Saturday, October 30, 2010

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.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

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.