Halleluja -- George Frideric Handel

In the nineties we had a snow and ice storm, and lost power at our house. When it finally came back on Mom sang the Halleluja chorus, and it went off again. It came back on, and once again, Mom sang, and off the power went again. This happened like three times before power was restored, and we were begging Mom not to sing it any more.

Well, we have weathered our own ice storm this week, bringing back that fond memory. But we didn't lose power, thank God, unlike a lot of unfortunate people out there. I stayed up half the night worrying if I'd have to prepare the fireplace for a warming fire when the ice came.

Jamie helped a homeless couple find some shelter the other day. he even bought them a few provisions before they went on their way, grateful that someone was willing to help, event if it was only a little bit.

Yesterday, as I was leaving the grocery store I saw a guy who needed a jump, so I gestured to him and pulled my car around to help. He attached the jumper cables, but only a dismal click sounded when he turned the key. His friend pulled in about that time and said that they would have to get a new battery, he guessed. I left the poor guy in the hands of his friend and said goodbye and good luck.

I tried helping. I really did. But it seems like I can't even help people effectively! Jamie was proud of me though, smiling and telling me I did the right thing.

I like to think that Mom would approve,  even though I didn't fix the problem, but I tried.

Dad said he had some refugees from the storm. The circumstances were quite different but the anecdote reminded me of my childhood. One night  a family was stranded on our road in a storm. Mom and Dad passed around warm dry towels and later helped them get on their way. I was young and don't remember all the details, but I remember being moved by that simple kindness.

After the 4+ inches of snow last weekend our neighbor got a car stuck in the edge of or yard. I tried helping, but only managed to sling mud all over my neighbor as she tried to push. It was comical really, two twenty-something women trying feebly to move a snowed-in SUV. But as soon as Jamie made it home from work, he rocked it til it came unstuck. Just like that.

Another guy slid into our yard on Monday. I peeked out of the gate to see. He was alone in his 96 Honda Civic, and stuck at the corner edge of the yard. Luckily he maneuvered around the yard and road enough to get out. But I had a brief moment where I thought I'd help him what little I could if he got stuck.

I look around and see my friends helping others too, and feel content in my place here. I may not be able  to fix everything, but I can always try to help.

"Nutshell" --Alice In Chains

As everyone knows, I can’t tell a short story to save my life; however, I am going to try. I mentioned before that Jamie went to the hospital. Turns out that he wasn’t the only one; the new baby got sick and went to the hospital for tests and treatment. I don’t know why it is that every time it rains it floods...


After Mom's experience and subsequent death, I freaked the fuck out when I started bleeding and hurting for seemingly no reason. [See earlier blog entry on Endometrial Cancer]. After a Saturday morning trip to the ER, during which they decided that my troubles must be caused by my kidney stones, and a Monday morning visit with my urologist, I had had (up to this point) lab work, an x-ray and a CT. When I received my test results, I was troubled. Yes, I did have some small kidney stones in both kidneys, and a UTI, but no, it wasn’t’ anything serious. Okay, that’s all good and everything, glad it’s nothing serious—but why the FUCK am I still in excruciating pain? Using a telephone directory with ads compiled by my daughter’s school, I found the number for a practice called Urogynecology Specialists. I called after hours and begged to get in. I was fortunate to get in the next day. After more tests, the specialists determined that I have ovarian cysts. Nothing that would require surgery at this time. But you know what? I think I would rather not have all that shit in there if it’s going to be that much trouble. I mean, I’m done. No more babies.

My best friend in the world and sister called me before Thanksgiving to tell me that her latest doctor had determined that she, indeed, has cervical cancer. They are going to do a procedure to remove the cancer cells. If that does not solve the problem, then they will perform a hysterectomy. If the doctors my mother had first visited had decided to any basic tests, like a CT, would she be here today? They had planned on doing a hysterectomy, but by the time they found it, the cancer had spread. The point is, if you’re hurting, truly hurting—in any way—then something is wrong and you need to talk to a professional person regarding your issues.

I know now why I hurt. I can tell one hurt from another, and know why it is the way that it is. I don’t have to like the pain, but I can deal with it. I know that it is not something life-threatening, so I can live with that. But I won’t stop going to the doctor to have regular—or more than regular—check ups. It is highly beneficial to listen to your body and recognize what is going on.

Okay, that’s it. In the biggest nutshell you’ve ever encountered.

A side note: Everyone should have the ability to go to the doctor. Please remember that the ER cannot turn you away if you truly need emergency medical attention. It’s the law.

"Times Like These" -- Seven Mary Three

Swimming underneath the water as far and as fast as you can go before it is time and you must burst through the surface to gulp air into your aching chest—that’s what it’s like. Soul crushing; when am I ever going to feel all right again? I do not wish this feeling on anyone, and yet the one person that I love the most in the entire world has lost those who raised him: his mother, grandmothers, and grandfather. A wise man once told him, “It only hurts when you think about it.”

When I think about it, I see her gasping for breath, eyes open but not looking, her hand in mine but not holding.

“…it only gets to me in times like these
times like these are gettin’ to me…”

At least with Mom it was quick. Not days and days of the life slowly draining away. How can you say they’re in a better place when they were fighting so hard not to leave? Why does the soul outlive the body? Why can’t it be strong enough to save the body? Why can’t will power be enough to keep you alive?

The day before I took Jamie to the ER for chest pains one of his relatives called to tell us that his grandfather was in the hospital. His kidneys weren’t functioning properly. The last time I had seen him, I had waddled my hugely swollen pregnant ass down the hallways of yet another nursing home. It was the latest in a series of moves for him initiated by the aforementioned relative. I sat at his bed side in the sweltering confines of the shared room while Jamie knelt at his side. They had lowered his bed as far down as it would go, placed padding on the floor beside it and clipped an alert cord to his sweatshirt.

Life is…a complex series of events that coalesce to form a single giant test. How much pain, hate, and misunderstanding can you take?

Jamie’s Granddaddy died. I went home so that I could attend class instead of going to the funeral. The baby sitter suddenly became unavailable. Somehow in the aftermath of all that chaos, something good came: a friend. Someone who would watch my girls while I was at school, someone who cared for them as I did; she told me that God puts people in your life for a reason. I can believe that.

Too bad I don’t know why they’re taken out.

"Aenima" -- Tool

So, not too long after I started dreaming again, and having vivid dreams about Mom, I dreamed that I was going to do whatever it took to save Mom. I would go back and take all the science classes that I needed to get into medical school and play mad scientist. It is, of course, no coincidence that during the same time that I had this dream I was reading and discussing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for one of my classes. In my dream I made it; I was a research scientist bringing people back to life. Yes, bringing people back to life. How weird is that? Maybe it isn’t so strange an idea, because she is dead. I would like for her to be alive, even if I have to play Victor Frankenstein to accomplish such a task.

Labor Day weekend Dad told us all, since we would all be in for a cook out, that we needed to clean out the cabinet in the bathroom. We needed to get out or throw away all the stuff that was Mom’s. When the time came to do it we went into the bathroom and I settled onto the cool tile floor in front of the cabinet. I started emptying the contents of the drawers and cabinets. As I did that, we were wondering how we would go about dividing up the things that were there. I had pulled everything out that was hers. The Boy (our brother) suggested that we all just close our eyes and just start grabbing stuff. After some initial discussion as to the various methods of pursuing our morbid task, we finally started going through each item and stating whether we wanted it or not. We took the things that we had individually bought for her. Then, like an auctioneer, I began to select items, describe them and would give the item to the first one with their hand up.

That worked for a little while, but we finally couldn’t decide without having a 5-10 minute discussion of whatever the item in question made us consider discussing. Dad eventually came in and wondered what the hell was taking so long. Then we began dividing things up; the really old lotions went together; the skin care items; the hair care items; the hospital personal hygiene bottles; and the first aid supplies. You get the idea. We did rock, paper, scissors to decide who got each “set.” And even that seemed to require a decision about who won all on its own. We chose a selection of practical items that should stay there—the blow dryer, some lotions, and the first aid supplies.

Some of the items that were in the cabinet were “throw away” items—like the used razors and the lip balm from the hospital—or at least the rest of my siblings seemed to think it would be best to toss them. I, on the other hand—mad scientist that I am, wanted to keep them.

“These probably have the purest DNA samples. I have been thinking about cloning Mom,” I said, holding up selection of used Lady Bics. They stared at me, expressions of ghastly horror on their faces.

"You know, we could always just dig her up and get bone marrow if we need to," my brother interjected.

“No, no. Don’t even go there,” my eldest sister said. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

And just like that the discussion was over. But my mind was still roiling. What would a clone of Mom be like? Would it be like Mom or just look eerily similar to her and act like a crazy monster? This reminds me of two movies: Godsend and The Island. I wonder what it would be like to raise my own mother from infancy. Surely that would be all kinds of weird. Yeah, all kinds of weird.

Nothing makes you more aware that someone is really gone until you’re going through their things. Someone once remarked to me that they didn’t think that they had known Mom as well as they thought. I often wonder what I didn’t know—what was I missing. I like to think that I know a lot of the things that Mom knew. She taught me how to sew—by hand and machine, make apple stack cake and pancakes (on a good day mine taste almost like Mom’s), and just about everything else there is to learn. But what about everything else? What about all the things that I didn't get to ask her about. I wasn't prepared for all this. What will I ever know that she wanted me to know. That's what she was asking us in the hospital, I know that now. But how can you encompass a lifetime of motherly advice in a single conversation, let alone be expected to come up with something to say when asked, "Is there anything you want to know?"

