mac journal
For the few, the proud, the mac lovers out there, let me heartily recommend Dan Schimpf's remarkable freeware, MacJournal. (The software is only free for a short time, though, since smart Dan has just made a deal with Mariner Software to begin marketing his brainchild.) Those with blogs on Blogger will find it exceptional. The program is a nifty little journal program all on its own--no super bells and whistles, but a reliable piece of software. But the latest version adds the fantastic feature of uploading an entry to Blogger (it also allows you to do the same to LiveJournal, but I can't speak to the efficiency of that feature). The upload is seamless and so quick that I'm totally spoiled now. I never want to go through the browser again. First, no more posts lost in cyberspace, since I have it saved to my hard drive before I click the little Blogger button. And second, no more multiple screens to wind my way through. After the initial setup (which is, itself, superquick), all you have to do is type in your Blogger password and click publish. It's simply the best. And it preserves all your formatting, including hyperlinks, bold, italic--you name it. I love it.
poison
My mom had her first chemo treatment today.
The day before my mother said to me, "They're going to put poison in my body tomorrow." Her small, trembling voice shook me.
I replied, "I know, mom. But there's already poison there, and they have to kill it."
She sighed. "I know."
The day started at 8 AM for her and my dad. I arrived around 9:30 and they still had not started the actual chemo, were still waiting for blood work to be approved by the doctor before they could begin. Then the pre-chemo started--benadryl and other helper medications, anti-nausea ones among them, that were administered through the same drip that would eventually deliver the oxymoronic "healing toxins" to my mother's system. Then the chemo started, an unbelievably tedious process as we all watched the drip make its way from the jar (and later, the bag) down the tiny tube and into my mom's frail little arm. Her day did not end until 4:30 PM. The nurse assured us that the first day of it was always the longest. We can only hope.
I talked to my dad later in the evening, who told me that mom had broken down afterwards, crying and feeling hopeless, saying that she knew the chemo wouldn't work, that it was all a wasted effort. She's trying so hard to be positive in public, but I know that despair has to be haunting her. My dad and I talked about our own despair, our longing to help, our powerlessness, and the difficulty of watching someone you love hurt and having no way to stop it.
It feels as though the world has turned upside down in the last few weeks. I know that others have lived through this--both my mother's illness and my family's grief. In spite of all the shit I've lived through (none of which has been fodder for this particular blog), I never cease to be amazed at the capacity for love, anguish, and endurance that we humans possess. I keep reminding myself of that as I push through each and every painful moment of this newest chapter.
healing faith
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in many years. I am not a religious person. I have many reservations about the way that organized religion functions and the true motives of those who "organize" it. But I went, for my mom. Her pastor had called a few days before, and he wanted to perform a "healing" service on her and have the congregation pray. She didn't ask me to go. She knows how I feel about these things. But I went because I knew how much it would mean to her, and I wanted to be among the ones who prayed for my mom's healing.
I have such mixed feelings about the service. The first half hour had me blanking out much of the time, as the pastor said the types of things that have driven me away from religious services in general. He was full of ego, talking about what he and the church could accomplish, if only they made the commitment to do so (translation: put more money in the collection plate). He condemned other faiths, Muslims specifically, Catholics obliquely, and even judged those who had left his church to attend another. He read from emails he had received, people claiming that they felt the power of God in him, and that he had and would continue to change, even save, lives. Something about it was eerily reminiscent of what I've heard of the antichrist. But maybe that's just me.
Then he lapsed into his message, one that I've heard expressed secularly many times--we get what we expect/ask for. If we are content with unhappiness, it's all we'll have. Simplistic, but I agree with the fundamentals that you have to welcome change and demand more of yourself and the world in order to stand a chance of getting it. He employed some humor, a little song, and so that part was a fairly easy pill to swallow.
Then came the altar call (after, of course, the collection plate). My mom and sister went forward, while I stayed in the pew with my dad and hubby, all three of us skeptics, but skeptics who desperately love my mom. The pastor called my mother forward, laid his healing hands on her, and my dad and I wept. We held each other and I felt my dad's body shake with grief. I have never seen or heard my dad cry like this--only a few tears here and there over my lifetime, a watering up, but never like this. And I know that as we wept we were both thinking the same thing--how much we wished the pastor's ego were warranted, how much we wanted this "healing" to work, and how little faith we had that it actually would. And then I wondered if my very lack of faith might keep it from working, if somehow our skepticism might be responsible for the lack of healing. And so we cried.
