09.13.2012 Oh oh, I've been a slacker.

09.13.2012  Wow.  It's been nearly 5 months since I last posted on April 24th.  In that post I mostly fret about my mother.  The very next day, during my commute home from work on the 25th, my sister called and said Mom was in the hospital,  dying.

Sooo I flew to Sacramento, CA Thursday, the 26th.  My mother's cancer had returned with a vengeance despite her chemotherapy, and her kidneys were shutting down.  Given just hours to live, she was given the option to have shunts put into her kidneys, for draining purposes.  This would give her time; only a few days, maybe a few weeks.  But Time.  We all opted for that.  I told her I'd stay until the "game was over" and she could therefore die at home.

After a day or two in the hospital to get her stabilized, we took her home to her house and garden on Rose Garden Lane.  The next few weeks were full of family and friends, laughter and hugs and crying.  My brothers and sister came with their families and left and came back again.  Mom's sisters came...Barb stayed until the end and beyond.  Diane stayed as long as she could.  My boys came with their girls for the Mother's Day Weekend and spent lots of time with her, talking and making her laugh.

It was a good time.  I kept telling her to say what she wanted to say, to tell people what they meant to her, to say goodbye, to make sure this gift of time she was given was put to good use.  And she did.

The house emptied out on Monday, May 14th.   My Aunt Barb, my Son Sam and I were there with her, making her tea, keeping her comfortable.  Aunt Barb sat with Mom until late Monday night.  I have no idea what they talked about, or if they simply took comfort from being with each other.

Mom died at 6:45 am on Tuesday May 15th.  It was not one of those peaceful ends you see in movies.  She didn't just slip off, with a smile on her face.  The cancer was ripping her up, and she died frightened.  In fact, her last words were "I'm afraid."  But she was not alone.  Sam was kneeling on the bed behind her, patting her back.  I was by her head, holding her hand. Barb was next to me, talking to Mom, telling her it was ok for her to go.  And she did.

The next few weeks were spent going through the possessions of a lifetime, giving some away to friends, saving some for her family.  We had a memorial at her home - her golf, mahjong and bunko buddies and her church friends came.  Barb finally went home.  One week later, Sam and I did too.

We drove south and then east through Arizona.  Sam wanted to see the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert.  We met some cousins in Bethany, OK for the first time.  And finally home on June 6.  2000 miles in five days.

My Dad died in September of 2007.  He's been gone not quite 5 years.  And now Mom is gone.  It's very hard to deal with this, to BELIEVE it.  The last year of his life I called him nearly every day on my drive home.  After he died, I called Mom nearly every day.   Since Mom died,  I sometimes find myself frantically hitting the speed dial on my phone, calling my boys, calling my aunts, calling my Scott, trying to find someone home and available to talk to me.  Sometimes I just cry.

But sometimes?  I drive with the windows open and the radio on.   I don't have to call anyone and I don't cry.  I look forward to going home, hugging Scott,  fixing supper, taking a bike ride.  Sometimes a boy calls to check in and that makes me smile for hours.

I'm so happy Mom and I decided to take that Alaska trip last year in July.  Oh sure, we got irritated with each other, but for the most part, we enjoyed each other.  She had an older man flirt with her, and try for an on-board fling.  I made her laugh until she'd beg me to stop.

I think about her a lot, trying to figure her out. She was the oldest of 3 daughters, a tomboy who loved to play golf, married at 19, to a 21 year old who was tall, klutzy and goofy.  They were married in 1954 and stayed married.  She was bossy and opinionated,  never hesitated to let anyone know she thought they were being stupid and was surprised when they were upset.  I was a married woman before she told me she loved me...and I think she only said something because I was moving 4 thousand miles away.  She told me I'd done a good job raising my boys only a year or two ago, after decades of shaking her head at and questioning everything I did.  It seemed that it was hard for her to show affection, but she was hurt when she wasn't given it easily.

The last 3 weeks of her life, she was amazing...we used laughter to get past the messy parts of being in hospice, a lot of dry humor, a lot of BLACK humor.  She was a good sport, patient with my fumbling with her tubes and her bandages and her medicine.  I washed her and we laughed at all my silly statements.  She was grateful for each cup of tea and each bowl of farina I made her.

Despite her being such a frustrating woman, I miss her so much.

04.24.2012 Moms and Cancer

My Mom lives in Roseville, California.   My Dad died in September 2007, basically from prostate cancer, so Mom's been on her own since then.  I truly expected her to take a while to recover from his death, and then move back to the Chicago area to be by my older brother Jim, her sisters and extended family.  

But she didn't!  She decided to stay in Sunny Northern California.  She rebounded, got involved again in card clubs, extended her friend base and got back into her golf game.  My sister Carol lives in San Francisco, nearly 3 hours to the west.  My brother Steve lives in Reno, nearly 3 hours to the East.  I live in Indianapolis, nearly 2000 miles East. 

Sigh.  It's impossible to just drop in for a cup of coffee, have supper together, or to help with spring cleaning.  But I've gone west annually for years (really, it's not a hardship to HAVE to go to California!) and Mom has flown back to various Midwest cities for graduations and weddings.

But we are allll getting older.  Every now and again, I'd urge Mom to consider moving home to Illinois like her Mother did.  My Grannie and Gramps retired to Florida; after Gramps died, Grannie moved back to Illinois and lived the last 10 years of her life with family about her.

But the thought of moving (and back to snow at that) was overwhelming and she stayed.  She'd call and say she was lonely for family, but ...Northern California IS really nice.

Well,  finally it happened - early December 2011 my Mom was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer.  Surgery found that the cancer had escaped from her uterus into the lymph nodes of her groin area.  So what could have been a simple removal turned into a "oh oh" situation.  So after a few weeks of recovery from the surgery, she was started on a chemotherapy program; six sessions of being hooked up to a chemo drip for 5 hours, 3 weeks apart. 

She did the first 3 sessions.  I flew out for session number number 4 on April 1.  Instead of dropping her off for chemo, she was found to have low oxygen because of a smattering of blood clots in her lower lungs and so chemo was cancelled for a month.  She is now on oxygen 24 hours a day and cumadin, scared and wishing she had local family.  :) 

My sister has been so excellent, driving over every weekend from San Francisco to visit.  But she works a long week and she simply can't keep that up.  Mom is scheduled to start her chemo up again May 1.  Three more sessions; 18 more weeks.  And after?  a month of daily radiation.  Hopefully that will be that..and she'll have another 10-15 years of golf and gardening.  Where will that be tho?  As the doctor kept saying "you ARE 77."  Decisions decisions.  I want HER to make those decisions for herself. 

And of course, in thinking about Mom, I think about myself.  I have three boys, living in 3 different cities.  One 2000 miles away in Idaho, the other two still in Indiana, but over an hour drive away.  When I broke my elbow last February, luckily I had my friend Scott to help me.  As I get older, I know I want to be by my boys...I'll have to decide just who to live by because I don't think they'll ever all live in the same city again.