We also went over to the grave yard that weekend. Everybody went. We took turns sitting on her stone bench and told Dad how great the name marker looked on it. It did look good. It makes a nice place to sit and hang out with our dead Mom.

I am still left pondering the various issues related to cloning. It would be different if we could pop some DNA in a nifty machine and out would pop your dead relative like the Jetsons made dinner. It sounds nice, in theory, but as we all know, nothing is ever as simple in application as it is in theory.
Medical science is both amazing and horrific. Will it solve our problems or create more dilemmas? Do some research in past, current, and future medical experiments; you will discover incredible details the likes of which you never conceived.

“Some say the end is near
Some say we’ll see Armageddon soon
Certainly hope we will
Sure could use a vacation from this
Bull shit three ring circus side show…

Some say a comet would fall from the sky
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves
Followed by fault lines that cannot sit still
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits…

Mom’s gonna fix it all soon
Mom’s comin’ ‘round to put it back the way it ought to be…”

Zombie Mom, Clone Mom, what's next Ghost Mom?

Dual Blog Post: "Peace, Love, and Understanding" - A Perfect Circle

So this week was reader response week. I’m sure you’d like to hear all about that. But you’re not going to—at least not here. I have lots of hand-written notes. But all I can do right now is try to get the rant over with…In the spectacular words of Mr. Bean, “Brace yourself.”

This week we were also to turn in our bibliography assignment. Well, let me just tell you, I learned things that cannot be unlearned or unread. Who ever thought that researching galvanism would lead to such disturbing revelations? I knew a little about electro-shock therapy, and that it was used to “treat” mental patients back in the day. But I was not aware that when galvanism was first introduced in the scientific and medical communities, applications to various body parts for treatments from everything from poor eyesight to hemorrhaged uterus to resuscitation after drowning (which, by the way, you are not supposed to submerge someone in a warm bath after you shock them back to life when you have fished them out of a river after being under water for approximately 20 minutes—they will die; just a little something that I learned during my research). I guess part of the reason that I had a slow start in my bibliographical assignment was that when I began to search for papers that related galvanism to Shelley’s Frankenstein the searches did not yield as many results as I’d hoped. Upon refining my searches within the databases, taking a broader approach, I obtained many reports from medical journals that discussed the matters that I previously mentioned both here and also in the “Notes as I read” section.

Saturday I invited my family over for a cook out. My sister said, “I’m glad we came over to watch you play on your computer!”

“I’m not playing, I’m doing homework,” I said. I got up from my desk, though they should have been used to me doing homework while hanging out with them. When we were all together on Labor Day weekend I was doing the same thing—no complaints then (or at least none that I remember).

I spent every spare minute this weekend working diligently on my bibliography, all the while fending Addison off while she climbed up my chair and onto my back repeatedly. Prying a two year old off of you every five minutes while they think that it’s a game is not conducive to research and writing. So, to make things a little easier on myself (ha!), I waited until all the children were asleep to really buckle down and continue my research.
By Monday morning I was running out of sources. I tried refining my search, being both broad and specific and trying different databases. I didn’t (and still don’t) know if I was using the wrong approach in my research methods. Should I have done things differently? I don’t know. I had about twenty sources so far, it was too late to turn back. What was I to do? Tuesday afternoon I had to finish up a report for another class that, thank goodness, was mostly done except for some editing. For most of the morning on Tuesday I researched sources for my bibliography, finished editing my report for Tuesday night’s class, and upon my return from class that evening ended up in the ER….[Here is where ENG 601: The Blog's post ends]

Now, before you get too excited, it wasn’t me or the children. It was only Jamie, my husband, having continuous chest pain and shortness of breath. After about half an hour of pleading and yelling I convinced him to let me drive him to the hospital. Which was a bad idea, but if I wasn’t afraid that he was having a heart attack I would have made him drive his ass to the hospital himself. But I dragged us all to the hospital sans dinner and baby wipes—which I might have survived without except that as soon as Arabella had her bottle she pooped. Yay. Instead of returning to the hospital to wait and see the results of Jamie’s EKG and chest x-ray I took the girls home. By the time we arrived they were all asleep. After an hour spent getting the baby back to sleep after changing her and eating some dinner myself, I called the hospital. He was still in the waiting room. Sometime after 1 AM I dozed off. When I woke up I was drenched in sweat and the light on the phone was flashing. Jamie had called about 2:30. It was almost 3. I called the hospital.

“Your husband was discharged already,” the lady who answered the phone had hit a few keys and explained matter-of-factly before hanging up.

Hmm…apparently not a heart attack. He arrived home via one of our good friends just as I had loaded all the girls back into the car and was backing out of the driveway. The paperwork he showed me said, “Diagnosis: chest pain.” The recommendations were to see a specialist (they suspected pleurisy), quit smoking, and take aleve for the pain. With Jamie safely at home—and not suffering a heart attack, I spent a little while working on my bibliography research before going to bed.

Wednesday was spent working on my homework and fending off Addison, once again, and making a trip to an appointment. Let me just say that getting to an appointment lately has consisted of a lot of rescheduling and making arrangements with kind family and friends for child care. Going anywhere that I can’t take all the children means that I have to leave at least an hour early to factor in drive time to drop the kids off with my oh-so-generous sister-in-law, get to an appointment (or class) and account for the drive time back. Needless to say, it takes me several hours to do anything that requires having someone else take care of the kids. Well, actually, it takes a while to do anything that involves me dragging all three girls along with me, too. At bed time Addison would not lay down by herself, insisting that I had to lay down with her. I fell asleep almost immediately and when Arabella woke up hungry at 12 and 3 AM I got back up. At 3 I stayed up until about five trying frantically to finish my bibliography assignment. I was back up at 7 for another feeding and to get Anna-Lee up for school.

I ran out of steam, coffee, and printer ink. Today was not the greatest day. It wasn’t the worst day of my life, but it could have been better. Everyone and their dog was on 265 this afternoon and I was running late. By the time I dropped the girls off I had about ten minutes to make it down to campus. I was late for class, had to pee (as always), and was slick with sweat by the time I stepped inside the ______ building. It is too hot. It’s officially fall and it’s way too fucking hot.

Today wasn’t a good day. This hasn’t been the best of years for me. I feel like I am being pushed to my absolute limits. That’s fine. It’s going to be OK. Because, cosmos man, I can take whatever it is that you dish out. What other choice do I have?

"Moonlight Sonata"--Beethoven

8 17 2010
My love for music was transferred to my daughter, not surprisingly, and she is napping now to classical music. But any music is enjoyable for her, I suppose. She likes it when we listen to the radio, or when I sing along to my favorite CDs. The classical CD I put on for her now begins with Moonlight Sonata, and for some reason it reminded me of the strange dreams I have been having the past few nights. That, and Interview with the Vampire. Either way, for me it creates a haunting feeling that is both disturbing and beautiful.


In my dreams Mom is always alive. It is as if, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the truths that we hold to be our reality had all been shattered and death did not separate us. In the first dream she was seated on a beautiful turquoise sofa, wearing a shirt of a similar shade. She told me that she loved me more than anything in the whole world. I hugged her and she was real and solid and the fabric of the shirt on my face felt like the turquoise sweatshirt that she had once given me. But I knew these things had to be impossible, and yet, seated before me was my mother, telling me that she loved me. And I screamed. I was terrified suddenly, for reasons not apparent to my dream self. All around us was mist, like my imagination of the heavens, fluffy clouds and things appearing seemingly out of nothingness. Rather than feeling blissful, thankful, or hopeful at seeing my mother, hugging her, and hearing her voice, I felt only terror. Now I don’t know a lot about dream interpretation, but maybe I was afraid that she was still dead and that I was dead too, coming to heaven to finally see her again. That was what terrified me.

Last night my dreams were confusing. First I dreamed that we were at home—at my parent’s house, and that all my clothes were spread out on the sofa bed in the living room and I was flitting around in only my underwear, which was fine until someone who wasn’t family came in suddenly. So I ended up digging for my favorite pair of jeans and a shirt, any shirt, while modestly covering my breasts with one arm. And then the scene changed, we were having dinner—Thanksgiving or some other such holiday in which lots of relatives are present—at what appeared to be an apartment, rented by one sibling or another. The table was low and narrow, I remarked that the place made me feel like a giant (and a 5’2”, that’s saying something), but there seemed to be enough room for everyone. We were circling the kitchen, which was sunny and yellow, and my aunts were there. We were missing my mother, but she was there, too. A line had formed along the counter and we filled our plates. And suddenly Mom was saying something, something I didn’t like or appreciate and I was arguing with her. I was telling her that they would think I was crazy. And they did. Everyone had stopped to look at me from their seats at the table, and I was standing, plate in hand, arguing with my dead mother, whom they could not see or hear. She wanted me to tell them something, and the refusal that had started the argument had revealed my greatest fear. That they would think I was crazy for seeing and talking to my dead mother.

