exhausted, overwhelmed and sometimes moved

Mom's at radiation right now. I took her to an early morning appointment with the Orthopedist so Magee is making this radiation run.

I know it's been a while since I've written, Maria pointed that out when she stopped by on Saturday. She said that she hadn't gotten any e-mails so she came by to see for herself how Mom was doing. Mom loves Maria.

I was on my way out the door for a short break from cancer and illness.

I am exhausted.

Lisa and I had tried the escape earlier in the week when I dropped off the rental car at Dulles. She picked me up on Wednesday and I spent that night at her house and we did our make-up and hair watched the Project Runway finale together (if you had seen my "smoky eyes" you would have laughed as hard as Lisa's 3 year old, Eric, did.) The next morning, her daughter Molly woke up with a temperature of 104, so we spent the day at the doctor, the lab and a place that does chest x-rays. In spite of the time at the medical facilities, it was still a welcome break from home, since we had the effervescent Eric in tow. Lisa can make me laugh in the most ridiculous of circumstances and even Molly-with-a-104-temperature is a pleasure to be around.

We gave it another try on Saturday. I went down to Lisa's with another friend named Lisa and we went and had a nice lunch in old town with a fourth friend, Laurie. We decided to walk around and shop in the boutiques. After a brief stop at the first boutique we noticed a whole pack of Harleys parked on the street in front of a saloon. We stopped in for a beer and ended up staying for the whole afternoon. It was a biker fundraiser for breast cancer. We may have been the only people in the bar without leather chaps on. Everyone had pink ribbon pins. One biker chick, a survivor, had organized it. They raised a few thousand dollars while we were there. It was incredibly sweet. And seriously fun. (The sign on the bar said "tips for tits.")

More important than my goal to take a break from cancer and illness, was my goal to get a decent night's sleep.

I slept very well at Lisa's on Wednesday. On Saturday night, I woke up at 3am and had a hard time sleeping again. I felt incredibly guilty for not being home.

I had been listening to Mom sleep every night from the 4th up until Wednesday. Now that she's home, I don't ever really get a deep sleep because she has decided not to "bother" us by ringing the bell in the middle of the night when she needs to get up and go to the bathroom. The radiation oncologist said that between the arthritis and the cancer in her hip, her hip bones are incredibly fragile.

My Mom is a gifted, talented, brilliant and capable individual. We have seen her move mountains. I know it is incredibly hard for her to have to call one of her girls every time she feels like going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But a broken hip in the middle of all of this would seriously set her back.

I ratted her out to Dr. Smith on Friday and he explained to her that when she gets up in the middle of the night and goes from laying down for a long time to suddenly standing, her potential for a sudden blood pressure drop is heightened.

Even so, she doesn't ring the bell. So I stay up and watch the monitor. And when I see her take the oxygen tube out of her nose, I know she is about to make a run for it and I go downstairs.

When I was away on Wednesday, Magee watched her. And missed two bathroom runs. I asked Magee if she could try again on Thursday night and I told her what time Mom usually starts to get up. So Magee said she wouldn't stay up all night on the phone and she'd set an alarm. Magee has always been a deeper sleeper than I have. And she missed it again.

And Magee is not to blame. Mom is. She won't ring the damn bell so I can hear her over the monitor. So I have to rely on tracking her visually.

And I'm angry.

And I feel incredibly guilty when I am not on Mom watch in the middle of the night.

This morning at 3am, she did it again. I was watching her so I made it downstairs in time. But, I was so angry. I told her, on the way to the doctor's, that if she didn't start ringing the bell, I was going to have to move one of the sleeper loveseats in the room and not leave her alone at night. I will give her one more chance tonight and then I will cramp her style even more.

And I am overwhelmed because this is not a well-organized process. The doctors don't tell you everything...you have to go in armed with lists of questions. It is all incredibly mysterious and you have no idea what questions to ask. And Mom has been told that it is Stage IV and she has been told that it is in her hip bone and tail bone, but she chooses not to hear that.

Her positive outlook is really awe-inspiring. She has so much fight in her.
But they are talking about starting chemo this week and that is going to kick her ass.

(On Friday, Dr. Smith did mention that his goal with chemo is remission and that seemed to be the one word that Mom and Magee and Maura recalled from the meeting. Mom is talking about how she hopes her hair grows back in - curly and the odds of her living long enough for her hair to grow back are incredibly slim.)

But incredibly slim does not equal impossible, so I also cling to that glimmer of hope.

At her appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon this morning, they took an x-ray. Dr. Bobrow (who also looks like a movie star) said that he wasn't going to do anything about her hip unless something catastrophic occurred. He said that the degradation caused by the arthritis did not appear to have worsened and it didn't make sense to put her through the ordeal of surgery and recovery unless something happened to her hip. He said that they treat the patient, not the x-ray, and that as long as she isn't in any pain, they don't want to rock the boat.

She came home and told Magee and Maura that he didn't see any cancer in her hip. And I had to say "That's not what he said, Mom. What he said is that your arthritis has not worsened. He didn't comment on the cancer except to ask if they had started radiating the hip yet."

Maura's face sank. Mom got quiet for a few minutes.

And I am the voice of reason.

And I am, once again, overwhelmed by being the one who has to be the bearer of bad news.

There is the whole other issue of my life on hold. For me, it's a no brainer. I'll take a leave and stay with her.

For her, if I stay, I am saying to her that I don't believe that she will beat this. And she has guilt about Magee and I being here.

So I will go back to San Francisco this weekend and pretend that my life is normal. I already have a ticket to come back here in mid November. So I will use the three weeks there to get all of my ducks in a row. And if she is kicking ass, I will come back once every three weeks to get her through her chemo appointments. And if she is getting her ass kicked, I will come back and stay.

And, secretly, I am relieved at the prospect of a few weeks of possibly sleeping through the night.

I bought a new ipod and some running shoes. Getting out in the late afternoon and making a loop through the neighborhood is really good for my soul. When I am not using the ipod, it is in Mom's room on a speaker. A few years ago, one Valentine’s day when I was first living in San Francisco, I made a mixed tape for Mom. She calls my dog "Filthy McNasty" so I called it "Filthy Mc Nasty's songs for a Mother." I picked songs that express how I feel about her, songs that I remember her singing to me when I was little (like Simon and Garfunkel's - O Cecelia) and songs that expressed how I felt about myself (so she could understand that, in spite of the rough patches in my life, I am strong and happy). I loaded the ipod with some of those songs and fight songs (like Bonnie Raitt's "I will not be Broken") and new love songs like Jack Johnson's "Better Together." She listens to it while she does her puzzles.

I listen to it when I run and I have become the crazy woman running through the neighborhood laughing at one minute and sobbing the next.

My friend Carisa lost her mom to Breast Cancer a few Novembers ago. On the calendar, it's probably been close to 5 years, but it seems like it is still so fresh. Carisa ran the Nike San Francisco Marathon yesterday. It has been a long journey for her because her previous attempt was foiled by an injury. But she did it yesterday. And she held her mother, my mother and our friend in her heart while she ran.

And I felt it. 3000 miles away. Like an incredible prayer. I can't say anything more about it right now, because the sweetness of her effort brings me to tears.

I am incredibly moved by the love and support that we are feeling. A 26.5 mile run one day...a baked ham on another. We are truly blessed.

So...this week...radiation and chemo. And next week my dog and my job.