How Do I feel?

From around twelve months ago I became aware of Ann excluding me more and more from her life. It may seem trivial but it all adds up to a bigger thing for me.

Around December 2007 Ann was horrible, really awful to be with, I can’t remember specifics, but I came very close to not buying her anything for Xmas as she’d pissed me off so much. In the end I thought it would be heartless if I didn’t, so I bought her some gifts.

Over the course of the year I found myself becoming more and more alienated by Ann’s actions. She’d continually avoid me, staying up as late as possible, staying away from me whilst I was in bed. I’d ask her to come and join me, not for sex, but just so I knew she was there, but sadly she never came up much. I used to listen out for her coming upstairs, hoping beyond hope that she’d come to bed. But more and more frequently she’d go straight back downstairs. Every time she’d go downstairs a little piece of me died. I’d stay awake for ages hoping she’d come up, but she’d stay away.

On the odd occasion when I could stay up late, when we had a friend over or such like, Ann would make sure she’d be in bed as early as possible, thus avoiding me again. It wrangled me so much. I’d asked so many times why where you avoiding me, every time I got the same reply, ‘I’m not avoiding you’.

She would make excuses to be out as soon as I came in from work, always disappearing out.

Imagine being married to someone that constantly avoided you for the best part of a year, it feels shitty I can promise you.

Smoking. Smoking nearly killed Ann in 2007. It tore us all apart. I had to lie to the kids’ everyday telling them that their mum is going to be alright and she’d be home soon. Each time I told them that I knew I could be so wrong, heart attacks and hospitalisations are serious events. Ones that Ann didn’t seem overly bothered about as she continued smoking in FGH, bumming fags of passing visitors.

Ann was in hospital for seven weeks and two days in total, a lot of the time away in Blackpool, we lost touch in a way, hurried phone calls and short text messages. When she had the operation I knew it could be fatal, again I lied to the kids, told them that every thing is going to be fine, mum will be home soon. I’m not sure how soon after the operation that she started smoking again. Not overly long I believe. Of course Ann lied about smoking. Constantly.

The boys would be vigilant and take smoking paraphernalia from Ann and hand it to me for safe disposal. They would get into trouble of their mum for this. She’d pretend it was other people’s tobacco just to get her ‘fix’ back.

She’d get up in the middle of the night, go and smoke, come back to bed, and stink of smoke and then have the gall to lie about smoking still. The smell would wake me up and still she lied to me about it. She’d smoke openly on the street and I’d see her with cigarettes and still she’d lie about them. I caught her red-handed on my return from work once, and still she lied about it.

How am I supposed to feel when the woman that is my wife lied to me constantly about smoking that, according to the surgeon that carried out the bypass operation, the smoking will kill her?!

I watched her smoke more and more openly until it was no longer an issue for her to hide the smoking. Watching her on a day to day basis killing herself in front of myself and the children by smoking. The more we asked her to stop, the more she smoked.

The borrowing. Where to start? Probably the illegal forging of my signature to raise finance against the house for a friend that had no intentions of paying back a single penny ever.

I was plagued with phone calls from a company telling me I owed them thousands of pounds in missed payments. A company I had never heard of. They’d phone and demand more and more money, I didn’t have a clue who they were and why they were asking for money. Eventually the truth came out. Ann had forged my signature to raise money and never really paid much back to the company. Of course they wanted their money back, so they contacted me, who was of course not aware of the deal.

When I asked Ann about it her reaction was one of not caring. I went to work one morning shortly after the truth revealing itself. In the afternoon I received a text message saying ‘take good care of the boys’. I texted back but there was no reply. I knew something was wrong, so I left work without a word to anyone, a course of action that should have cost me my job. When I got home I found that Ann had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets.

I threw her into the car and drove to FGH, threw her onto a non-caring NHS staff’s mercy. They made her wait some time before seeing to her. She pulled through thanks to my leaving work and taking her to FGH. No thanks from Ann of course.