When that terrifying scene ended as suddenly as it had begun I was whisked away to some beach. It was a lake rather than an ocean, and though the beach was sand, it was a muddy dirty sort of sandy substance that in no way resembled the white sand beaches of my childhood vacations. And Mom was gone again. No feeling of her, no apprehension of her ghostly presence. But things were going very wrong. The water was rising, there was some sort of flood and Hugh Laurie, as House, was floating face down in the water. I was close, and helped some men fish him out, only to be completely submerged in a never before televised scene of House. His colleagues were arguing about his brushes with death, whether they should be concerned with losing him, especially after this latest near drowning incident. From behind his desk, one hand clutching his cane as he was about to rise, he said, “Don’t worry about it, this is only season three. If I die now, there won’t be another season. We all know how this ends.”

I exploded into awareness from this last bizarre dreamscape and tried to shake off the feeling of dread that came with seeing and hugging my mother in the turquoise sweatshirt. I have often wondered what happens to people when they die. Is it nothingness, do you get a chance to hang around and haunt people or places, or is there really a heaven and hell? Now more than ever I would like to know the answer to these questions, and yet, finding out the answers for myself terrifies me. I want my mother back. I want her to be here with me. I don’t want her to be dead. I don’t want to die.

"With Or Without You"--U2

I've been trying the best I can. It's hard to live your life without you mother. If Mom were here she'd tell me exactly what to do, or what not to do. Now that she's gone, I feel unsure about everything. I have to try to maintain some sort of normalcy for my children while I grieve.They seem to be better at this than I am. That's why I'm telling you all this. Some if it is so much like ripping off a ginormous bandage and letting the wound get some air. It still hurts like hell, but I'm not sure I want everyone looking at it. And yet I can't hold it all in.

When I came back from the hospital that dreadful Wednesday evening, announcing to Anna that we were going to Dad's she looked up at me from where she was pulling on her shoes in the floor and said, "Is GG okay?"

"No, baby, she's not okay," I tried not to sob, somehow managed to choke back the tears, "GG died."

She didn't say anything. She thudded down the stairs and out onto my cousin's front porch where my husband, Jamie, and Addison were hanging out.

"What was I supposed to say? Was that right?" I looked through my tears at my cousin, and she hugged me, reassured me that she'd be okay. She said kids are resilient, that they handle things better than we do sometimes. They know they're supposed to react with sadness, but they don't get extremely upset like adults can.

"I know you're tired. You all are welcome to stay here again tonight," she said. She was so sweet, everything she had done, taking care of my kids, making us dinner. It was hard to turn her down.

"Everybody's going back to Dad's. I just want to go home, so we'll all be together," I said, trying to regain my composure. She agreed that it would be good to be together, but insisted on sending food with us.

"Mom told me the bad news," Anna-Lee said to Jamie when she stepped outside. He explained to her, with Addison seated on the steps beside her, that GG was in heaven with their other grandmothers and that meant there was one more angel in heaven watching over us. Children are amazing, but it is hard to judge how much they comprehend at two years old. Anna-Lee had hopped up and run to play with her cousin before we left--as if that bit of melancholy conversation was enough.

"My GG. My GG," Addison said sadly; she understood more than we gave her credit for. I'm glad I wasn't there to hear that, because I don't think that I could have kept from sobbing uncontrollably.

When we arrived home, at my parents' house, it was eerie. Addison never asked where GG was. Didn't go running through the house looking for her, like she had so often done. She knew. I wouldn't have been able to explain it if she had asked. I just didn't say anything at all to Addison about it. I was glad that she didn't ask then, but I knew the time would come.

Dad told Addison that GG is in heaven--at the visitation she had been staring at Mom in her coffin and Dad told her that that was just GG's body and that she was in heaven. In the car on the way back to the Ville, Addison told Anna-Lee, "GG's in heaven. It's okay, Sissy. GG's in heaven."

May 27, 2010

I was fixing Addison some oatmeal when, from her perch on her high chair, she said, with the biggest smile on her face, “GG died.”

She repeated it several times. And, each time fighting back my tears, I said, “I know.”

I wondered if she was associating the right emotion with this statement. The giant smile on her face told me no.

“Doesn’t it make you sad that GG is gone? It makes me sad. You know that’s what happens when someone dies—you don’t get to see them anymore?” I told her. Was that the right thing to say? Was it right that I told her the crushing truth? Mom would know.

She nodded her head, her smile was gone.

“Sissy, Sissy. Where’s Sissy?” she asked.

“She’s at school.”

“Daddy, Daddy. Where’s Daddy?” she said, as if she were making sure that they weren’t dead and gone as well.

"He went to the store, he'll be back in a few minutes."

“Where’s Mommy?”

“I’m right here, baby,” I discreetly wiped my tears away before turning to her. I tried to give her a reassuring smile as I sat her bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of her.

“Feed me, Mommy,” and I did, as if she were still a baby.

“Do you miss your GG?” I asked. She nodded in response.

 “Me too.”

“You too?” she queried.

“Me too.”

Duelly Titled and Doubly Depressed: "Bad Day”—Fuel & “Not For You”—Pearl Jam

(and yes, I meant duel, not dual)
6 18 10
After I went to my doctor appointment today, I went to Kroger to get a few things. I had been thinking, for a couple of weeks now, that since I had taken the plunge about two months ago and gotten my hair highlighted that I might just go back dark, since my dark roots were growing out and my grays were showing again. So I took a detour through the hair care aisle and stopped in front of the hair dye. I was contemplating between medium brown and dark brown when a lady who worked there, who happened to be stocking the shelves behind and to the left of me said, “Oh, don’t put any of that on your hair. It looks good. It looks like you just got it highlighted.”


Yeah, like eight weeks ago. I glanced at her as she was speaking and then looked  back at the hair dye; if looks could kill, she would certainly be dead, or at least mortally wounded. I didn’t say a word. I was raw today, having just told my doctor that Mom had died and that I wanted to know what my risk factors were for the same cancer. I had cried today, and I don’t cry that often. I was thinking about saying something to the stock lady, but my lack of response seemed best. Hair dye was on sale, $3.25, dark brown—I think that’s what I grabbed before I turned my back and walked away, wanting to put as much distance between myself and nosy lady as possible.

As I walked away I realized that I was just angry. How dare she? Who are you, my mother? No—my father? He was always the one who said we shouldn’t dye our hair. But still. As I debated which pack of bologna to buy, the guy stocking the meat spoke to me. I think he said something like, “How are you today?” I don’t know. I don’t think I spoke to him, I might have muttered, “Fine.” Or something otherwise dismissive. I just remember thinking, why do people insist on speaking to me today? Do I not have my “get the fuck away from me” face on today? Apparently not.

Why is it that some days are worse than others? On Monday the plumbers came and fixed my plumbing problem. So, Monday afternoon I used my kitchen sink and dishwasher for the first time in three weeks. And I felt better. For a while...

So my Mom died. And then my kitchen sink got clogged. The people who came out to fix it said that the pipe wasn’t clogged, it was broken all to shit, under the concrete slab. And then, not too long after that, I got up in the middle of the night to pee, and instead of hunting down a new bar of soap, I opted to get the one out of the shower to wash my hands. But, alas, it had fallen from its soap holder onto the floor of the shower. I stepped one foot in, propped one hand on the wall to ensure that my pregnant ass wouldn’t slip and fall, and reached down to grab the soap. As I stood up I guess I put more pressure on my left hand and it went through the wall. Through the wall. Oh yes. So apparently the old people who lived in the house before us couldn’t be bothered with regrouting or resealing the tile, oh no. And the people who fixed it up and sold it to us couldn’t be bothered with warning us that there was a grout problem. That’s okay. I had spotted it right away. I even remarked that the bathrooms would eventually need to be retiled. But I didn’t plan on doing it now. I mean, I have a new baby on the way. I have a lot of shit going on right now. So is this some sort of joke? I mean, okay, wonderful movie plot. Funny, funny. Cosmos Man, you’re a funny guy, not particularly bright, but funny nonetheless.

So now, here I am, 33 weeks and 4 days pregnant, swollen beyond any normal shoe size (or ring size for that matter), depressed, moody, bitchy, and busy. Busy trying to keep ahead of the laundry and dishes. Busy trying to rearrange my house to accommodate new baby and new plumbing. Busy trying to keep the toys from tripping me in the middle of the night. I don’t need anymore drama than I’ve already got. And you, yeah you, inconsiderate stock lady at Kroger, if I wanted your opinion I’d give it to you.

So, all of this shit. This is not for you. This is for me. This is for Beth, who can’t get a break from the monotony of life. Beth who can’t call her mother in the middle of a freak out anymore. This, this is not for you.

"I Like Dirt"-- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Though Mom always had a knack for saying the right thing, she also had the unfortunate gift of saying exactly what she thought about something when she thought it. I remember coming home from the Ville with the hubby and the kid and sitting out on the deck with Mom and Dad. Since my paternal grandparents live just up the road from them, they often walk down to catch up on the happenings of the day. On one particular visit, Mom and Dad had just had a piece in the field below their lawn plowed for a vegetable garden. Grandpa and Dad were going to walk down there to look at.

“Aren’t you going to walk down here to look at this garden, Reba?” Grandpa said, pausing in the driveway to look up at her where she was seated on the deck.

“Well, I reckon I’ve seen dirt before,” she spat the words angrily, out of the blue. The look on his face was priceless. His eyebrows flew up and he just looked like he was thinking, all right, then. And he turned and walked away. I didn’t know whether laughing my ass off would put me in the line of fire, but I couldn’t help it. Luckily she thought it was funny too. Dad said it had just been one of those days, no one could say the right thing--or anything for that matter.

