Dealing with Agent Orange and PTSD

I know there are quite a few people out there dealing with Agent Orange and the aftermath. My husband is a 71 year old Retired Vietnam Veteran who is 100% disabled (finally got it last year-2020). He has had over 20 surgeries, two of them heart surgeries and one completed at Mayo Clinic. AGent Orange, or AO, is brutal. One day you can be feeling great, and the next day you are miserable and heading to ER. We have been married for 45 years (yes, I married when I was 5), and we have been fighting it ever since. Our first year as a married couple, I had my first child, a son, Sean Michael Foster. Within 6 weeks he turned yellow. Upon further evaluation, we found out his bile ducts were not formed, he had something called Biliary Atresia. It was 1976 and liver transplants were not even available. After having many operations, and sicknesses, he died at age 3-1/2 years old. I was devistated and it took me 5 years to get back into society. Of course, the doctors could not blame it on Agent Orange, but I did. My grandson is autistic and I know Covid can be transferred to grandchildren also. It is a mean and hurtful condition and I plan to have a presentation here on this site about coping with death and dying. I have been thru it with my son and now I am going thru it with my husband. Here is what helped me:

1) Thank your divine power (God, budda, whatver) each day. God has gotten me thru many battles with my husbands life and relying on a power outside of myself helps me offload the hurt, anger, and torn spirit.

2) Wake up with a sense of Gratitude! Yes, I know that is a crazy answer. How can you wake up with a positive attitude if someone you love is dying? It gets easier as the moments go by. Just give one thing you are grateful for (you woke up this morning, you feel good, the sun is shining, it's raining outside and watering my flowers, I've got a candy bar for dessert), you name it and you can be grateful for it.

3) Love Yourself and Take Care of Yourself. You can not be any good to anyone if you don't take care of yourself. That means you can not be with your soldier 24/7. You need time away. Find someone to sit with your spouse for a while, find someone to read to him, just get away. You need to replenish your strength and spirit. Yes, YOU MATTER. You are worthy and deserve time away. Set boundaries with your soldier, write it down on paper, I wrote a letter to my husband telling him I loved him and what I was afraid of. Yes, I told him my FEARS. I told him I was afraid of doing the finances and not knowing where the money was going, I told him I was going to miss him opening the pickle jars and reaching for things high, since I'm 5'2". I told him I'm going to miss our talks and reminiscing about the 45 years we've been together. Share those thoughts with your soldier. Have them do the following:

1) Make sure they have a will

2) Get insurance if you don't have it

3) If he had only 30 days to live, what would he do

4) List his regrets, things he hasn't done and plans on doing before he dies

5) Write how he feels - start a book, something to keep them going.

My husband hurts every day and is a grumpy bastard sometimes. I will tell him outright. I know he's not feeling bad and I try to help him see the positive side of things. I give him a reason for living. When he is down and says he is dying, I rally him to talk about it. Keep them talking and get them out of their gloomy moods. In my office, I have a joke book called Knock Knock. I got it on Amazon and I told these jokes to kids at a school nearby where I used to read to the children every week. This was before Covid. The kids love Knock Knock jokes, and they make up there own. They are mostly corny, dumb jokes, but they make you laugh. Something as simple as that can impact his mood.

Agent Orange is terrible and the fight is relentless but you can get thru it...you can survive.

I will be creating a Caregiver Support Blog and presentation to place on this site.

Many Blessings, GiJane