grown very close. It’s been tough, and on occasions I was the only person she recognised and trusted. I love her, but if these are indeed her final days my focus is to make sure she is comfortable, supported and surrounded by people who care for her, so she can go with dignity and grace. For this reason I am grateful to the care home for allowing us controlled visits despite the pandemic.
I hope the plaza community can forgive me for sharing all my negative news so bluntly and in such detail when I know so many other people must be struggling with so much these days. In many ways, plaza has become the place I can come to and just be myself; no shields or protective walls or masks of courage. So often these days my own emotions are being buried so I can be there for my gran or other family members. I’ve struggled with dissociative symptoms before in the past - subduing my emotions so much that I just become numb and don’t feel anything at all and the whole world just feels like a dream - and normally these are linked to particularly difficult times for my gran.
I’ve been struggling for a few weeks to log on here and roleplay or post, but today I think I have identified why. Because this place is my ‘safe’ place, it’s less of a distraction/escape from reality and has instead become somewhere I can come to acknowledge and accept my emotions in a healthy way. Every time I log on here, I feel so safe and supported and loved that all my grief and pain is suddenly allowed to surface. It’s cathartic, it’s good for me, I am eternally grateful.
But I confess it means I’m not getting many posts done.
My reasons for this post here today is kind of two-fold.
1) It is an acknowledgment of my pain and a testimony of what is happening for me; sharing it with a community I love and cherish and feel safe to share it with us helping me so much. Sharing it with people who I hope are detached enough from my world that learning my story does not cripple them emotionally or put too great a burden on them, but who still know me and understand me to not be ‘strangers’ but ‘friends’. This post is therapy for me, so thank you for giving me the safe space to share it.
2) My plaza involvement is likely to remain sporadic and/or intermittent for a while, and as is the way with these things I have no idea how long that will be the case. At present as much as I want to play, I don’t really have the spoons to post. I am however still logging on and reading people’s posts and coming here to read stories and escape into other people’s tales. I’ve opened this thread for updates/replies so as to protect the escapism and joy of my beloved kingdom of Rohan, and because I want everyone to be able to still enjoy that forum as the home of fun, friendship and storytelling that it has always been. I am not disappearing for good, and I will be back RP posting at some point I promise; there are far too many joyous and enticing stories to RP with you all, but this is my way of saying I’m letting myself step back from RP for a while so I can focus on looking after myself.
Feel free to reply here, or alternatively I can also be contacted on Discord at Beorhtlig#1176 or on Facebook as Rhian Blades. Love and gratitude to you all.
Alla, I can relate to this all so well! Went through a rather similar line of events with my granny, and still recovering from grief, a year after she passed away.
the face of his fathers -
Take care, love and prayers, Allacan! 