On Memorial Day, Dad, my brother and sister, and I went to the graveyard. They had added dirt to her grave to level it off. I sat on the grass at the edge of the dirt. It was hot. They stood on the opposite side of the grave.

Dad looked down at the grave, kicking a little at the dirt that was there, “Well, I reckon you’ve seen dirt before.”

After a silent moment, “Did I tell you we’ve got the okay on the bench? He [the groundskeeper] said that he didn’t mind as long as he could weed eat around it.”

The bench was going to be made from one of the sandstone rectangles that Grandpa Tolman had cut out of the side of a mountain in Eastern Kentucky. Several years back, the family had carried the stones out of the woods from the fireplace of the old homestead and hauled them back to our current home town. Beside the driveway at Mom and Dad’s house is what I call the miniature Stonehenge. Made from one of the mantle stones as the seat and two smaller stones as the legs of the bench; Mom’s will be like that, with a bronze plaque.

At the funeral we had stayed while they lowered the casket and covered the vault with its cement slab of a lid. My oldest sister took a shovel full of dirt and threw it in, and the next dug in her high heels and did the same. Some people thought we were weird for staying so long. But, as Dad said, if we were going to do it, we were going to see it through to the very end. The rain was drizzling down, and there we were, watching them put her in the ground. My sister had summoned the rain, and how fitting it was that the funeral was drenched in rain as we shed our tears.

On the way out of the cemetery Dad asked us what we thought about for the headstone. My sister said that she wanted a bench so that there would be someplace to sit when we came to visit her at the cemetery. We all thought that that was a good idea. And so it will be.

In Berea, Kentucky, where Grandma Roark, my great grandmother, is buried, is another one of those stones, set flush with the ground, adorned with a bronze plaque as well. I guess as long as there are Roarks around to do it, that’s the way it will be done.

Even now it doesn’t seem real to me. I spoke at the funeral. I said a few lines, then recited her favorite poem, "The Children’s Hour" by William Wadsworth Longfellow. For Christmas our sister had made us all framed copies of the poem. I had remarked how, after spending hours, then days reminiscing, trying to decide on a memory to share with everyone, one thing that we did agree on was that everyone knew that Mom loved to read. As children we would read together, and she would impress us by reciting passages and poems. I was okay until I began reading the poem. I ignored everything that I had learned in public speaking—I didn’t make much eye contact, I didn’t project (but thanks to the microphone, that wasn’t a problem), but I did the best that I could. When I was about half way through the second stanza I was crying so much, I apologized, and then my Uncle came up and encouraged me to take my time. All I could think was to keep on going, finish the poem so everyone could hear its beautiful and heart breaking lines.

At some point, every day, I think about calling Mom. I’ve never actually picked up the phone to do it. But the feeling is always there. Even when I moved away all I had to do was pick up the phone. And whether the words she spoke worked to comfort me or to piss me off, she was always right. I guess that’s why I got mad when I did, because I hate being wrong. Mom was the best at everything that involved life. She always knew the right thing to do. Now I can only hope that enough of her strong spirit rubbed off on me so that I can be a good mother, a good wife, a great person--like her.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"--The Rolling Stones

It was like living in some warped confluence of Sally Field movies, in which I alternately became mother in Steel Magnolias and daughter in Two Weeks. Dad was there though. The nurses had called out to the ICU waiting room to tell them that it was getting close, and he came. Early that Wednesday morning she had opened her eyes, but then later she would raise her eyebrows as if she wanted to open her eyes, but couldn’t summon the strength. All I can say is that at least it wasn’t weeks and weeks of downhill and suffering before those final days. I don’t know if I could have borne it if it had been any other way. If it had been any other way I wish that it had been exactly the opposite of how it was. I wish that she had been sent to the ICU for massive antibiotics that cured the infection and that we had had many more years together. I wish that she could be here with me when this new baby is born. I always say the same thing, my trademark whine, it’s not fair. It’s really not fair. But then again, as Dad always said when we whined the trademark whine as children, “Life’s not fair.” Then he would launch into the Stones’ “You can’t always get what you want.” Too bad.

On May 12, 2010, shortly before six PM, my Mother died. I wish I could be like Sally Field and say that, "it was the most precious moment of my life." But that's a movie line, not life. It was the most terrible moment of my life. My sister hugged me hard and said, "You're supposed to say 'Mom.'"

"What?"

"You're supposed to say 'Mom', remember?"

I couldn't. Mom had always said that if she died, all I would have to do is yell for her and she'd get right up and see what I needed. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Even if it had worked, I don't think zombie Mom would be nearly as much fun as alive Mom.

"Just Breathe"--Pearl Jam

The Saturday preceeding Mother's Day, Mom looked really good. She felt much better, too. She was able to have conversations with everyone, though she did need to nap periodically. I had taken the girls to see her, and she had so many visitors that the waiting room in the cancer center was full. My cousin was going to come over to the hospital and take the girls to her house. I didn’t really think that Addison would go, but Anna-Lee was thrilled to be doing something other than running about in the hospital all day. Mom had been glad to see them, and though they didn’t want to spend every minute at her bedside, it was good for them to see her.

Later that evening, my sisters, Addison, and I made a trip to the mall to get Mom some Mother’s day pajamas. Macy’s was a bust, so we fought our way through the crowds to JC Penney, where we found pajamas for her. Addison pushed her stroller around everywhere much to the chagrin of the people who crowded the aisles. (That's the main reason I don’t make trips to the mall). As we stood in line to check out, Addison sang the "Today is a Good Day" song she had learned at day care and danced, watching her reflection in some mirrors.

I had told Mom, when it was just me and her, that I was thinking of writing a memoir about all this. She thought that that was a good idea.

“You know I’ve been keeping a journal, and then there’s the captain’s log. You could use those if you’d like,” she offered, “I think it would be good for you to write about this.”

On Sunday my husband and the girls picked yellow roses from my rose garden to take to her for Mother’s day. The expense of travelling back and forth to Lexington had put a strain on our gift budget, but I decided to get Mom a deck of cards. I figured she might like to play solitaire or a hand of rummy with someone. The sibs and I went into her room to see her—just us, to give her the presents and to talk.

She wanted to know if we were all right with everything, if there was anything we wanted to talk about.

“No, Mom, I’m not all right,” I said, when she asked me specifically.

I think that we all knew that she was going to die. We knew that there wasn’t much left that could be done; prolonging her life was their only option now. There wouldn’t be a turnaround; they could only buy her time. We thought weeks, months. I don’t know what we thought.

“You know, I’ve already been through all this shit before. And I really don’t want to do it again,” you’d think that the past would have prepared me for all this. But nothing can prepare you for the death of a parent.

The worst thing about it is that I can’t remember everything that was said. I can’t remember every minute of those last good days with her.

All I could think of then, and all that I can think of now is, how do I live life without my Mother? How can I have this baby without her there? The worst of it all is that my children love her so much. When Addison cried, she cried for her GG. Anna-Lee would pick up the phone and call her, sometimes to tell her how mean I was when she was in time out, or sometimes to ask her for something that I couldn’t or wouldn’t get for her. Mom had taken care of them so much. Finals weeks, weeks in the summer time; any time she could and I needed a break. Her goal was to get better and take care of this new baby while I was in school this fall.

My husband had to work Sunday night. We had to go. But I promised Mom that I would try to be back later in the week.

But they called me and said that the doctor wanted us all to be there when she made her rounds between 4 and 6 on Tuesday. I packed our bags, picked up Anna-Lee from school, and we headed to the hospital.

My cousin came to the hospital and took the girls home with her. I thanked her profusely, but, like she said, that's what family is for. My husband was going to work that night, and as much as I wanted him to be there with me, to have him take the girls home, he needed to work. When his mother was sick my Mom told him that no matter how hard it was, no matter how the others made him feel about it, he had a family to take care of. Even when he wouldn't talk to me, he would listen to Mom.

The doctor said that she had most likely gotten some kind of infection, possibly from draining the fluid off of her belly. There wasn't much that could be done now. The doctor leaned very near Mom's face and spoke to her, and when she awoke, she told her that the cancer had just spread everywhere. She had fought a good fight, but the cancer was winning. The infection was what was killing her now, that they could either do nothing, or send her over to ICU to treat the infection with antibiotics. Did she want them to treat her for the infection?

"I think it's our only shot," Mom said, before she closed her eyes again.

"I Would for You"--Jane's Addiction

I was logging in to Facebook, just to see if anyone had sent me a message, or if anything interesting had happened with the fam damily, when I saw my sister's post. It said that Mom was going to the hospital, and everyone please pray for her. I immediately responded “WTF is going on, call me or write me or something.” So I called and talked to  my Aunt who was at the house with Mom. She was in a lot of pain, and hadn’t been able to have a bowel movement. The doctor wanted her to come to the Markey Cancer Center, but didn’t want her to drive all the way there to just wait for a bed, so they were waiting for the doctor to call back when there was a bed available.

I didn’t get to the hospital until Friday. I had been getting updates from Dad and the sibs. But when I arrived everyone was pissed. Except Dad, he didn't appear to be angry. But the others had had plenty of time to dwell on the fact that her urine output had decreased and that the size of her abdomen had increased. They thought that it must be urine leaking into her abdomen.