I had to re-mortgage the house eventually to pay off the mystery company that Ann had financed with. It was in the region of £10000 I believe. I also gave her another £8000 to £12000 to pay off other accrued debts of Ann’s. I also paid some monies that I owed too, about £4000 in total.

Because of her bad credit rating the mortgage company insisted that Ann sign the house to me and I was the sole ‘owner’ of the mortgage, one which I have now until I’m 65. I was due to pay the original mortgage off within the next seven years or so.

I recently found that Ann was another £6000 in debt; she promised me she was debt free after I gave her the extra monies. She assured me that there would be nothing coming back and ‘biting us on the arse’! Once again she lied.

These are the big things that led me to the decision I took in October/November. It’s a damn hard thing to do, trust me, it’s been truly awful! I never realised how many people I would hurt by doing this. I was sure that it was what Ann wanted, she’d pushed me so far away, what else could I believe?

The kids would complain to me too, they’d complain that their mum was pulling out disagreements from the past and punishing them again for their actions. They were angry and upset that they were being doubly punished for past transgressions.

On the day I told Ann I wanted to split up she started drinking, who wouldn’t? But she became massively aggressive and ending up throwing a glass at me, thankfully it missed and shattered on the wall next to me. She stormed out of the house shouting very loudly, ‘fuck you, fuck life’, before jumping into her car and driving off at a high speed. I had no option but to phone the police and report her as a drink driver. That hurt me to do that, but I had to protect people, I had no idea what she was going to do, especially as she’d tried to kill herself several times previously.

She never apologised once for her actions that night. I still don’t know if she was ever caught and arrested.

It seems to me that Ann is the only person in this relationship that is allowed to have feelings. My feelings never counted.
I told Ann of my feelings recently; she replied ‘bollocks’.

My trust in Ann is well and truly shattered, my belief in her actions and words are minimal. I’ve been stretched so far over the years that finally I’ve had enough; I just can’t be with Ann anymore. It hurts me to say it, but I just want to be happy again, and the only way I can see that is by splitting our relationship.

I don’t know what else I can say.

Do you ever wonder if the choices you have made are the right ones?

I'm beginning to wonder just that. It's very cryptic I know, I hope to enlighten you in the not too distant future. Please be patient with me. I'll need your support.

Nicked off Master Pobbly

1) Would you post the shot that you are most proud of?

Proud, not really, most happy with then yeah. I have a pic taken last summer in Paris, France looking over the Seine toward a bridge, taken at night with lots of cool colours in the water and the sky. I've had a few good compliments on that one.

2) Where is one place you would rather live?
Untrendy as it is I really like Barrow, I do. I love other places too, don't get me wrong. I'm not a Barrow or nothing bloke. But I really do like Barrow, I love the people, the football, my friends and of course my family.
I guess if was forced to move I'd chose somewhere like Penzance, Cornwall, home of some of the nicest people in the world. Or perhaps Paris, France, I just love the city life there, it's way cool. I'd love to live a simple existence on the banks of the Seine.

3) What is one grand mistake you have made that you turned around into a positive?
I'm not sure I've learned that lesson properly as yet. Damn me.

4) What is one experience that completely nauseated you?
Telling my kids that their mam had a heart attack and not being able to tell them without doubt in my own mind that she would make it. That sucked donkey dick big time.

5) What is your least favorite animal?
I gotta agree with Mark, Humans are the worst, we fuck everything up, we screw our planet daily and shit upon the rest of the inhabitants. We're scum!

Well that went well I felt, next!

Well I'm all but set to travel the four hour journey to watch Barrow AFC take on Stalybridge Celtic in the Blue Square North Playoff Final.

It's a long journey there and back for just 90mins of entertainment, but it's going to be a good one. There's anything upto 3,000 Barrow fans making their way down one way or another, coaches, trains, cars, jet planes from the USA, you name it we'll use it to get there!

Wish us luck, watch us on Setanta Sports or listen to us on Radio Cumbria's web-cast, it's gonna be great.

