Mama

My Mama passed away two weeks ago, Thursday, September 24, at 8:55 p.m. She'd had a hard, hard time the last month of her life. She was at a hospice facility becasue we couldn't take care of her at home anymore. Sometimes she was in her right mind and sometimes she wasn't. She slipped into a colma the week before she died, but came back out of it. That weekend she was awake, and her mind was clear. She wanted to see everyone and say good bye to them. I am so thankful that we had those few days to be able to talk to her one more time. Tuesday, she began to get a little worse, and Thursday morning she slipped into another colma. This time, when she woke up, she was in Heaven.

This has been a hard journey for our family, and a difficult time for me, but we are all glad to know she isn't suffering anymore. We have a lot of adjustments and difficult days ahead, and we will miss her for the rest of our lives, but I know that I will see my mama again one day. These photos are from our beach trip back in June, one of the last times she was really able to get out and enjoy herself.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:3-4

Update....

My mom went back for chemo today. They were going to reevaluate her, then do her treatment. The CT scan showed that the cancer hasn't shrunk at all. If anything, it's larger. The doctor recommended that she stop the treatments. Her reaction to them is so severe and she is not responding to them. She's not sure what she is going to do yet, but I feel like she'll stop taking them. It's a hard, hard thing. I was hoping that there would even be the slightest improvement, but there isn't. Please keep praying for Mama and the rest of our family.

What's Been Happening

My poor blog has almost been abandoned lately. With no Internet, it was hard to find time to post. At last, we were able to set up the Internet at Grandpa's house. That certainly makes life easier and makes me happier. :)

These last weeks haven't been easy. My mom gets chemo every two weeks. Yesterday was her third treatment. The first two times, she had to be hospitalized with high fevers. The second time was especially bad. She was the worst I had ever seen her. Her fever never got below 100 and would spike over 103. She was very, very sick. This time, the doctor decided to admit her into the hospital for her treatments to try to prevent the reaction from becoming so severe. So, she's at the hospital now. When I talked to her this morning, she sounded okay, but she had run a fever during the night.

With all this going on, it just wasn't possible for me to drive an hour to work, especially with the weird hours they were giving me. It was really hard for me to quit, but I felt like I had to. I've been looking close by for jobs, but, so far, I haven't been able to find anything. That's been stressful, too. I really need at least a part-time job.

Anyway, I hope I can start to post more often now. Hope everyone has been doing great and enjoying the spring weather!

Quick Update.....

We've been here for over two weeks now. It's been a fairly smooth adjustment. I feel more settled now that I have a library card. It just didn't seem right to live for more than a week without being able to check out a book. I'll also be able to use the Internet there, too, which will be wonderful. I feel like I am cut off from the world around me without the Internet. My job transfer has been much more complicated than I expected, but I think it has at last fallen into place and I should be able to start work the week of March first.

Mama went for her first visit to the cancer specialist the Tuesday after we got here. This specialist said pretty much the same thing that the one at home did -- that this cancer is incurable and treatment will help prolong her life for one or two years. He decided on two chemo drugs to start with and will possibly add two more. She went for her first treatment this Tuesday. When she got home, we were encouraged, because she felt a little dizzy and tired, but not terrible. The next day, she went to have a porta-cath put in her shoulder so she won't have to use an IV for each chemo treatment. On the way home from the hospital, she developed a fever. We had been told to take her to the local ER if she got a fever over 100.4. Her temperature was 102.3 when we took it, so we rushed to the ER. When they checked her temperature there, it was 103.8.

She has been in the hospital since then. Her fever keeps spiking and coming back down. The hospital she is taking the treatments at is over almost two hours from here, so the local hospital she is at have been trying to get her back there so her specialist can look at her. So far, a bed hasn't come available there. Today, the doctor told us that he thinks she is just having a reaction to the chemo because she shows no signs of infection. He might possibly send her home tomorrow if her fever stays under control. She has been really miserable. I'm wondering now if it is going to be like this with every chemo treatment.


So it has been a stressful week. I appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers so much. I really hope my mom can begin to feel better soon.

Leaving...

We are packing up what we can fit into the car for a move to our homestate. How long it will be for, we don't know yet. Grandpa's house doesn't have Internet, so I'm either going to have to go to my aunt's house to use their computer, or we might have some sort of temporary Internet connection hooked up. So, it might be harder for me to post for a little while, but I'll try to update everyone as soon as I can. I'm dreading the nine-hour car ride for Mama. I hope she won't have a hard time with it. I really hope this move will be beneficial for her and for all of us.

Changes

There are a lot of things going on now. We are planning to move back to our home state for my mom to take her treatments. For now, we are just going in on my dad's sick leave. He has over six months worth accumulated with his job. But, he is also putting in for a job there. We are really hoping he gets this job so we can move back home permanently.