Mom was still Mom, of course. But she was in and out, having been given a lot of pain medication. The combination of not being able to have a BM and also having fluid filling her abdomen was excruciatingly painful. When I came in, I sat and talked for a while with my sisters and brother, we laughed quite a bit, cried some.

I think it was the laughter that woke her up, “What’s so funny? So you were just going to sit there and not say anything to me?”

“Sorry,” I said as I bent to kiss her, “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Beth.”

“I just didn’t want to wake you up while you were resting,” I explained. My eldest sister resumed her humorous tirade, which explained our laughter. Mom didn’t stay awake too long, she wanted something to drink, something for nausea and something for pain.

When she went back to sleep the sibs who smoked wanted to take a smoke break. I decided to walk with them. The University had become a non-smoking campus, so you actually have to walk over to a public street or smoking area to smoke. This entails walking over to Hugeulet. At Hugeulet you have to stop, of course, and wait for the walk sign to cross the street. When the walk sign is lit to cross Hugeulet; it also speaks, “Uvula, uvula, walk sign uvula, uvula.” Or at least that’s what it sounds like it says; who gets to decide these street names, anyway? I listened to this a few times before I mentioned it to the sibs.

"It sounds like it's saying uvula."

“You know, I've been thinking the same thing,” my oldest sister said. This provided us with some much needed comic relief. So did bears. (Don’t ask; you’ll only be one of three things: disgusted, lost, or so amused that you’ll want to make bear jokes too). We are all very fortunate that we can maintain our senses of humor in the most difficult situations. I guess we get that from Mom…

Back in the hospital, Dad had arrived. The doctors wanted to drain some of the fluid from Mom’s abdomen to try to relieve the pressure that it was putting on her chest—it was getting increasingly difficult and painful to breathe. Dad and my Uncle made a trip to the cafeteria to eat; I requested a chicken salad so that I could stay with mom as long as possible. While they were gone two doctors and an intern came in. One doctor explained the procedure, they conversed a while and prepared the necessary equipment. Then one doctor left, but not before telling them that they pretty much had one shot at this, because there was no way to rethread the guide needle afterward, and they didn’t need to be doing it more than once because of the high risk of infection.

Once the other doctor left to tend to other patients, the two remaining turned their attention on me. “Are you going to stay for the procedure?”

“Yeah,” with a look that I hoped conveyed, of course I’m staying, I held my Mother’s hand and stood by the bed.

“What kind of work do you do?” they looked doubtful, like, who is this pregnant chick and are we going to have to scrape her off the floor later or clean up her puke?

“Well, I don’t have a job right now, but I’m a grad student—getting my masters in English. And I’m writing a book,” I explained, as if this would help ease their curiosity or concern.

“Oh. Like a murder mystery or something?” the intern asked.

“Yes, exactly,” well, apparently, enough said.

“Oh, I like those,” she said. And that was the end of that. Now they were going to start the procedure.

I would convey the details of it here, but it’s not something everyone can stomach. They attempted the procedure, but only withdrew a small amount of fluid into the syringe before it failed. While they were preparing for a second attempt, all the while Mom squeezed my hand, gasping in pain, as they poked around at her belly. The head nurse opened the door decisively and addressed the two doctors.

“I need to speak with you, now,” and she looked pretty pissed. They all left and when they returned she said that they were not going to attempt the procedure again and that they would be taking her shortly for a super special CT scan that would help them determine if it indeed was a bladder perforation, or something else.

Not too long after that they wheeled her off in her bed and Dad returned with my chicken salad. I told him all about it, as well as the sibs (who were, of course, pissed all over again) and then everyone went to have a cigarette break.

I was sitting alone on the couch, eating my chicken salad, when the urological surgeon came in. After introducing myself as her daughter and explaining that everyone had gone outside, he asked me if I had any questions. He explained that the CT scan would use a catheter into which contrast would be injected. Then one of two things would happen, the fluid inside her bladder would remain in her bladder or the contrast would travel outside the bladder, indicating a perforation.

I asked what would happen if it was a perforated bladder, and if it wasn’t a perforated bladder, then what could it be? A perforated bladder would require surgery, and they were concerned with her being able to survive another surgery, but that she would go directly to surgery that evening if that was what the test revealed. If it was not urine leaking into the abdomen, then it was most likely fluid secreted by the cancer, and that that meant that the cancer had basically spread throughout her abdomen.

Well, he left and I ate my chicken salad as tears streamed down my face. I would have to go soon. I had said my goodbyes to Mom before they wheeled her away; she knew that I would have to leave to be back in the Ville in time to pick up Addison from day care. I drove home thinking, this is not Mom dying. They will fix her bladder and send her on home again. I listened to Jane's Addiction as I drove through the miles of road construction on I64, wiping the tears from my face.

I wasn’t there when the results came back; her bladder was intact. They did succeed in draining the fluid from her abdomen that evening, however. I planned on coming back Saturday and Sunday with the girls. That Sunday was Mother’s day.

"You said

This I do for you

If it would help

To give the world back

What it gave

Then I would

I would

I would

I would

I would for you"

I would for you, Mom.

Information on Endometrial Cancer

Dear Readers,
In the text that follows are notes that I made from several reliable medical websites about endometrial cancer. I think, in light of recent events, that it is very important to know the risk factors of this cancer [as well as the risk factors and symptoms of any cancers]. The websites that I used to compile the following information on endometrial cancer are good sources of information on other types of cancer as well. Please note that this information is incomplete as it appears on the web sites, and that if you would like to see more complete information you should go to the websites for full text. As it relates to possible symptoms of endometrial/uterine cancer, I have also included information on DUB. I hope that this information is helpful.
Sincerely,
Laura Beth


Notes from the National Cancer Institute Website:


Women should not assume that abnormal vaginal bleeding is part of menopause.

Benign Conditions of the Uterus

• Fibroids are common benign tumors that grow in the muscle of the uterus. They occur mainly in women in their forties. Women may have many fibroids at the same time. Fibroids do not develop into cancer. As a woman reaches menopause, fibroids are likely to become smaller, and sometimes they disappear.

Usually, fibroids cause no symptoms and need no treatment. But depending on their size and location, fibroids can cause bleeding, vaginal discharge, and frequent urination. Women with these symptoms should see a doctor. If fibroids cause heavy bleeding, or if they press against nearby organs and cause pain, the doctor may suggest surgery or other treatment.

• Endometriosis is another benign condition that affects the uterus. It is most common in women in their thirties and forties, especially in women who have never been pregnant. It occurs when endometrial tissue begins to grow on the outside of the uterus and on nearby organs. This condition may cause painful menstrual periods, abnormal vaginal bleeding, and sometimes loss of fertility (ability to get pregnant), but it does not cause cancer. Women with endometriosis may be treated with hormones or surgery.

• Endometrial hyperplasia is an increase in the number of cells in the lining of the uterus. It is not cancer. Sometimes it develops into cancer. Heavy menstrual periods, bleeding between periods, and bleeding after menopause are common symptoms of hyperplasia. It is most common after age 40.

To prevent endometrial hyperplasia from developing into cancer,

Hormone Therapy

Based on solid evidence, giving progestin in combination with estrogen therapy eliminates the excess risk of endometrial cancer associated with unopposed estrogen among postmenopausal women who have a uterus and are taking hormone therapy.

Description of the Evidence

• Study Design: Evidence obtained from randomized controlled trials, cohort, and case-control studies.

• Internal Validity: Good.

• Consistency: Good.

• Magnitude of Effects on Health Outcomes: For women with a uterus, the risk of endometrial cancer associated with unopposed estrogen use for 5 or more years is more than tenfold higher compared with women not taking estrogen replacement therapy. The addition of progestin therapy to estrogen eliminates the risk of endometrial cancer. Based on data from the Women’s Health Initiative, the hazard ratio for endometrial cancer associated with combined hormone therapy, after an average follow-up of 5.6 years was 0.81 (95% confidence interval, 0.48–1.36) compared with women randomly assigned to placebo.

• External Validity: Good.

Oral Contraceptives

Based on solid evidence, the use of combination oral contraceptives (estrogen plus a progestin) is associated with a decreased risk of developing endometrial cancer.

Description of the Evidence

• Study Design: Evidence obtained from case-control and prospective studies.

• Internal Validity: Good.

• Consistency: Good.

• Magnitude of Effects on Health Outcomes: Oral contraceptive use is associated with a reduced risk of endometrial cancer ranging from 50% reduction associated with 4 years of use up to 72% reduction in risk with 12 or more years of use.

• External Validity: Fair.

Obesity, Body Mass Index and Endometrial Cancer

There is inadequate evidence to determine if weight reduction alters the incidence of endometrial cancer.

Description of the Evidence

• Study Design: Evidence obtained from one cohort study.

• Internal Validity: Good.

• Consistency: N/A

• Magnitude of Effects on Health Outcomes: Intentional weight loss of 20 pounds or more was not associated with a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of endometrial cancer.

• External Validity: Fair.



Notes from HealthCommunities.com

Adenocarcinoma, which originates in surface cells of the endometrium, accounts for approximately 90% of cases of endometrial cancer. Adenocarcinomas are more common during perimenopause (i.e., transitional years preceding and following actual menopause) and usually are associated with an early onset of symptoms.

Other types of endometrial cancer include papillary serous carcinoma and clear cell carcinoma. These types usually develop in postmenopausal women and are more likely to metastasize (spread) and recur.

