By Greg
SPOILER ALERT: There WILL be more…
This month marks two years since I started the TrennaMahney.com website.
I have loved doing it. It has reminded me of so many events, incidents, feelings, from my time with Trenna. The stories Trenna and I have told and the records I have published have allowed me to relive so many experiences.
And it has helped me to reflect on just how lucky we were to find each other and to spend … Read the rest ... “Two Years of Writing About Life, Love and Loss”
Regular readers: I’m sorry this one has taken so long to appear. The website was broken and I was having trouble fixing it. I’m not sure why it is working now, but, on with the story…
It was maybe 8pm by the time we got word that Andrew Hodge was on his way. The team of doctors and nurses that were now constantly surrounding Trenna started moving her bed to the lifts to take her to … Read the rest ... “Trenna’s Heart Valve Replacement – Part 2”
By Greg
I thought some readers of this site may find this story interesting. In it I tell you about Trenna’s surgery to have her aortic heart valve and ascending aorta replaced. I intended it to be a stand alone story, but it turns out the memories of those times are still pretty clear in my mind, and a lot happened, so, here is Part 1 of what has turned out to be a two part story of medical success … Read the rest ... “Trenna’s Heart Valve Replacement – Part 1”
By Greg
Being a carer can be like being on a roller coaster, it can be fun, and thrilling, and downright scary. Sometimes it’s all those things at once. And once you are on it it can be very hard to get off. But then again, sometimes you don’t want to get off, you just want it to go on and on as long as possible.
In this Post I will try to pass on some of my experience gained … Read the rest ... “Carer things that worked for Greg – the good, the bad and the ugly”
By Greg
This story took me longer to write than perhaps any other, but it was a tale I wanted to tell.
Trenna’s birthday has recently passed so obviously I started thinking about her. One thing that came to mind was the time she spent with our neighbour Terry, near the end of Terry’s life.
Terry, her husband Neil, and their young son Jason moved into the house on the corner, two doors up from us … Read the rest ... “The Craft Group and Caring for Terry”
By Greg
I’m publishing this post on 23 December 2022, exactly two years from when Trenna passed away.
I debated with myself whether to put anything on the site to commemorate the specific day, but then recalled an idea I have been meaning to get around to for a long time.
A “Celebration of Trenna’s Life” was held on Friday 15 January 2021. I gave the main eulogy but I also asked Trenna’s sister Nancy, and … Read the rest ... “Eulogy – The Movie”
By Greg
If this post interests you there have been three others on this topic. All with things that Trenna tried to help her or my life as we coped with her multiple medical conditions.
I don’t think for a moment that every tip or anecdote will be useful, but I certainly am hoping that people living with chronic illness or … Read the rest ... “Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna – Part 4”
By Greg
If you find this post useful or interesting you might want to check out two other posts: Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna; and Things That Worked for Trenna -Part 2.
As the name suggests yet another instalment in a series of posts that tell the things Trenna tried in an effort to make … Read the rest ... “Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna – Part 3”
This wasn’t the first time that it was suggested that Trenna might need to see a psychiatrist. See also this anecdote from when she was a child.
The recent post “The Key to Happiness and Fulfilment” got me thinking of a visit to Trenna’s cardiologist, which ended up turning into a trip to see a psychiatrist. Here’s what happened…..
It was Monday, 12 June 2017 at 9:30am (actually from about this point we never made appointments, … Read the rest ... “A Trip to the Psychiatrist”
By Greg
This is the second part of this list. For the first part please click here.
I’m already working on part 3 as things we have done in the past pop randomly into my scone.
As you will find out by going through this … Read the rest ... “Things That Worked for Trenna -Part 2”
Below is the the eulogy delivered by Trenna’s oldest sister, Nancy Seckington-Baker at the celebration of Trenna’s life.
Greg has shared his story of Tren’s story. He has stressed I have 5 minutes.
We have endless, wonderful stories of our sister Trenna.
A truly life WELL LIVED.
However those stories are for another time and place.
I am here to say how incredibly thankful and grateful that we have … Read the rest ... “Eulogy Part 2”
by Greg
This is a list of some of the strategies Trenna adopted to try to cope with life and her many medical issues. She didn’t have a specific list of these items. This is just the things I remember us trying.
I’m expecting (hoping?) that this post might be helpful to people living with chronic disease, and their carers. But of course everyone’s situation is different.
For most of her life she was … Read the rest ... “Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna”
Trenna became aware at some point around 2010 that she was getting out of the house less and less – it was often pretty hard. But she didn’t want to lose touch with the city in which she lived. And she wanted some recreation and a change of scenery.
So, she invented the “Recce-Vite”. She was using French words to describe a quick look around somewhere.
A recce-vite was … Read the rest ... “The Recce-Vite”
This post is a simple one, but to Trenna and I the following was important.
In May 2017 Trenna wrote the PDF document that appears below. The formatting was as she wrote it on her iPad. The font size she used was large to help her read it.
The distinctive colour was to help her find it on her iPad when the document was minimised.
As far as I can … Read the rest ... “Living With Your Spouse”