I know that logically healing is possible--through medicine, and through my mother's own positive attitude. I know that the real value of yesterday's service is that it gave my mother something to have faith in, and that we, as a family, supported her faith by being there. But oh, how I wish I could believe in the power of those hands that touched my mother's back, that I felt some truth in the booming claim, "Healed!"
half full
I need to be positive. I need to practice positive thinking. My mom will get well. She will fight this and she will win. I have to believe that. The maudlin part of me, the part that's scared, terrified in fact, wants to dispute these claims but I can't listen. I have to focus on the good. I have to believe that my mom has a fighting chance.
Tomorrow we go to the oncologist. My sister is driving me a bit crazy with all her internet research. I used to be that one, the one who looked everything up and explained it to the rest of the family. But I don't want to see all that right now. The information and misinformation the internet provides will only make me more than a little crazy, I feel sure. I'm going with mom and dad to the oncologist tomorrow. I'm taking a notepad and I'm going to try to remain stoic through the whole thing as hubby suggests. But, as I confessed to him, that doesn't necessarily mean I won't leak a tear or two. But that won't keep me from paying attention, taking good notes, and asking a lot of questions. My sister kept telling me we needed a vocabulary with which to speak to the doctors so that we would understand what they were saying. Fuck that. I will make them stop and explain it to me as we go. I'll get my "vocabulary" on the fly. But I will not spin my wheels doing internet research that gives me the illusion of power and control when in fact, we have none. We will go to experts, probably more than one, and we will listen to what they have to say. And we will educate ourselves along the way. But we will not panic.
We need to buy a tree today, to decorate for Christmas. Have I ever felt less like celebrating?
now we know
It's lymphoma. And a spinal tumor.
I've cried so much that I now have a dull headache. I''m drinking my second cup of coffee with Bailey's, so I guess I'll let the caffeine and the alcohol battle it out. I don't know what to write, but I'm trying to make some sense of this, keep myself busy, etc., etc.
I keep thinking of all the times over the last six months that I wondered how bad my mom really felt. She's always had a flair for drama and I couldn't help wondering if her pain was really as bad as she said. But then last week, on Thanksgiving, I got so worried looking at her. I suddenly knew that something was really wrong. I looked at the picture on the refrigerator, taken last year on my birthday, when she was her happy, energetic self, and I looked at the frail woman in my living room who looked more like my 80 year old grandmother than my mom. I feel so guilty for ever doubting her pain; I have the cold comfort of never having expressed those doubts aloud. Today, though, my mother admitted to me that at least knowing relieved her own anxieties that the pain might be psychosomatic.
I feel powerless. Mom admitted to me this afternoon that what she wanted most was for her own mother to wrap her arms around her and tell her it was all going to be alright. But she can't let Granny know how serious all of this is, for fear of what it would do to her health. So, even that comfort is denied her.
And me. Selfishly, I envision the rest of my life without her steadfast presence, and once again, I dissolve into tears. I know it's early yet, there's treatment, there's hope, we don't know everything, etc. But right now, I'm having trouble getting to that place. Right now, all I can do is ache, and wish that I had been a better daughter all of these years, knowing that it's too late to change that too, and so once again, I'm powerless.
I've started questioning lately what I'm really accomplishing in this life. What would be my legacy? What have I done to make the world a better place? Is there anyone whose life has truly been enriched by me? Have I ever really performed a random act of kindness? Have I ever done anything truly brave or courageous? I know my mom has. There are so many whose lives she has touched, more kindnesses than I could ever hope to record. And now, once again, she is being asked to demonstrate her bravery and courage. I only hope the rest of us, those who love her, manage to follow her example.
scared
My mom is sick. She has been for the last six months and no one seems to know quite what is wrong with her. She's lost 20 pounds, which is at least 10 pounds too many, and she's in pain much of the time. At first they thought it was fibromyalgia, but now they think it must be something else. Yesterday she had an MRI, which revealed the same oddity that an x-ray earlier in the week revealed: she has these odd spots (she says they look like raindrops, or bubbles) all over her back in both the MRI and x-ray. The doctors haven't seen anything like it and don't have a clue as to what the spots are.
I'm scared. My mom's only 61 years old. I can't say anything else. I'm just scared.
the chicken or the egg?
We're reading Romeo and Juliet and occasionally watching parts of the Zefferelli film version in my ninth grade lit classes. So I'm explaining the differences between the movie and the play and one of my students raises his hand to ask:
"So which one is right, the movie or the play?"
I stop, manage not to laugh, and respond, "Well, which one do you think came first?"
Horror of horrors, he hesitated.
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