Betwixt Home and the Hospital

My life is not totally my own now so I think this will be a break ...until...August or later. We'll see.
Each day evolves in an unknown way. Peace...

Tuesday's Scrapping - April Challenges

These prints come from the April challenges at The Lilypad. April was a hard month as we both struggled to accept the cancer diagnosis and then wait, wait, wait for a treatment plan to start. Not a lot of color here.

AAM Monday: Project Life Weeks 13-14

Well life has been both busy and silent round here. With my husband's cancer, I've done virtually no cooking and because of his throat issues, there is mostly silence chez nous. It's a very strange way of life.  I can't quite describe the feelings but it is strange to be in a room with someone who is almost totally silent. In his own world.

So I scrap and try to make my own life full of as much life as I can. Scrapping helps. Here are two older weeks that were done in late March and early April. Week 14's PET Scan gave us the cancer info that was needed to move forward.

Five on Friday: December 6, 2013

The weather is playing games with us. We've had temperatures in the 60s which is good for more garden cleanup but not conducive to serious thoughts of winter. It's also the issue of clothes again. I have my winter clothes out in the closet but by afternoon it's not-quite-summer clothes but... Mama Nature, please make up your mind!

And so onto thoughts...

1. Having seen an obituary about a 50ish woman who died from cancer of the appendix, I am grateful that I had my appendix out when I was about 4. But, have you ever heard of cancer of the appendix???

2. Another bit of gratitude.  DH talked to an old buddy for the first time in many, many years, and the man said his adult daughter called asking him which states were ok for her to go through carrying her Glock. WTF? Uh, fortunately, none of our children have ever raised this issue. We suspect we are poles apart from this man politically. Sad, because it would have been nice for dh to connect to someone he was very close too when they were in their teens and 20s. Different paths...

3. Need a good laugh? Thank you Pinterest.

4. Things you learn on the internet. Sometimes they are things you still cannot quite grasp. I saw the word "verucca" and needed to google it. Veruccas are warts. Now, I quote...A wart is a small, rough growth resembling a cauliflower or a solid blister. It typically occurs on humans' hands or feet but often in other locations."  A cauliflower!?!?!?  I will never see that vegetable without imagining it growing in places it shouldn't be growing, especially those 'other' locations.

5. Last but not least, also from Pinterest, a photo described as 'porn pants'. Sadly or fortunately, depending on your tastes, it was just a man in a pair of rather stylish and expensive looking leather trousers. Chacun a son gout.

Yes, this week could certainly have been subtitled News of the Weird.  Just lucky I guess!

Flashback Friday - Blank Refusal

I would prefer not to remember this week but I'm so glad I got some photos that captured the mood that  I saw.

 

Day after day you sat and shoved food away. You would just sit and stare at the table or into space. You insisted you wanted to take part in your cancer treatment but you actions spoke volumes. Sometimes you asked for drink after drink but refused to take them once they were made.

It was after your brother’s visit when you said you would not eat for me as you did for him that I realized you had made a decision.
You chose.
 

Sunday Serenade - You've Gotta Go Where You Wanna Go

You've been gone a week...and I wish you well.

Letting go is easy to say

Those words trip of most of our tongues quite easily. We all know in our head how to do it...you Just Do It. But even when the heart is engaged in the process, somehow the world doesn't always let it happen. Questions about her keep coming in. Some of them are just concerned friends who could just as easily call her to ask her how she is. Do they? Will she speak to them? Some of them ask me to project an outcome based on her ...what? past history? current situation? information I don't have or need to have or even can have? I can do many things but not predict the unpredictable.

Other questions come from professionals because in the end it's easier for her to refer them to Mom rather than answer them herself.  Turning over and sleeping keeps her problem at a distance.  Does she even know some of the details of her own life? Where is her important paperwork? Packed in a garbage back from when she was evicted. Most of us women keep our id in our purses. When we go out that id is invariably with us. We know how it would be needed ...in case. She's rarely grasped that concept. She says it's not important. Once again, it is important.