Causes and Risk Factors

The cause of uterine cancer is unknown. Chronic exposure to estrogen (i.e., a female hormone produced by the ovaries) increases the risk for developing the disease and estrogen often affects tumor growth. The following factors increase estrogen exposure:

• Early menarche (beginning menstruation before age 12)

• Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with exogenous estrogen (i.e., without progesterone)

• Late menopause (after age 52)

• Presence of an estrogen-secreting tumor (e.g., some types of breast cancer)

• Nulliparity (having never given birth) or low parity

Endometrial hyperplasia is a condition that increases the risk for uterine cancer. About one-third of patients with hyperplasia develop endometrial cancer. Symptoms of endometrial hyperplasia include heavy or prolonged menstrual periods, bleeding between menstrual periods, and prolonged amenorrhea (i.e., absence of menstruation for longer than 90 days). Postmenopausal women with hyperplasia may experience vaginal bleeding or spotting.

Long-term use of tamoxifen (e.g., Nolvadex®) increases the risk for uterine cancer. Tamoxifen is used to treat breast cancer and to decrease the risk for the disease in certain high-risk patients. Women undergoing treatment with tamoxifen are monitored carefully for uterine abnormalities.

Medical conditions such as obesity, gall bladder disease, diabetes mellitus, and high blood pressure (hypertension) increase the risk for cancer of the uterus.

Other risk factors include the following:

• Age (more common after age 50)

• Family history of uterine cancer

• Personal history of breast, colorectal, or ovarian cancer

• Prior pelvic radiation therapy

• Race (endometrial cancer is more common in Caucasian women and uterine sarcoma is more common in African American women)

Signs and Symptoms

Early uterine cancer usually is asymptomatic (i.e., does not cause symptoms). Abnormal vaginal bleeding, which is the most common symptom, may also result from a condition called dysfunctional uterine bleeding (DUB).

Other symptoms of uterine cancer include the following:

• Abnormal vaginal discharge

• Painful or difficult urination

• Pelvic pain

• Pain during intercourse

Overview DUB (information about DUB follows here)

Dysfunctional uterine bleeding (DUB) is heavy or irregular menstrual bleeding that is not caused by an underlying anatomical abnormality, such as a fibroid, lesion, or tumor. DUB is the most common type of abnormal uterine bleeding.


Most cases of DUB are associated with anovulatory bleeding (menstruation that occurs without ovulation). Anovulatory bleeding is common in women who have just started menstruating and during the several years preceding menopause. When ovulation does not occur, the level of estrogen and progesterone in the uterus is disturbed, leading to DUB. Anovulation, however, does not always lead to DUB and there are other causes as well. Women with ovulatory cycles (cycles that involve ovulation) may also experience DUB.

Menstrual cycles vary in duration, frequency, and intensity, making abnormalities difficult to determine. Women who have DUB may experience a variety of patterns of bleeding. A woman who bleeds for longer than a week, bleeds more than every 3 weeks or so, bleeds between periods, or bleeds excessively should see a doctor or other health care provider.

DUB is usually painless. Diagnosis involves ruling out other causes of abnormal bleeding. Treatment depends on the intensity and timing of the bleeding, the patient's age, and if she is trying to conceive.

Anovulatory bleeding

Normally during the menstrual cycle, the production of progesterone in the latter 2 weeks of the cycle balances out the regenerative effects of estrogen, halting further endometrial growth. In anovulation, the level of estrogen does not decline, and progesterone is not secreted to balance out the effects of estrogen.

Endometrial growth does not stop and the endometrial tissue accumulates and thickens, resulting in abnormally heavy bleeding. Also, without progesterone, the endometrium lacks structural support and sloughs off irregularly, causing heavy and/or irregular periods.

Anovulatory periods are common in the 2 or 3 years following menarche (first menstrual period) and during the several years preceding menopause. Up to 80% of menstrual cycles are anovulatory during the first year following menarche. As a woman approaches menopause, she may have 8 to 10 anovulatory periods a year.

Women who take oral contraceptives and those on estrogen replacement therapy may also have anovulatory cycles. Stress and illness can also trigger anovulation.

Causes

Ovulatory DUB (not associated with anovulation) is less common than anovulatory DUB, and the bleeding, though abnormally heavy, is usually regular.

Ovulatory DUB may be due to abnormalities in the 2-week luteal phase of menstruation that occurs just before bleeding begins. It can also result from an "atrophic endometrium" that can result from a high progesterone to estrogen ratio, which may occur in women who take progesterone-only contraceptives. A lack of cell-building estrogen causes the endometrium to slough off and bleed irregularly.

Patterns of abnormal uterine bleeding

DUB can result in the following menstrual patterns:

• polymenorrhea (frequent, regular periods that occur less than every 21 days)

• hypermenorrhea (excessively heavy bleeding during a normal-length period)

• menorrhagia (prolonged or excessive bleeding lasting longer than a week that occurs at regular intervals)

• metrorrhagia (periods that occur at irregular intervals, or frequent bleeding of various amounts,though not heavy)

• menometrorrhagia (frequent, excessive, and prolonged bleeding that occurs at irregular intervals)

Diagnosis

In women older than 35, the endometrial cells are examined under a microscope to rule out endometrial hyperplasia and cancer. This is usually done using endometrial biopsy, an outpatient procedure that involves inserting a narrow tube into the uterus through the vagina and suctioning out a small amount of tissue from several areas of the uterine wall. The procedure takes only minutes.

Endometrial biopsy is the most widely used and most effective diagnostic test for detecting precancerous and cancerous cells on the endometrium. A procedure known as a D & C (dilation and curettage) may be used in certain circumstances and involves dilating the cervix and inserting an instrument called a curette into the uterus through the vagina. The curette is used to scrape the uterine wall and collect tissue. It is an outpatient procedure that takes about an hour and requires anesthesia.

The tissue is sent to a laboratory, examined under a microscope, and evaluated for cancerous or precancerous abnormalities. Please go to endometrial cancer for more information.

If the biopsy or D & C reveals no abnormality, the patient is treated for DUB, usually with hormones.

BACK TO ENDOMETRIAL CANCER

Advanced uterine cancer may cause weight loss, loss of appetite, and changes in bladder and bowel habits. (***** aha)

NOTES FROM THE MAYO CLINIC WEBSITE

In endometrial cancer, cancer cells develop in the lining of the uterus. Why these cancer cells develop isn't entirely known. However, scientists believe that estrogen levels play a role in the development of endometrial cancer. Factors that can increase the levels of this hormone and other risk factors for the disease have been identified and continue to emerge. In addition, ongoing research is devoted to studying changes in certain genes that may cause the cells in the endometrium to become cancerous.

NOTES FROM CANCER.ORG

Family history

Endometrial cancer tends to run in some families. Some of these families also have an inherited tendency to develop colon cancer -- this disorder is called hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC). Another name for HNPCC is Lynch syndrome. In most cases, this disorder is caused by a defect in either the gene MLH1 or the gene MSH2. But at least 5 other genes can cause HNPCC: MLH3, MSH6, TGBR2, PMS1, and PMS2. An abnormal copy of any one of these genes reduces the body's ability to repair damage to its DNA. This results in a very high risk of colon cancer, as well as a high risk of endometrial cancer. Women with this syndrome have a 40% to 60% risk of developing endometrial cancer sometime during their lives. The risk of ovarian cancer is also increased.

If you have colon cancer or endometrial cancer in several family members, you might want to think about having genetic counseling and testing for HNPCC. Genetic testing can help determine if you or members of your family have a high risk of getting endometrial cancer. If you do, you will need to be watched carefully for endometrial cancer. American Cancer Society guidelines recommend that women with known or suspected (based on family history) HNPCC consider beginning endometrial sampling at age 35 and that their doctors offer this test to them and explain its benefits, risks, and limitations.

Another option for a woman who has (or may have) HNPCC is to have the uterus removed once she is finished having children.

There are some families that have a high rate of only endometrial cancer. These families may have a different genetic disorder that hasn't been discovered, yet.

Although these factors increase a woman's risk for developing endometrial cancer, they do not always cause the disease. Many women with one or more of these risk factors never develop endometrial cancer. Some women with endometrial cancer do not have any of these risk factors. Even if a woman with endometrial cancer has one or more risk factors, there is no way to know which, if any, of these factors was responsible for her cancer.

Do We Know What Causes Endometrial Cancer?

We do not yet know exactly what causes most cases of endometrial cancer, but we do know that there are certain risk factors, particularly hormone imbalance, for this type of cancer. A great deal of research is going on to learn more about the disease. We know that most endometrial cancer cells contain estrogen and/or progesterone receptors on their surfaces. Somehow, interaction of these receptors with their hormones leads to increased growth of the endometrium. This can mark the beginning of cancer. The increased growth can become more and more abnormal until it develops into a cancer.

As noted in the previous section about risk factors, many of the known endometrial cancer risk factors affect the balance between estrogen and progesterone in the body.

Scientists are learning more about changes in the DNA of certain genes that occur when normal endometrial cells become cancerous. Some of these are discussed in the section, "What's new in endometrial cancer research and treatment?"

Last Medical Review: 10/

Can Endometrial Cancer Be Prevented?


Most cases of endometrial cancer cannot be prevented, but there are some things that may lower your risk of developing this disease.

One way to lower endometrial cancer risk is to change risk factors whenever possible. For example, weight loss may reduce the risk of this type of cancer in those who are obese. Controlling diabetes may also help reduce the risk. If you have any of these conditions, discuss them with your doctor.