Three of my aunts came up to visit us this weekend and they are on their way home today, taking a lot of our clothes and larger electronics with them. I went to my store Friday and asked if they could get me a transfer. The locations in our homestate will be 45-60 minutes away from where we'll be living, but I need to try to work even one or two days a week just to keep up my insurance until I can find something closer to home. Monday will be my last day at my job. I know I yell about my my job sometimes, but I'm really going to miss it. I made a lot of friends there and fit in pretty well there. I got along with my managers and knew my job. Now it's going to feel like starting over. Of course, our family and a lot of friends will be there, so that will help the transition, but it's still going to be an adjustment to move so quickly.

The most important thing now is finding Mama some good treatment. We have heard a few recommendations, so we're debating about where we should go. We're hoping that her specialist here can recommend a place.

So, this week we're packing up what we can and making arrangements for a partial move. It's going to be hard, but it will be good to be home again.

The Diagnosis

We went in to see Mama today and the cancer specialist came to see us. The news is not good. She does have cancer in her liver. He thinks it started somewhere else and spread to her liver. Liver cancer is not curable. Treatment can only prolong her life.

I researched liver cancer last week when they first saw the mass, so in some ways I was prepared for this, but I was not prepared to hear this as the final diagnosis. I kept hoping something would turn up somewhere else as the root of the problem, but I wasn't very hopeful. Now, we don't know what we're going to do. We might move her to a hospital in our home state for treatment so we can be near our family. They released her from the hospital today. We go back to hear further information on Tuesday.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Update.

Life has been chaos these last few days. We had the bad news late Wednesday night and Mama was admitted into the hospital. My aunts and uncle began making plans to drive up to stay the weekend with us. My sister (and I) stayed up most of Wednesday night crying so I didn't get but about an hour of sleep. Thursday afternoon, we left the hospital to get the house ready for company and let Princess out. The water had been turned off so they could work on a fire hydrant. We cleaned the best we could with no water, then went back to the hospital. Past ten o'clock that night, we came home and opened the door to the sound of running water. Apparently, we left a faucet on in the upstairs bathroom while the water was off. When the water came back on......you can guess the rest. The sink overflowed and flooded the bathroom out into the hallway upstairs and also began to pour through the ceiling. We had a waterfall in our dining room. The extra mattress we had set up in the dining room was absolutely saturated, as was the carpet in two rooms. And I mean saturated. After four jobs with a wet-vac, it's still not completely dry. The ceiling is covered in water damage and the dining room light fixture has gone dead. And the upstairs carpet is ruined, too. So, we had a mad rush to get up the water the best we could, wash all the towels, wash dishes, and make other sleeping arrangements for our visitors. At nearly midnight, my dad went upstairs to sleep, completely worn out and exhausted and I sat up with my sister waiting for my aunts to get here. We spent another sleepless night. I think I only got two hours of sleep. Then we went back to the hospital.

It's hard to remember step-by-step how everything has happened now. The first liver biopsy showed nothing abnormal, so they were going to do a mammogram and colonoscopy, but not rule out problems with her liver. They did a more detailed CT scan, which showed it was not one large mass in her liver, but a cluster of small masses and her lymph nodes between her heart and lungs are enlarged. So, we were hopeful that it wasn't as bad as it sounded at first. All our company was gone by Sunday morning and I spent the day running errands. Today, I worked 8-430. My managers are very understanding that I need to take time off, but I needed to work a few hours this week. When I went to the hospital tonight, they still had not done the mammogram and now seem more concerned about doing a colonoscopy. Mama said the cancer specialist had come around and told her he wanted another liver biopsy and that all the specialist on her case were just unsure of what the source of the problem is. But he left us with the impression that it is some sort of cancer. They just can't pinpoint where it is.

So, that's where we are tonight. I feel emotionally and physically drained. Among the minor catastrophes that also occurred this weekend, I got pulled over and given a warning ticket for forgetting to turn my headlights on and Princess stepped on Gabrielle's brand new boots with dirty feet and stained them. I know that in the light of everything else that is going on things like that are trivial, but in the moment, they are the straws that almost break me. And those are only two of the minor aggravations. We are trying in between hospital visits to get someone out here to rip up the carpet before it begins to mold from all that water, but that is easier said than done. We're dealing the best we can, hoping and praying for the best, but at the same time, I'm so exhausted I can hardly think straight. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Prayer Request

My mom has been sick for several months now. She is a diabetic, so her doctor kept adjusting her medicine and attributing her illness to that, but she has steadily gotten worse over the last year. Last night, she was hurting in her side so bad that we took her to the emergency room. A CT scan showed a mass on her liver and spots on her lungs that could be cancer. We won't know anything for sure until Monday, I think. They still have tests to do. Needless to say, we are shocked and worried. Prayers would be so much appreciated.