welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Thursday, January 22, 2015

she can stay now

SHE CAN STAY NOW
here at the country n we have a 1200 square foot barn
on one end
there is a 400 square foot room
that is well sealed
with a large door that opens outwards probably big enough
to drive a small tractor through it

when we moved in years ago
it was empty
but over the years it became fuller and fuller
it became like a big attic
growing and growing and growing with its contents
filed in an addish method
that became worse and worse as the time went on

i didnt go in there much
i occasionally would open the door and peek in
you know as often as you go in your attic

oh my i would say
that doesnt look good
then
the years went by

the barn as we would call it
became a problem in our marriage

my wife she said
when you start diggin around in there
i dont want to be around anywhere close
its probably good she wasnt

before my diagnosis and getting on aricept (donepezil)
i would look in there
and
would get real mad
kicking the junk and throwing things across the growing
mountain of debri
saying words i cant print here
well yes i can !@#$%^&*(+&)

now since being on the aricept for awhile
i cant seemed to get mad or angry
in other words you probably cant tick me off
unless you hoard at my place

this being on aricept may have saved our marriage
when i started dealing
with this clumps  and clumps of saved stuff

if you have watched any of those hording tv shows
think the worst one you ever saw
thats our country n storage room

hoarders on steroids
varmints loved it

i figured out what must have happened over the years
my wife she was scared to go in there
ok that snake skin i saw in there was pretty dang long
so
she just opened the big door
took whatever she was going to store
and
just slung it in there as hard as she could
and
closed the door before it landed
random natural filing system is what she used

the turning point was when i went searching for files i
had to store for legal reasons for 21 years
time had passed and it was time to destroy those files

as i climbed over mt everest to get to my files
i slipped and fell
not having any idea what i was falling on
yes i was concerned at times

on leaving the room
at the exit
i slipped and slid down a mountain of debri
landing on a stack of dishes
shattering them to smithereens

ok i said thats it
this stuff has to all go

so we decided i would start out getting what i could
recognize out of there
like my files
off to the shredder they went
one big full pickup truck full

then i took my pick and axe and shovel
and
started digging

a truckload of stuff to goodwill and the salvation army
a truckload no make that two truck loads of stuff
to the recycle place
more than one truckload to the trash folks
a good half truck load of paper goods i buried deep underneath
my garden beds covering them back up with my soil and compost
old tax records feeding the long roots of my tomatoes

then on mlk day
we both agreed
thats the day we finish this off
so
we dug through old letters cards records pictures albums
a long day it was

once i had cleared out enough room i built storage shelves
from lumber salvaged from the habitat for humanity builds
stuff that was headed for the dumpster

as we sorted through the stuff
we placed it in clear labeled storage bins
placed in an appropriate arrangement on the shelves

ocd wins over add

so the end result is the last picture below

we had a truckload of stuff that was headed to the trash
a large container of recycle papers and a large stack of
cardboard
a large container of paper goods headed for the bottom
of the compost pile
so now we have a large storage room
things in containers all organized
with about 3/4 of the room empty

how could this happen

so
i told my wife she after we finished
man were we dirty and tired

you can stay now

the organicgreen doctor

2 comments:

  1. TOGD, I know what you went through, when we sold our last house and was trying to pack up the house, we kept uncovering stuff in every closet and in the attic, oh boy was that a close divorce point, but we made it, and did donate most of it. Christmas items over the years accumulate, other season decorations for the kids over the years, 17 years of this, wow, what an eye opener. Glad to here, "she can stay now" !!!

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  2. A pertinent project on MLK Day...
    “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”
    ― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

    I've said it before:
    “I don’t deserve someone as wonderful as [Dewayne], and
    he sure doesn't deserve someone as
    trying as me. But I’m insanely lucky
    and he’s incredibly patient...”
    ~Acknowledgement “borrowed”
    The End of Your Life Book Club (329)

    Sigh... my wife she

    ReplyDelete