A healthy diet and exercise can also lower endometrial cancer risk. Women who exercise on a daily basis can cut their risk in half compared to women who don't exercise. As mentioned in the risk factor section, maintaining a healthy body weight can substantially reduce your risk for this cancer.

Estrogen to treat the symptoms of menopause is available in many different forms like pills, skin patches, creams, and vaginal rings. If you are thinking about using estrogen for menopausal symptoms, ask your doctor about how it will affect your risk of endometrial cancer. Progestins (progesterone-like drugs) can reduce the risk of endometrial cancer in women taking estrogen therapy, but this combination increases the risk of breast cancer. If you still have your uterus and are taking estrogen therapy, discuss this issue with your doctor.

Getting proper treatment of pre-cancerous disorders of the endometrium is another way to lower the risk of endometrial cancer. Most endometrial cancers develop over a period of years. Many are known to follow and possibly start from less serious abnormalities of the endometrium called endometrial hyperplasia (see the section, "What are the risk factors for endometrial cancer?"). Some cases of hyperplasia will go away without treatment. Sometimes hyperplasia needs to be treated with hormones or even surgery. Treatment with progestins and a dilation and curettage (D & C) or hysterectomy can prevent hyperplasia from becoming cancerous. (D & C is described in the section, "How is endometrial cancer diagnosed?") Abnormal vaginal bleeding is the most common symptom of endometrial pre-cancers and cancers, and it needs to be reported and evaluated right away.

Last Medical Review: 10/22/2009

Last Revised: 10/22/2009

"Rearview Mirror"--Pearl Jam

“Well, I don’t know how you feel, but the chemo is doing wonders for your skin!” I smiled at Mom as she rode shotgun on our way over to visit Gramps on Easter. She thought that was amusing, explaining that that was one of the side effects.

The skin of her face was plumped up and very smooth, as if, in addition to getting chemo, they were giving her Restalyne injections. I glanced in the rear view mirror to see that Addison had finally given up and was asleep in the usual crick-in-the-neck way that children slump against their car seats.

Things were going very well. Mom always said that besides the initial diagnosis, they hadn't had anything but good news. The tumors were shrinking, her blood counts were good, her CA-125 levels had dropped significantly, and all in all she was responding surprisingly well to the chemo. We’d had good visits with Mom, including Anna-Lee’s birthday party. The next step, Mom’s surgery, was scheduled for April 7th.

On Easter weekend we tried to have a good time. Mom helped Addison find Easter eggs and everyone sat outside in the hot sun with Gramps, who sat in the shade of the large cherry tree in his flannel pajamas, with a throw around his shoulders. On Easter Sunday we went to church. Mom cried, she held her head in prayer for a long while. I tried not to cry, but my hormones and emotions got the best of me. The pastor's sermon, while centered on Easter, seemed to touch upon the struggles that Mom was facing. He has a way of doing that, though, making you cry, making it seem like he's speaking directly to your concerns.

April 7th was a Wednesday. Everyone else was going to the hospital. I had class that day. Mom and Dad didn’t really see the point in me being at the hospital during the surgery. It would have entailed dragging the kids along with me for the day, or rushing to be back in the Ville by four.

The doctor said that she was really surprised. Her bladder had been in better shape than they had anticipated; and her colon as well. They removed her uterus and ovaries, lymph nodes in the surrounding area. They wrapped some piece of fatty tissue that was in there around her colon to keep things from shifting around.
 
The week after she came home from the hospital she called me, “I want to see you and the girls.”

“Oh, well, I was just going to come down and try to help out, but we can all come. I just didn’t know if you’d be up for a visit with all of us. I just didn’t want the kids to bother you.”

“Well I reckon if I get tired I can just get up and go to bed,” her response was matter of fact.

“OK. I just didn’t know. I was just planning on coming down by myself because I didn’t know if the kids would understand that you are recovering from surgery. We’ll be there,” I couldn’t very well say no.

My husband was looking at me inquiringly when I hung up the phone.

“Mom wants us all to come down. She said she wanted to see the girls,” I told him. He didn’t say it, but I could tell he was relieved. A whole weekend with just him and the kids—it was likely that he couldn’t survive without another adult around.

“Then I guess we’ll all go,” he said.

Mom was in bed when we got there. Dad had made dinner and was waiting for us to arrive. He took the girls to wake her up. And she got up. She was walking around and shit. She sat up for a while with us, ate a little dinner, and watched a little Funniest Home Videos, before going back to bed.

The next morning she was up getting her a bowl of cereal. She took the glass of juice with her fiber and the small cup of medicine as I had prepared them, carefully noting each in the chart. She said, halfway through her breakfast, that she was going to the bathroom, which was apparently a significant and much anticipated accomplishment, if things went well.

Dad, the girls and I were getting coolers and bags ready to go to the mountains. For the girls it was just a day trip, but Dad was going to stay overnight. I was uncertain about going. I had expected to stay and take care of Mom. But she encouraged me to go along, with the promise that her sister would be over later. I was continuously amazed at how well she was doing after her surgery. I don’t know what I really expected, though. Maybe I thought that she needed help doing everything. They say you need 4-8 weeks or more to recover from surgery, but Mom was up and about.

Dad drove us over to spend the day with the Roarks and the Roark wannabes in the mountains, hiking in the humid heat before the rain began. The girls enjoyed themselves, wearing their raincoats, Addison eating marshmallows and chocolate bars and Anna-Lee poking sticks into the fire. Later, we rode back with my Grandmother and Aunt. Mom was resting when we returned, but said she’d had a good day. Her sister had taken her to town to do the grocery shopping for Gramps, and get some Chinese food.

The following day was the best visit I’d had with her in a long time. The girls watched Christmas Vacation in the living room while Mom and I lay on her bed talking. We talked about a lot of things, but I mostly wanted to know about her illness, I wanted to hear it all from her, face to face.

“So what does it feel like to have a bunch of shit cut out of you?” I asked her, “Do you feel like you’re missing a bunch of your stuff?”

We looked at each other, I was curled on my side facing her, and she was lying on her back with her face turned toward me. It was as much like old times as it could be—mornings piling into bed with Mom, waking her up with our talk and laughter, then begging her to make us pancakes.

“You can touch it,” she pulled up her shirt to reveal the long scar on her belly. I poked at her pale freckled skin gently, unsure of what I was feeling for.

“So how does it feel now? I mean, at Thanksgiving you looked—well—bloated, and uncomfortable. But now…”

“You know when I was a young girl and when I would lay down flat, my hip bones would sort of poke out? Even when I had gained some weight my belly would sort of sink in when I would lay on my back. It just got to where it never,” she moved her hands over her belly, making mounding up motions, “sank in anymore. It was just all full of tumors.”

It was about that time that Anna-Lee bounded in and announced that there must be something wrong with their popcorn, because it was all full of kernels that didn’t pop.

“You fixed popcorn?” I rolled over and off the bed and followed her into the living room, “Why didn’t you just ask? How long did you put it in there for?”

“One minute,” she said, after explaining that she could fix her own popcorn.

They had made a mess of the unpopped kernels, so I cleaned up and made them some more, pointing out the popcorn button on the microwave to Anna.

Mom’s eyes were closed when I went back into the bedroom. I kissed her and told her I loved her. She said she loved me too.

The biggest post-op hurdle was getting her bowels to function regularly. No one could have foreseen just how difficult that hurdle was to overcome.

"wHole Lotta Love"-- Led Zeppelin

We weren't going to be able to visit for her birthday—the girls were sick, and we couldn’t risk exposing Mom to that. Along with athletic pants that were “any color but black” and a framed picture of Mom and Addison, deep in loving conversation at Christmas, I had planned on getting her some coasters for her coffee table. I made an impromptu trip to TJ Maxx on Taylorsville Road (the best TJ Maxx in the Ville), but when I got there they only had two boxes of coasters. They were both the same, and while they were made of sandstone, interestingly enough, they were painted with some sort of patriotic-like family crest kind of patterns. Ugly; but I picked a box of them up and carried them around anyway.

I walked in and out of aisles of assorted kitchen wares before moving on to the clearance aisle filled with nesting storage boxes, vases, and picture frames, all either slightly damaged or made of such atrocious colors and patterns that no one could be persuaded to buy them no matter how cheap they were. I was poring over boxed stationary sets when I decided that the coasters, though not the ideal coasters I had envisioned giving her, were a much better choice. I wandered around the end of the aisle and saw the most marvelous thing I had ever seen in my life. And it was only $14.99!

Now, in order for me to reveal this treasure that I had found to you, you must know the story of “the hole.” In high school we played a child’s game in which you make the OK sign (or asshole—in sign language) and try to get your friends to look at it. If they do, you get to punch them in the arm. So the goal of the “hole” game is to punch some one for looking at something for no reason at all. Our friend ____ had brought this game back from grade school and had perfected the technique of catching you off guard.

“You dropped this,” and instead of handing you something that you might have actually dropped, it was the hole.

“Oh, man, look what I got the other day,” and reaching into a pocket would take out not the pocket knife you might have been expecting, but the hole. It seemed that the hole game had become such a common thing that the punching subsided and it was just as much fun to simply find a new trick for getting someone to look at the hole.

