I am a 59 year old female, married with 3 children, 38 and 36 (one of them was deceased at 18, 19 years ago), and 4 grandchildren, ages13, 7, 6, and 5.  I have been overweight most of my life.  In 1996 I had a massive pulmonary embollism, had a greenfield filter installed, and I am on 7 mg. of coumadin.  I also have a history of mental disorders, primarily major depression with hallucinations (both of which are being treated with cymbalta, serroquel, and wellbutrin.  My husband, Mike, is 71 years old, had 8 strokes in 2005-6, recovered mostly, except for his left side.  Now he has COPD with chronic pneumonia.  After the strokes, he seemed to get much better, but the COPD has been like a death sentence to him.  We cannot get him to take his treatments, nor can we get him to walk, shower, communicate abo9ut how he is feeling.  His weight has dropped from 190lbs to 147. 

My mother died of COPD and heart failure last December.  My father, who is 86 and who has stage 5 alzheimers, is in a nursing home in Claremont, PA, and I just went up there last week to see him for the last time, as he is expected to die at any time.  He has refused to eat or drink for 15 days,  He was a prisoner of war for 40 months in Japan in World War II.  He weighs 122 pounds now, and everytime I look at my husband, it is like looking at my father.  My husband has also been diagnosed with dimentia.

My husband needs to be on Ensure High Calorie but because we are on disability and social security retirement, we cannot afford to buy it.  We are not eligible for food stamps, even though we do not own our own home.  He is primarily drinking liquified soups (I try to buy the fully loaded Campbell's soups or the chunky ones.  But, he cannot continue this way.

I am afraid I am going to lose my mother, father and husband within a one year period.  My 6 year old grandson has spastic quadraplegic cerebral palsy and only weighs 40 pounds.  His father left after he was born because he did not want the burden of having a handicapped child; although, John John's brother who is 13 is perfectly healthy.  However, my daughter cannot work as she takes care of him 24/7.  We are unable to help her financially because of our situation, and she does not even have a car to put his wheelchair, that was specially made for him, in as her car is a 1989 piece of junk with the rods knocking.  I have been very disappointed with the Cerebral Palsy Association in Nashvilole, which is 50miles from where we live (we live in Clarksville, TN about 5 miles from the Fort Campbell Army Base).  I always see marathons for breast cancer, muscular dystrophy, cancer in children, leukemia, colon cancer, but I never see anything for cerebral palsy.  It is very disheartening for my daughter and her sons.

I had originally wanted to write this for myself as I weigh approximately 225 pounds, after weighing 356 pounds in 1999.  I had gastric bypass surgery, but did not drop any weight for 2 years.  Since then I have had major surgery on my aben domen because of three ventral hernias, and then 2 weeks later I had a massive abcess in my abdomenrid and had to have a paleanectomy and they had to lift and scrape my entire abdomen.  In the process, my colon has become kinked and coiled to the point that they cannot even do a colonoscopy.  Even with a barium one, the could not find my secum (sp?).  I have just gotten over a 3 week bout with severe diarrhea and had to be put on dysentery medication to get rid of it.  But I have not had a normal bowel movement in years, so I dealt with it the way I do most things, you do what you have to do. 

I did not intend to lay all of this on you.  My concern is primarily for my husband and my grandson.  Is there anything you can do to help us with the Ensure High Calorie or to help my daughter with a way of transporting my little grandson to Vanderbilt in Nashville, where he is supposed to have surgery for his sublexed (sp?)hips.  His legs are always crossed at the ankles, and it is extremely painful for him to have his legs moved.

I never buy anything for myself, as I feel selfish and guilty.  The last thing I bought for a friend was for my daughter-in law which was a tinker bell shirt.  I also bought a gift card for a little boy who is having a birthday party tonight.  His parents are friends of my son's.

I'm sorry for going on so much, and I hope you can understand that my family means the world to me.  My son who is 36 has severe psycho thymic disorder and intermittent explosive disorder.  My daughter-in-law is bi-polar and reclusive.  My 5 year old grandson has already been diagnosed with ADHD and an anger problem.

I'm sure that we must sound like the most dysfunctional family that ever came your way, but we do love each other and try to stick together.  My son, his wife, and the 7 and 5 year old live with us.  My husband and I tried living on our own, but I could not take care of him alone.

As far as my style, I used to be the family comedian and jokester.  I love music from the beatles to Josh Groban and Andre Botticelli.  I love to sing.  I love the Lord.  I used to love life, but I find myself flailing now.  I have a Master's Degree in English and Literature, but have lost all of my education due to breakdowns, and beginning Alzheimers.  I love to write, have published poems, my master's thesis is a novel, and I am trying to get the equipment to enter that novel, which I have expanded by 150 pages.

Please keep me and my family in your prayers, and we would deeply appreciate any advice or help you could give us.