So today has been 5 days since she's lived in our house but her unmanagability keeps seeping back in with the questions that concern her life, and her choices. This time she has cancer. The stakes are higher. But the pattern is no different. For over 20 years it's been a desire for someone to rescue her, to fix it all, to make it go away. She's 38 years old. One change is that I'm no longer taking that role. I've let it go and said, It's not my responsibility. It's yours.

This time the issue really may go away. Really go away...and then the final letting for those of us still alive will just continue. It's already started.

Last week

Not a great week, and I still cannot see the weekend story clearly.

How Fast Life Changes

Last Saturday, I planned to do a lot of enjoyable things - read, scrapbooking, maybe watch a Netflix movie. Nothing urgent, just a lot of pleasant things while my dh was away. One afternoon phone cal changed everything.

My daughter was being taken from her home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to Baltimore with a suspected brain infection. By the time she got there after 9pm, I had spent several hours waiting. Within a day or so, the brain infection was found to be a 'significant' mass behind her left eye. Cat scans, a MRI and finally a PET scan led to a diagnosis. She had malignant cancer in both that large mass and another one in her neck lymph node. There didn't appear to be an cancer cells showing up below her neck.

Today she was transferred to one of the cancer wards, and will start both chemotherapy and later radiation to deal with her tumor. We are looking at 7-8 weeks of treatment at UMD Medical Center Baltimore.  It is overwhelming but she does want to live.  All of this in less than a week....

Your prayers, and healing thoughts are certainly appreciated for her, and also for me.

LetsDish Goes Pink

Breast cancer....no, no, I don't have it but I have a mammogram scheduled for next month. Trust me, they are not that bad, and for the most part women don't hurt other women if they can help it. I've never had a bad or mean technician in over 20 years of getting mushed. It's worth it and you're worth it. Some of us will find the big C as a new part of our life but that's what we can then have...Life. Life as a survivor.

But here's a nice idea to contemplate if you live in the Greater Baltimore/DC area.

Local food prep chain Lets Dish! has a Pink Dish promo. I quote...

This year, Let's Dish! has expanded its commitment to increasing breast cancer awareness. The mission for our Pink Dish! Campaign in the mid-Atlantic is to do what we do best - provide meals to those who need them – in this case supporting families living with breast cancer through the donation of healthy Let's Dish! meals at no cost. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2008, we plan to provide meals to even more families, and we’ve created more ways to get involved. Take a look around our site to find out how you can be a part of the Pink Dish! Campaign.

Thanks to Aimee over at SmilingMama one of the Blogher attendees that I didn't meet...I don't think...for this inspiration. ;-)

Tag Tag I guess I'm IT

Taccolina tagged me for 6 things. Oh thankyouverymuch said Elvis I actually did this not too long ago, so if you'd like to read that one from April 08, be my guest.

Here are the simple rules:
Link to the person who tagged you. (did that)
Post the rules on your blog. (done)
Write Six Random Things about yourself. (yep)
Tag six-or-so other people at the bottom of the post. (done)
Leave comments on their blogs, letting them know they've been tagged! (yes)
Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post. (better check)

I'm in the process of writing my autobiography in 5 yr chunks for my Artist Way group. We are reading Julia Cameron's Vein of Gold and I balked at this exercise a LOT. Now that I've jumped in, it's not so bad and some things have come up that I've forgotten.

1. Sweet little me was almost expelled twice before I was 10 years old. It's a wonder I wasn't seriously scarred by the nuns I had at age 7 who told me I was going to have all my teeth pulled because I bit a girl. My mother was furious, and not at me.

2. I am an only child and my father died (ALS) when I was 28 and my mother died (cancer) when I was 35.

3. I've had a zillion cats in the past 20 years all but two ran away. Well the two did run away but got hit by cars. I KNOW where the rest are..but it's an unusual story.

4.I was elected President of my teen club at age 15. I never ran again...leave them wanting more. (Take that, Sarah!)

5. Sarah SixPack is NOT my Gal. Tanya Tarr is the cleverclogs behind this blog.


I'm gonna get this out tonight, so be warned...tagging will commence on Friday afternoon. The Wall of Tag will be up then. is up.

Stacyanne at zen and the art of typing

Melissa at Stirrup Queens

Stef at IronStef

Jen at Semi-Charmed Wife

Ashley at Strawberrykisses