grief - advice to the others

Intellectually I realize that people are only attempting to make you feel less alone and be identified with, perhaps even just to express nice sounds, but when people say to me "I know how you feel" it often results in me wanting to turn and walk away from them.

So to anyone reading this who may be facing with this situation *(their friend or colleague having lost their husband or wife) please I beg you do not say "I know how you feel". Especially if you have not lost your wife of husband (or partner should you be gay).

Loosing a parent, however tragic and moving is (please note: I have lost my my mother only a few years ago and my father only in July) can not be compared to the the loss of a partner. That is so much more close to the bone as to be indescribable. In fact it cuts and breaks the bone and is pain so intense and lasting that I hope you never endure it. I believe it is the reason why so many people die when their wife dies. They die from either a broken heart or the medical conditions such as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

So if you are not in the situation where:

• you are in a sexual relationship with your parent
• building a house with your parent (for the purposes of raising your children)
• sleeping every night and waking every morning with your parent
• having deep conversations of how you feel
• growing together with your parent (in order to live better with them and learn to resolve conflicts)

 then you just don't know how it feels

So despite your good intentions, do not say such nonsence and instead just express you are really very sorry. Perhaps offer help or assistance, an ear to listen to.

But please don't say "I know how it feels" cos thankfully you don't.

At worst (depending on the person) you'll get a torrent of explaination or simply just appear to be the ignorant fool that you perhaps really are.

This is something that I have found to be a common feeling in the others I have met who are in my situation.

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PS a friend who has also lost her parents and husband sent me this image today. I feel its poignant and wished to add it to this post.

Grief - my journey after loosing my wife

My wife is without doubt the most important person in my life. She was the one whom I related everything through and did everything for. She was my partner, my soul mate and my love. It seems almost incomprehensible that I was ever any other way.

Until after she died and life without her became apparent.

For those who have absolutely no notice of a death (you know, not people who suffered a terminal illness and die over weeks or months) the initial shock of the death is just horrible. Certainly the anguish of the first moments when are informed they are dead are horrible.

Then when you get to be by their side and can physically touch them all the emotions just pour out like out of a fire hose (well that's how it was for me). All I felt was great wracking tears like a baby. Nothing coherent except wanting to talk with her and touch her as if she was still alive, but knowing that she wasn't.

There was nothing written about this sort of thing which I could find, despite searching.  One of the things which came clearly to me when I was doing research in Environmental Science was that in the social sciences (which I needed to touch upon), were very often based on the many referencing the few. And so It is that I find the same thing with trying to understand my journey through grief.

I am sure that with the simplest google search you can find the 'stages of grief' as documented in the popular annals of psychology. I read it and found that I had only a passing identification with it. For starters I did not find myself in the bargaining stage after my wife had died.

So I wanted to write something about this for others who may come along looking for some sort of answers but be unhappy with / unable to relate to what is already written by others.

Firstly it would seem to me that this is a journey which you take alone. Certainly you get some support from your friends but you are essentially alone. To put a modern slant on this, its almost like being in a place where you have never been before and are in touch with your friends only by phone, email, or facebook.

Noone seems to be able to touch your heart. So while others who are not as close can go home to their families and homes, at the end of the day I (you) have to go home to be alone with just the certain knowledge that your partner is simply gone.

I now know what 'inconsolable' means.

Now each day is the grief of their absence combined with sadness of loneliness which may have troubled you before you met your loved one. All the things which you hated about life before them are back in your face and everything you loved about life with them is gone.

I am now a different person to who I was on the 18th of August. I suspect I will never be able to recover but only that I will be able to heal. Strangely its not unlike the experience of having my heart surgery. I am still alive but there are scars which hurt and constant reminders of the changed situation.

As time goes on I will put more about this on my blog and it can be found with the label "grief" in the tag navigation. Right now I'm exhausted. I've just got off the phone from the doctor discussing the results of the histology examination and I feel totally drained and unable to think clearly.

T-Max change stator details

An issue with Yamaha motors is that the alternator stators are mounted on the inside of the crank case covers and a magnet that is on the crank spins to generate the electricity. It has the benefits of being a systems with minimal moving parts, but has the disadvantage of exposing the insulation around the wires to corrosive stuff in the oils. It was pointed out to me back when I had a Yamaha XZ550 that this was the cause of the alternator stator dying on that bike too ... (in adequate oil change regime). More details about that can be found here, and much of the mechanicals of that are almost identical to what the Yamaha T-Max has
So this is what the crank case cover looks like when taken off. The stator is the bunch of coils on the left where I have a blue arrow and circle pointing to the dead winding. You can also see the path of the wire through the (note it appears upside down relative to how it sits on the bike)

then I have the coil taken out, you can more clearly see the charring of the insulation around the wire windings.

Then on the frame there is the connector to which the stator plugs into. This essentially goes directly to the regulator (which is on the other side of the bike). An important test is to also check that the three wires that come from the stator into that plug do not connect to ground. That was the give away for my situation.

