of the Death of a Lady's Man
I had plans to spend New Year's Eve the same way I usually do, keeping out of the heat as much as possible, and writing up my Year in Books blog post. But something very dramatic happened that changed not just the day's plans, but an awful lot of my life. Around 4:30 am on December 31st, 2016, I found Mr CJ dead in the garden. This is the story of how that came to be. Followers of this blog will have noticed that I've spent the last several years as a carer for Mr CJ. He had been sick for seven and half years, slowly declining all that time. It started with a headache that wouldn't go away, no matter what. Some months of hospitals and testing later, it was discovered that he had arthritis in his neck, featuring a growth spur that was pressing on the nerves as they exited the spinal column at that point. That meant chronic pain in his head, neck, arms and shoulders, limited mobility in his arms and hands, and reduced sensitivity in fingers that limited his dexterity....