Oh, all the noise and singing will be us!

All Bluebirds Are Blue!!!!

As you will most probably know, I am a fan of the non league Barrow AFC. We've had quite a history, formed in 1901, we got as high as 1st in the 3rd Division North as it was back then, and even then it was only overnight.

In 1972 we were voted out of the Football League, and entered non league football.
Since then we've had too few good times, 1990's FA Trophy win springs to mind as does 97/98's Unibond winning season.

But this week, after a disastrous start to the season, we were in the relegation zone when the current managers took over, we've managed to bring ourselves to the brink of promotion to the Blue Square Premier league. We are just one win away from promotion to what is widely consideredthe 4th division in football.

The players and management have done so very well, it fair makes me swell with pride to be a Barrow AFC fan. Come Friday I'll be driving to Burton (in the damn midlands) to watch the Blue Square North Playoff Final, I'll be supporting my team the best I can, singing, chanting, you name it.
The match will be shown on Setanta Sports which is great, the chance to raise our clubs profile is fantastic.

Friday can't come fast enough, I'm so excited and nervous it's untrue!

Fingers crossed folks.

I'm sort of wondering if there's any future in my job. I love it, the chance to work with people with learning disabilities is fucking ace, rewarding and challenging at the same time.

My kid sister Wendyella just started a job in a call centre, cold calling people and selling insurance. She's got zero qualifications to speak of, don't get me wrong I'm not belittling her here, I love my family. But the thing that really irking me is that she's on way more money than I am.

My job is easy, but as I said I love it. The cash is a pittance, shelf stackers in Tesco almost get as much as me. I'm really start to wonder if there's any point doing a highly trained job for next to nothing, whilst other, less qualified folk are out earning me.

Is it time for me to find something new? Is it time to up sticks and move away? I love it here.

On a plus side, I got the new Ginger CD, Market Harbour. Wasn't overly keen on the first listen, but man it's a grower. I'm really getting it now. Slipped it on my MuVo, I'll be singing it all the way to work and back within a week!

Love to you all.

Dave C

So I think I'm going to call 2007 the Heart Year, the wife had her heart troubles in March/May, now Jordan my thirteen year old just had heart surgery too.

Recently my son Jordan, who was diagnosed nine years ago with Supra-ventricular Tachycardia (SVT), was recently invited to go to Liverpool's Alder Hey Royal Children's Hospital where they carried out a procedure known as an ablation.
An ablation is where they physically destroy part of the heart using electric currents. Literally burning away some of the hearts fibres. Scary isn't it. They go in through a artery in the inner thigh via a catheter and work their way up through the body to the trouble spot.

Jordan was in theatre for just over an hour, and I'm so happy to say that the op was a 100% success. The surgeon told me he'll never need to use medication again.

Jordan was up on his feet the next day and back in school little over a week later. The hospital told us to keep him off his feet for a week, short of tying him to a chair there's nothing we could do. Those surgeon people have my utmost respect, the things they do is more than impressive!

This is for my very good friends Mike & Mark, check the link, giggle at the pics and remember the distant past.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1241493532&size=o

We just found the pic in the loft, it's amazing what memories are stored up there.

Just got back from Paris last week, I can never grow weary of that place, it's so good. Took the whole family this time, the kids loved it.

Peace.

For those of you good folk that have been following the saga about Annie, well it's come to the best conclusion ever.

We brought her home yesterday, she's now sleeping back in her own bed under her own roof. Words can't express how hapy we all are.


Dave C

Well your positive thoughts have served us well as Ann’s op was a success. Everything went to plan so I’m told; she’s also on minimal drug support, although I don’t exactly know what that means it sounds like a good thing!

I phoned the hospital at ten past three and they’re happy with Ann’s progress and she was just waking up, I expect she’ll be a tad groggy for the next day or so. She asked me not to go and visit while she’s in intensive care, I’ll respect her wishes there, but not going to visit until the weekend is going to be a wrench.