You can see that heaps of body paneling has to be removed to get at all of this. You can see the magnet that spins generating the voltage in the coils. I've covered it all under gladwrap (clingwrap?) to protect it all from dust and dirt while I waited (2 weeks) for the parts. Because the cooling system has to come off as well as the crank case cover it becomes a messy exersize.

With the new stator fitted and it all cleaned up ready to go back together.

You can see also in the top right of the above image the place where the water pump protrudes into the crank case. This is driven off a gear inside the engine too. So that's all of it. From here it all goes back together and the cooling system put on and the pannels and blah blah blah.

for the benefit of anyone doing this (and to explain why I was considering issues with the oil view window and oil filling here are some pictures of the crank case cover with the stator in place.

* stator on the right
* view window just below it
and you can see that there is a cover inside the cover, with a bearing in the middle of it. This is also a support for the clutch.

This view is not seen on any of the PDF manuals I have seen.

when removing that cover (which you'll need to do to get the wires out for the stator you reveal the insides of this chamber.



You can see:
A) the oil filler cap entry to the engine
B) the gross particle filter
C) the drain from this into the rest of the crankcase cover area.




I suspected that the gross particle filter was blocked with lots of crap.

The crap came (inevitably) from cleaning off the surface before fitting the gasket again. The cover side which you see is easy to clean without hassle but the engine side is more difficult. I drained a little of the oil to discover that it was actually reasonably contaminated with bits of muck.

Note also the thin oil gallerys on the bottom part of this cover. Important to not clog them with crap when putting the gasket goo on the surfaces. So as directed, apply a thin bead ... you aren't icing a black forest cake here

All seems to be good now Oh, and the forks needed seals too...

PS

NOTE: I have had further issues with the charging system which I have gone into here.

In a nutshell, there is what I  believe to be a design flaw in the early model which leads to excessive draining of the battery in some situations (for many riders in warmer climates, most situations I suspect). I feel that this will have a direct influence on why the stator coils burn out - NB they are being used at their design limit all the time and overheat.

I have identified a solution for that in a post here. The solution is doable by a competent handy man or under direction any auto-electrician.

To Dominic Nutt

Dear Dominic

let me start by introducing myself in terms which may make sence to you. I share something in common with you: we are both trying to come to terms with death. In your case your own, in my case the death of my wife. Last month I lost my beloved wife to a brain "tumor", specifically it was a type 4 glimoa (it is interesting how the doctors are reticent to call it cancer).


I can not begin to express the level of devastation I feel at her loss, in particular because she was taken from me so suddenly and unexpectedly barely 6 weeks ago. Seldom are two people as close or as closely matched as we were. Although she was Finnish and I Australian we met in South Korea and have been inseparable for the last seven years. We had both looked all our lives to find just the sort of partner we found in each other.

Her loss to me is the most heart wrenching experience in my life. I lost my father to cancer barely one month before my wife and had myself been through major surgery with the discovery of an aneurysm on my Aorta and surgery for that back in November. My lovely wife stood by me through all this and was my primary source of comfort, strength and inspiration to become strong and healthy again. As we were planning children it was quite important for me to get up and running fast.

Through all this she had that disease eating at her and we just didn't know it. So I feel that I can grasp the situation you are in as well as understand the emotions you are feeling.

With all this in mind I am writing to you for two reasons:

1. to encourage you to focus on one of the most important things - that is your family and the love you have for each other now.
2. to offer some caution about the path you are taking on the experimental treatments: primarily because it is uncertain in outcome and may cause you to take your eye off the ball for the first point above.

The love you have of your family is the most important thing you have. When you write:

Would I risk it all for the chance to see my daughters go to school and to hold my wife's hand as we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, instead of forcing them to watch me die, tubed up and in pain? Hell, yes!

I see the very strong possiblity that you are at risk of struggling so much to get extra life as to be ignoring the life you have, putting them off during that and ignoring the strong possibility that the treatment itself could leave you exactly forcing them to watch you die.

I have thought long and hard about the circumstances of my darling Anita's death. As painful as it is to say I am sure that I would not have swapped another 3 or 4 months of her undergoing treatments, being debased and dehumanized as only long term treatments in hospitals with steady declines in health can do to you.

I know this as I have seen it.

It is admirable that you fight for your life, but please (for your families sake) don't loose sight of the really important issue here: Human Dignity and Love

Death comes for us all, and who knows when. I would have never anticipated my wife dying days after she stepped off a plane in Finland to visit her family. It was like the shock of some sort of car accident, only worse in some ways as there was no one else to blame. I won't waste your time discussing my personal search for understanding how or what I could have done differently to make things different, save to say that its a natural grieving reaction and I'm still in the midst of it. So don't let your struggle cause you to live one second less of the love and beauty of your family. For when you are gone it is that which they will have to remember.

As some one who has a background in biochemistry and has some experience with the medical system I beg you to keep in mind that miracles of science may not deliver more than more anguish.

I know that I am no one to you, but should you ever wish to contact me I am willing to share what I can and listen to your own story.

Kind Regards, from Anita and Chris