Standing on a precipice

I’m exhausted.   I’m pretty sure it’s mental not physical but still at times, just hard to stay awake.   I am standing in the precipice of what I have been dreading since diagnosis.  

Joe can’t stay by himself.  He doesn’t remember to shower.   There are things, my true fears, when he was diagnosed.   They still are.  I don’t want to be in charge of my husband’s showers, toileting and later depends changes.   I just don’t want to do it.  

I look at how reliable he is on me and sometimes it scares me.  To him everything is an emergency.   I am learning not to react to his tone.   For years that tone meant we had a real problem, a pipe that burst, a kid who just took a nasty fall.   Tonight, that tone meant he didn’t know where to put the empty shampoo container.   I see how he relies on me to answer these questions and keep his world steady.   It was one thing when it was my kids.   It just feels so different now that it is my husband.   

So I stare at the precipice knowing we are going over soon.   For as long as I can, I dig my toes in and pray it’s not today.