If I told a stranger about the last week of my life, they would think that I'm bat shit crazy or making stuff up. Luckily, you all know me better. I want to remember this week, which is why I'm writing about it now, but feel free to skip this post as I have no idea how long it will end up.
First: my mom. My mom is probably the strongest person I know. I have no idea how she is managing to deal with the pain, discomfort, and invasion of privacy that comes with being sick with cancer. She is consistently upbeat and striving to move forward with her treatment and her life. She is my rock and I will never forget the strength she has shown in the last year. Monday, December 27, 2010 she got a call from the UCSF hospital where she has been receiving treatment (most recently out-patient chemo... 10 days of chemo, 14 days of rest). Her blood cell counts (specifically her red and white blood cells I believe) were just too low. The outpatient chemo had done its job and killed the leukemia, but it also kills her good cells and they were going back up too slowly. The leukemia, however, was returning quickly so the doctors had to act. While I feel that outpatient chemo was the ideal solution to mom's need to be independent, inpatient chemo had begin again. She went back to her dreaded room in the UCSF hemotology wing facing a freaking hill with no cell reception on Tuesday, December 28th and started chemo the next day. She is very very tired and it's going to get rougher, but she's in good spirits. She definitely appreciates the well wishes so please keep sending those her way!
In slightly related news, I caught a nasty cold this break. The only person who was ill was Matt's grandma whom we saw on Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning, but my symptoms didn't start until probably Sunday night when I got a sore throat. I washed my hands a thousand times in hopes to keep my mom from the cold, and in retrospect I shouldn't have been around her at all. I just couldn't bare the thought of not spending Christmas with her. I attempted to spend the week getting better - lots of tea, water and gatorade, resting on the couch in yoga pants watching TV and movies for hours on end. However, my mom spiked a fever just after getting to the hospital and the nurses were very strict about who was able to come see her. Even though I'm at the tail end of the cold, there was no way they were letting me in with my cough this weekend either. I'm so very grateful that I was able to spend some time with my mom at Christmas (though I'm furious with myself for not getting any photos of her - hopefully she'll let me take some next time she's home), and it kills me to not have seen her at new years, but hopefully the nice doctors at Urgent Care will be able to help me out tomorrow so I can see her next weekend.
Another piece of news about my Christmas break is about my Uncle Greg (dad's older brother). He had suffered from a stroke some years ago and ever since then has had trouble remembering names, dates and places - basically his short term memory. He had been doing pretty well until this last week when he was believed to have had another stroke. After some testing and now two hospitalizations, it sounds like he hit his head and had a brain injury that was causing a lot of fluid to build up around his brain. After a surgery and draining of the fluid, he got better, then seemingly worse to the point where he was becoming agitated and scratching his face but would not open his eyes or speak, to suddenly being better again. It was hard getting this information so far removed from the actual source, but it sounds like he is doing much much better now. It sucked to hear the panic in my dad's voice when he realized his wife and his brother were both in the hospital though.
And finally to my dad. A little back story: my dad was in a motorcycle accident when he was a junior in high school. Someone was turning left and someone was going straight and it ended up with my dad being hit by a drunk driver and his femur being broken. I need to find a picture of him in the hospital with the cast to give you a visual, but basically dad stopped riding motorcycles and instead had a metal rod inserted into his leg to heal his femur. Anyway, every since then his hip has bothered him more and more as the weather got colder or when he had a long day of walking - some calcium deposits had formed on the head of the metal rod that was rubbing on the inside of his hip. Very painful. He's been getting some cortizone shots every now and again when the pain became intolerable, but he's been in a lot of pain lately and went to see his doctor about it. He had been considering removing the metal rod as his leg has obviously healed after all these years and it was now causing him pain, but he didn't want to have surgery while mom was still in and out of the hospital. After an x-ray last week, his doctors realized that he actually has a mild case of scoliosis and bones in his lower back were tilted to the point where it might be sitting on his sciatic nerve which would certainly explain the pain. They're going to have to do an MRI to be sure, which should be done in the next week, but treatment for this might include several epidural infusions. Of what, I'm not sure, but frequent epidurals can't be good for you either.
I'm scared.
2009 was not fun with mom having back surgery the same month my grandmother died. I hoped that 2010 would be a better year but it seems all it brought was more pain and illness with me getting sick with what seemed to be a cold and ending up with a cough lasting 8 weeks to my mom being diagnosed with leukemia just before heading to Hawaii for Doug's wedding (which made the trip a little less fun) to my grandpa passing in September and then my dad's back and hip getting worse than I've ever seen. 2011 - don't suck.
I do have one good piece of news though. While not as impulsive as it felt, it sure kept the excitement going. I BOUGHT A CAR! Matt and I had been talking about how having two trucks really wasn't as practical as it once was and that we should consider getting something a little smaller. Matt happened to take a look at my favorite Ford dealership's website and found this black beauty - a 2008 Ford Edge. Two rows of seats, lots of space in the back for a dog or luggage or whatever, black exterior with black leather interior and a beautiful vista roof. I had a bad experience (
I had... a bad... experience - name that movie!) with a sunroof on my first car - the Saturn Hooptie - I opened it on the way to a dance at school and of course it wouldn't close once we got there and it was supposed to rain! *end sidenote* Anyway, the car will get slightly better gas mileage, Matt and I fit in it perfectly, and I have the seal of approval from my mom, my dad, and my brother. The car actually resembles my mom's Acura MDX pretty well but I am just in love with this car. I drove around Dublin quite a bit while I had the chance and I plan on driving more in the near future to get used to it. Thankfully we got a great trade-in price on my truck and my buddy at the dealership really took care of every detail. Anyway, here she is!
I think that's enough for one post, don't you? Happy New Years everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!