Keep sharing the love

Dave C

How would you celebrate fifteen years of being together? Romantic meal? Weekend in Paris?

Not us, I met Ann 15 years ago tomorrow.

We'll be celebrating by Ann having a triple heart bypass at 8.30 in the morning while I'll be sat in work chewing my fingernails. It's a unique way to celebrate, you gotta give me that.

The weeks of mindless and seemingly endless waiting are over, Ann finally gets the surgery she's needed for six and a half weeks.

Nervous?

You betcha.

But I know she'll do well, and I'll have a revitalised wife back in no time, hell she may even be home next Monday.

Send a prayer or send some love Anns way.

Cheers

Dave C

So I thought I'd share the events of my weekend with you, it's going to be interesting reading (it is in my world).

Here's a little preamble to bring you up to speed;

So as you'll know my good lady wife, Annie, had a heart attack some four weeks ago, after two weeks of hanging around and doing fuck all, she finally got transferred to Blackpool Victoria, the area specialists in hearts.
Last week we were told that on the 17th April Annie will get the surgery she needs, a triple heart bypass no less, she don't do things by half my wife!

So, the weekend.

Friday comes and me and my sons are at my mams for tea, my mobile rings and it's Annie. A badly upset and deeply pissed off Annie. They only decided to cancel the surgery because, and get this, they think she's allergic to latex. She's not, never has been. But four days before her surgery they decide to check Annie's file, possible latex allergy it says. Surgeon says no, no risks. I mean, she's been in there two fucking soul destroying weeks when they finally decide to check her 'allergies'. Fucking inadequate bastards.
She's not Fucking allergic to latex!!!!

So I decide to jump into the car and go see her with my sons, I was going to take her off the ward, fuck what the staff say, and take her into the nearby park so she can watch our kids play. It'll do her the world of good.

Everything goes to plan, we get through there, and the staff say she can go for three hours. So we packed her in the car, got lunch, go back to the park and have a picnic.

The park is massive and there's kids playing everywhere, Jordan wants to go join some lads playing football, so we said go ahead, enjoy yourself. Ann's loving every minute. The suns beating down it's lovely and warm, Connor's playing ball-boy passing the balls back, when Jordan runs over to us complaining of chest pains.

I know the drill by now, get him to try and blow into a syringe to slow down his heart, it's not working. So we have to rush Jordan back to the hospital were his mam has just come out on leave from. So her afternoon away from the hospital was interrupted by a visit to the A&E department of the very same hospital she just 'escaped' from.

Jordan was admitted for observations and later released. The doctor in A&E, the very same doctor that had been talking to Annie on her ward the previous night had to phone Annie's ward to say no she hasn't done a runner, but she's currently in A&E with her son who is experiencing heart problems! The fucking irony of it all.

How's that for a fun packed weekend?!

Be Cool

Dave C

Well Ann made it through to Blackpool, underwent her procedure to be told she needs bypass surgery. She made the decision to wait in Blackpool only to be told that she will be sent back to out local hospital, Furness Gerenal, while a slot become free for her surgery.
This could take three weeks (good name for a song).

Meanwhile the kids are doing their best, but they miss their mam so much, as we all do. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all right. I can't though. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode under the pressure. I won't. But I vent off every now and then.

Ann told me I could have a divorce if I wanted!!!! She says I don't deserve a wife like the one I've got.
She's right, I don't deserve her. She's the most thoughtful, loving, beautiful person I ever met. I love her so much. I'm never going to divorce her! Ever. I'm lucky to have her in my life. I don't deserve her, at all.

Ann I love you!

Keep the positive thoughts and the love coming, it all helps.

Be Cool

Dave

So as you will know by now, my wife Ann is unwell. She had a heart attack. The local hospital sent her, after much delay, to Blackpool's Victoria Hospital.

Only to discover that she more than likely needs a triple by-pass!

Scared?

You fucking bet I am.

