This has been a difficult year emotionally. My beloved horse died and I am lost without him. Wild dogs killed at least one of my cats. I took one of the barn cats to the humane shelter where he will be safer. Still have one cat missing.

My cat, Marla, had five kittens about a week ago. Four have died. I hope the last little one makes it. Marla won't be having any more kittens.

Then there is the electrical problem that you may recall I wrote about. It has been nearly two months since my bedroom filled with smoke and I still do not have enough clutter picked up for access to the electrical outlets, nor do I have money. Will probably try for a loan on my house; I own the house but my credit isn't good so I dunno about that.

And then there are sick family members. One aunt and one uncle are very sick and we don't know how long they live. Cousins with cancer. Worst is that my exH is critically ill. A week after open heart surgery he began complaining of difficulty breathing and pain in his chest that was worse when he laid down. He went more than five days getting progressively worse before they got a CXR. Then they found he had a cardiac effusion/tamponade and had to go to surgery emergently. They had not been checking his lab work but after the emergency surgery they sent labwork that showed that his impaired heart circulation had affected his kidneys and his liver. Time will tell whether those organs recover or not.

I know what I want to happen as a nurse but I am powerless. When I worked in critical care I could make suggestions to doctors but now I am not the nurse, I am not even 'family', I am the EXwife.

His mother is beginning to realize that they (RN/MD) neglected to investigate the cause of difficulty breathing in a timely fashion. I hope my ex can recover from all his problems.

Hope this post is okay. I am frazzled.