DB in a sad state.
We had a difficult start to the morning, 4am alarm, up I get to do the animals, DB not moving. I follow an established routine. DDDOgs 1,2&3 are Labs eat their food in a flash. DDDOg 4 fiddles around & I'm back n forth trying to coax him. Later when it's dawned I go and do the poos. Last Thursday I noticed DDDog 4 passing bloody stools, the night before he seemed tucked up and he hadn't eaten well for 2 nights, rang DB at work on Thursday so DB could take him to the vet, they examined him, seemed well but just in case put him on antibiotics. He's seemed fine since but does still faff around eating. He is a white GS, I've only ever had Labs & retrievers who eat their food likes it's their last. So I spend the hour before DB goes to work going back n forth coaxing DD4 to eat. When we got him he was dreadfully thin. Thursday he weighed 31.5kg, vet said for his age, a bit underweight but not to worry so long as he's eating.
Our Abyssinian 10yrs cat is unwell but I'm working with what we've got to keep her as well as we can (gone from 4.3kg to 3.4kg) I've got her on normal dry food diet along with pouches of wet food later then kitten food & lactating mothers milk & her normal meal again at night as recommended by vet. Apparently she may have myasthenia gravis, seemingly common in Abys at the age of 10. Will know more soon.
DDDOg1 also 10yrs and is declining in health rapidly, work dogs they say live a reduced life span. He's given it his all so we make his final years as comfortable as we can. I know seeing him decline upsets DB.
DB colleague DDO rushed back into ICU on Saturday, his health very poor, respiratory system seems to be struggling. His weight apparently a factor (slightly overweight) & he too suffers with depression.
Dad with his Parkinson's progressing to next stage and the prostate cancer diagnosis & then me with yet another heart scare following the anaesthetic.
This all seems to have hit DB hard, he spent the weekend horizontal, I genuinely believe if I hadn't been here to do the animals it would have overwhelmed him and he'd suicide. It's where his mind is at right now. So after doing the morning routine I came into the bedroom with his cuppa and he announced I'm not going to work. Now ordinarily I would have said I understand and just got on with my own routine.

Last year however management determined he had created a pattern of not turning in over a 15 month period for 3 Tuesdays & 2 Wednesdays. Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon are busy days with dog searches and people visits & the boys always turn in no matter how sick they are so as the visits routine is not disrupted & the prisoners get to see their loved ones. Tues & Weds no visits so they involve training, internal searches, admin and of late, more frequently redeployment within the prison. I may have explained DB & his colleague are the most hated men in the prison on account of their job and the dogs. These 2 days are difficult & both DB & his colleague dislike them, that feeling of going to work not knowing if what you've planned to do with dog training & admin wise will come to fruition or, if you will be deployed and be spat at, verbally abused etc. It comes with the job and is known territory for all staff there, the DDO's suffer it more than the CO's. But in the main they get on with it.

You may recall DB had the dental saga along with his leg haematoma which resulted in him struggling into work on the visits days & taking either a Tues or Weds as sick along with 1 Friday only. 6 days off ill over 15 months, (keep in mind my background is HR & I've dealt with people with considerably more sick days than just 6 over a 12 month period) so in all considering the state he was with his dental and leg issue. Many a day he struggled in to work with a swollen blueish blackened bruised face or hobbled badly with his leg. Anyhow Mgt pulled him in and said he has an established sickness pattern. It made him feel sick just with the statement alone, he felt dreadful, bitter & angry. As a functioning alcoholic he rarely (if ever) over 10 yrs employment took time off sick, but of course with his rehab in and hospitalisation with the Barrett's he used most of it up in 2015.

I digress sorry, so this morning given the situation not so long ago where he was reamed over the coals for a pattern Tuesday/Wednesday I had to be firm & convince him to go. I got his breakfast, tablets, got probiotic and nexium to settle his stomach. Put on the video Gladiator (he used to love it and found it motivating back in the 90's) in essence I did all I could to get him out the door. Do I feel good about myself, no, I feel sad I've made him go to work when I know he's unwell, but I also know had he stayed home he will have castigated himself all day long saying repeatedly I wish I'd gone.

He didn't go to the I group last night & I don't seem able to reach him in this funk. It's a bad one, it's up there with when he was suicidal back in 2011. He opened up a little before he left saying his psych told him what he experienced back home in Wales with his brother wasn't the norm, if he lived there it would not have been like that, M will have been at work and the comradre they experienced while wonderful wouldn't have been a daily experience, it's just he was home on holiday & by fortune his brother had taken time off to be with him. Life will have been life going on as it normally does & everyone getting on with what they do. So it seems DB is still harbouring this thought of moving back home to Wales and the valleys, even though he knows life as it was is not like that. It's just life as it is here is too hard for him right now.

Maybe it's time he quit this job, he's been in it for over 11 years, it's thankless and full of grief. I still seethe at the way he was treated by Mgt last year, 6 days is nothing. They have people up there in senior & non senior CO positions who have in excess of 20 days a year, call in ill at the drop of a hat. But DB & his colleague because there only 2 of them their absence is noticed immediately. It sucks and I feel so bad for him, not to mention for myself for convincing him to go. I'm at the end of my tether, I don't know how much more I can take. I love him dearly but this funk has nothing to do with booze. It's more to do with him, I just don't think he likes who he is, maybe it's why he drank in the first place.

So the only the positive i can come up with is the sun is shining and he's gone, once he rings to let me know he's arrived safely I will feel a little better. I have a job list as long as my arm to do today not the least collect my walking stick from the hospital which I left there Saturday as they wheeled me out in a wheelchair. Sorry to be a gloomy doom downer ...

Edit: DB just phoned to say they arrived safely, the positive sunny weather disappeared, such unusual weather we are having here for summer, temps are quite cool and 5 min after DB left the heavens opened & it's been hammering down. Summer rains makes the roads super slippery and we have far to many nutters out there on the roads... as do you all wherever you may reside.
Hugs to everyone, I feel like I need plenty so maybe y'all feel just like me.

Post edit: email just received
Thanks for your help I could not of done it without it. Don’t know how long I can keep going on. I will have to become a Viking and get stuck in LOL. Thanks, Love you.

My heart breaks for this love of my life.