Be Cool

D

Well finally Ann has gone through to Blackpool for an angiogram. It only took two long arduous weeks of waiting for the bed to free up.
She'll get the procedure done either Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully she'll be back by Wednesday or Thursday, then I can get some time off work to take care of her.

Meanwhile the kids are off school for two weeks, Easter hols, and there's not going to be anyone to look after them unless I start calling in favours. I know my kid sister will do a bit, but my folks work so they can't help, her family mostly work, but my father in law does nowt. Will he pitch in? I doubt it very much!

I forgot to mention that the local football club where Ann volunteers made a nice gesture, they put a get well soon piece in the match-day program and mentioned her over the PA system at half time. I know she couldn't be there to hear it, but I was. I told her about it while we were on the phone. She loved it. It makes a difference, the small things.

Be Cool

Dave C

Well Annie's still in the hospital, she's getting stir crazy now. People are dying around her on her ward, and she's worried that she's taking up the staffs time.
Still waiting to go through to Blackpool, she was seventh on the list on Friday but has dropped to thirteenth on Monday because her chest pains aren't as bad. Meanwhile she waits in a hospital ward away from the family.

We need her home.

Be Cool

Dave C

Wow. Where to start.
A week ago everything was fine, looking forward to the weekend, that's what you do. Work the week, look to the weekend. Let your hair down, drink a few beers, hang out, have a laugh, watch the game etc.

Not for me. I watched the game, what I didn't know was my Ann, my wife, was having a heart attack. I wasn't even there for her. That hurts me so much. I don't even know what to feel anymore. I have to be strong for the kids, my boys need me, my daughter needs me. Everyone is relying on me to be strong. Inside I am dying. I'm numb.

Ann is awaiting an exploratory procedure in Blackpool, she's waiting in Barrow and has been since Monday. All she does is wait, it's driving me fucking mad. Wait. Wait. Wait some more.
For fucks sake get her there, get her sorted. We need her at home.

Writing this helps. Hell I don't even know why I'm writing this on here. I just want to write something. But I don't know why. I cried while writing. I don't cry.

Ann does not tell me everything, of that I'm sure. She tells me she's getting better. I see her tonight and she's in pain, on oxygen, she had morphine last night. She tells me she's ok. I want to believe her, but I know she hides things from me. I just can't help but feel she's hiding something here. I wish it wasn't so.

I'll be right.

So hey. It's been a while, don't worry Dave still loves you!

Well what's new? Well my good wife has been admitted into hospital, she just had a heart attack at 40 years of age.
It's kinda wierd really, she's badly ill, life threatening stuff, but I feel nothing. Numb I guess. I have to put a face on for the kids, they don't really inderstand the gravity of the situation. The boys are still young, hospitals are an adventure really. Kimmie she took it bad, but she's baring up.

Worst part was I wasn't even there for her, I'd gone to a footy match, two to be exact. Both my teams won too. She called the ambulance herself and was admitted immeadiately.
Now she has to change her entire lifestyle, it's gonna be tough, no more smoking, watch what she eats and start exercising some.

I can't even get out of my class tomorrow to visit, there is no-one that can cover at all, life's fun eh?!

Be cool my friends

Dave C

In little over ten and a half hours, I'm going to quit one of my jobs. Worry not good people, it's a secondment that's getting the chop.
The job, a Roving Union Learning Rep, was touted to me a great thing, hell I bought it. And for a while it was good.
That was until people started fucking around. No-one wants to pick up my mileage tab, my mobile (cell) phone bill is costing a bomb, again no-one wants to pick up the tab.
Meanwhile managers and supervisors are saying one thing to me (yeah we'll release this person to attend the course) then in reality they won't give permission. It sucks. Big time.

So in ten and a half hours I'll be quitting the job and reverting to my previous position in care. They don't expect this. I don't give a shit.

Have a great day

Dave C

Hi there

I just thought I'd take this opportunity to wish my friends a very happy 2007, some of you truly deserve a break or two. To you all I raise my glass.

Your good health.

Be Cool

Dave C