It Sucks

Posting lots and lots over at my mom's caring bridge blog. Little details about her recovery from surgery. Everyone always wants more. They think they do anyway. They don't. I know I don't want to be as sure as I am that I'm going to lose her. Suspense sucks, but certainty is its own brand of hell.

I ran into a post somewhere from a guy who regarded his stage 4 cancer as a chronic disease and had vastly beat the odds. I've grasped onto that story. And I chant it to myself as I'm going to sleep and the surgeon's voice is replaying in my head, telling what he had found and where. A chronic disease. A chronic disease. Sometimes I even forget for a bit. Then I wonder why I feel so sad. Then I remember. And it sucks.

Regret

It's been a year. Almost to the day. My mother and I share a tumultuous history, but this was the tumultuous-est, an argument that was all the more vicious because everything that was said was true.

During the nastiness my mother posted a vague something on facebook that hurt and angered me. I clicked the "remove from friends" button then gloried in my newfound freedom. I could say whatever I thought without having to worry that my mom was going to be offended or nag me endlessly about something I had posted.

Healing has been slow. We've moved on. Kinda. I wouldn't re-friend her though. Even though she had asked nicely several times. Because I was right. I was right in what said. It needed to be said. And I would say it again. And she was wrong. Wrong in her original behavior and wrong in her response. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Besides I liked my freedom of speech. No mom on facebook.

Last Monday, she had a CT that showed a large mass in her colon. Thursday, a colonoscopy showed it to be cancer. Tuesday, I sat with her as the surgeon told her that there was very likely a second tumor in a different place. They wouldn't know until they got in there, but he was fairly sure. Stage IV. The fatal stage.

And you know what? I friended my mother on facebook last Friday. Because I was wrong. Wrong in my original behavior and wrong in my response. And I'm lucky. Because I got a little notice.