I'm hoping that my current afflictions are psychosomatic. I'm feeling dizzy, off-balance (nearly fell down walking from bed to bathroom), light-headed. Like the vertigo I experienced some years back.

My stress is aggravated by lack of sleep. Sleeplessness from dread of today's VA meeting (quarterly) in which they decide where they are going to send N after they discharge him.

Yes, surely you are bored with this theme. Heaven knows I am--would be, that is, if I weren't so terrified by the whole prospect.

N has enough assets to pay for a year of assisted living. Then, I guess, we'll apply for MediCal. If they say that we have too much joint income, then I guess we'll have to divorce.

There. I've said it. Worst-case scenario. And I didn't drop down dead, or get struck by lightning, so I guess everything's going to work out, one way or another, if the ongoing stress doesn't give me a heart attack first.

I just wish he could be permanently settled somewhere and then I could make plans for the future with some hope of stability. But if that doesn't happen, then I guess I'll just have to learn to live with uncertaintly and insecurity and vertigo.

I thought old age would be a golden time, to follow dreams put on hold because I had to work for decades to support a family, a time to enjoy friends and relax a bit after 50+ years of being a wage slave.

They don't tell you how tough it is to be old and managing on your own because they don't want you to be discouraged and give up. Then, when it's too late....