As all of our friends do, at some point or another, he spent time at our house, so the hole was rampant, and we laughed at making Mom fall for our little game. And, it seemed, that every time he came over he would say, “Reba, check this out,” hold out his circled fingers and laugh at her playfully angry face. The best part of it all was when, out of the blue, we would come through the front door after school and Mom would say, “Here you go,” and hold out the hole, a devious grin on her face, and we would all fall for it.

So, as you can imagine, it became one of those things that, every once in a while, when you least expected it, Mom would pop off with the hole and laugh at you when she did. And, when they took her picture for the paper, along  side some other citizens recognized for their good-doing, there she was on the end, her fingers curled into the hole at her side, unobtrusive, and yet unmistakable.

“Look at this,” she pulled apart the pages of the local newspaper and showed us the picture. “I got everyone in ____ County!” She was more delighted at having had her picture taken with her hand making the hole than she was about actually being in the paper.

Imagine my own delight, when I turned the corner at the end of that aisle, and saw….the hole. Someone had actually made a mold of their hand, thumb and first finger curled into the hole, the three remaining fingers splayed. They had cast it in plaster, mounted on a small stand, this statuette sort of thing. It was like fate had guided me to TJ Maxx on this precise day to buy what no one else would have ever even thought about purchasing.

Mom said, when asked what she wanted for this or that occasion, that she didn’t need anything else to sit around and gather dust. But this, this was too perfect. She might have one more thing to dust, but I just had to buy it for her.

I wish I had had one of those shirt button hidden cameras to capture the looks that I got while I walked to the front of the store and stood in the endless line to purchase this object. And some people simply have no manners; they just stare at you like you are a bizarre weirdo. It's like they want you to see them stare at you. Apparently they want you to know that you’re a weirdo. Never mind that there is a purpose behind the weirdness.

Mom loved it, of course, and I had her open it while I was talking to her on the phone, so I had to tell her that I got her long distance. She said she would display it where everyone could see it, so she could get everyone who came to their house. And it is, perched at the top of the entertainment center, for all to see.

In the future, if you ever need to know that you’re alive and weird, then go to TJ Maxx at 2 in the afternoon on a Tuesday when the crowds are gathered and the lines are long, and pick up something absurd to carry around with you. Who knows, you might be able to go to the clearance aisle and find yourself a statuette of the hole.

"Uh Oh" --King Kong

“I’ve been thinking of you as the Ice Princess," she had called to talk to me. Mom had come home from the hospital a few days after Christmas, once they had regulated her pain. I hated to bother her when she was feeling bad, so I hadn't actually talked to her in a while.

"Why?"

"Well, you haven't said a word about it at all. You never have even told me you were sorry that I have cancer or anything,” she replied. I hadn't? My mind ticked through all the conversations we had had since then.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t realize. I am sorry that you have cancer. I don’t know what you want me to say. What am I supposed to say?” I was desperately trying to say the right thing.

"Just say whatever you feel like saying."

“God is such a fucking asshole,” I blurted. Probably not the right thing to say.

"Don’t be mad at God.” She said that no matter what happened she didn’t want me to lose my faith; then, for the first time since the diagnosis, we cried together.


“I’m not really mad at God. I just don’t know who to be mad at. I don’t know if I should be mad at the doctors. I just don’t know.” I didn’t say it, but I was thinking that I didn’t know if I should be mad at her. I didn’t want to hurt her. “It’s not fair. I’ve already been through all this shit before. I mean, I’ll do whatever I need to do—whatever you need me to do—you know that. But I’m not happy about it.”

“You think I'm happy about it?” she said, “You think I want to have cancer; to have to go through this? But what choice do I have?”

We talked for a long time. Mostly I wanted to know every detail that she could tell me about what the doctors had said. I wanted to know when--if--she knew something was wrong. Could the doctors have found this earlier? Could anything have been done at all?

Her doctor seemed to think that when she broke her thumb, her body was so focused on healing the thumb that what cancer may have been there, being held at bay, became exponentially worse in such a short time. The last check up she had had with her gynecologist, she told them that she’d had bleeding, weeks, even months, of it. They said that it was just the menopause, like she was an idiot or something. 'You’ve been bleeding, having painful cramps? Oh, it’s just the menopause.' Well, I’d like to know just how long menopause is supposed to last, because she’d been going through “the change” for years.

Then, of course, came the what-if’s. What if she’d had a check up more recently? What if those jack asses at the gynecologist office had insisted on some sort of biopsy instead of assuming that her uterus was full of cysts, rather than tumors? What if they had done more tests? Why didn’t they do more tests when she initially went in with lower abdominal pain?

At Thanksgiving, my sister looked at me seriously (as if she has any other look) and said, “You know Mom is dying, right?”

“Whatever,” I didn’t even think that she had been sick. So I followed Mom into her room and asked her myself.

“Are you ok, Mom?”

“No, I'm not ok,” her response was followed by a painful wince as she pulled on yet another pair of jeans. She was exasperated. Jeans that had fit recently were now painfully tight on her belly. It looked as if she had gained some weight, but only in her belly; the rest of her was just as skinny as ever.

After that, I could tell. She’d been hiding it pretty well. But now her pain was so apparent that she didn’t even really try to hide it anymore. She wasn't her usual jovial self. She didn't stay up late talking with everyone after dinner. Instead she was looking for pain relievers in the cabinet. Ibuprofen rather than Tylenol, then naproxen (Aleve) rather than the ibuprofen; but none of them seemed to work. She told me that she was going to the doctor first thing the next week.

Back in the Ville, I was shopping; I had found the cutest holiday dress for like $15 and just had to tell someone. I called Mom. She didn’t feel well, but she did tell me how her doctor appointments had gone.

At the local clinic they had drawn blood, had her give a urine sample, and gave her a script for antibiotics to treat a bladder infection. When it turned out that she didn’t have a bladder infection, she scheduled an appointment with the gynecologist. The technician who did the ultrasound actually said, “Uh oh,” when she spotted the ‘cysts’ (and let me just tell you 'uh oh' is not something that you want to hear when any medical procedure is being performed. Just ask my oldest sister. But that’s another story). Her uterus was so full of ‘cysts’ that it was way beyond normal size and pressing into surrounding organs. The gynecologists’ solution was to give her pain medication to get her through the holidays and schedule a hysterectomy for January 14th.

The night that Dad took her to the emergency room she had been begging him to just kill her. They had tried a few days of the pain medication that the gynecologist prescribed, but to no avail. The ER doctor ordered a CT and took one look at the films and sent her right away to the Markey Cancer Center. He took one look at it. And the thing is, if she’d had insurance they’d have been testing her like a guinea pig from day one. If she’d had insurance; if they could have afforded insurance, maybe they would have found it earlier. Maybe.

Irata became my mantra. I was livid. I didn’t want to sit around and watch my mother die. I wanted to do something. I just wanted my Mom to be ok. And what was worse, I couldn’t see her. For my children it was the height of snotty sick season, and I couldn’t go contaminate her when her immune system was low from the chemo. It seemed that that first month or so was the longest, just waiting for everyone to be well enough for a visit.

Finally we were able to visit; Addison went right to Mom who was seated on the couch in her favorite spot, working Sudoku. As I settled down beside them Addison gave me a serious look, “GG broke her thumb.”

At Christmas she had learned that GG had broken her thumb, and that she couldn’t romp on Mom anymore because it might hurt her. She had looked from her bandaged thumb to the IV pole and back to her GG.

“GG broke her thumb,” she told me, as if everything that was different hinged on that simple fact.

"The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning"- The Smashing Pumpkins

When I first started college, having moved from a rural community to a big city, I was quite overwhelmed. I had gone from never being overly challenged in school to being in college classes in which I was no longer top achiever. I was whining about as much on the phone to my mother when I asked her, “Does it ever get any easier?”

“No. It doesn’t. It only gets harder. So you might as well suck it up. Just keep on keepin’ on.” But that's Mom, destroyer of vain hopes and misguided dreams—the master of guilt trips and great advice.

“Well, thanks a lot.” I was appalled. And disappointed, “Thanks for making me feel so much better about everything.”

“Sometimes you just need to hear the truth. Even if it doesn’t make you feel better,” she said.

Though I hadn’t yet realized it, and dared not admit it, it was exactly what I needed to hear. The simple truth is that life never does get any easier.

*
On Wednesday, December 23, 2009 my father drove my Mom from the ER to the Markey Cancer Center. The ER doctor had taken one look at the CT films and called to get her in right away.

“Mom, I have something to tell you. I’m going to have another baby.” A pause, I could hear the low thrum of the car, “I just wanted to tell you. We were going to wait and tell everyone on Christmas Eve, when we were all together, but I just thought you should know.”

She wasn’t too thrilled about it, but she loves her grandchildren, so she said that she was happy for us. She had been telling me for a long time that having babies was too hard on my body, and that I ought not do that anymore.

**
“Where’s your husband?” my brother asked.

“He’s out buying my Christmas present.” Nothing like waiting until the last minute. “Why?’

“Well, he needs to get home right now and take care of the kids. We’re headed to the hospital and you need to come with us. Now.”

“I have no way to get a hold of him. He doesn’t have the phone with him and he doesn’t know about any of this. What’s going on?”

“Mom’s dying and you need to come with us now.”

I can’t remember whether I told him, “Fuck you,” before I hung up on him or not. I think I did. I was angry, but I didn't know where to direct my anger. I remember wanting to talk to someone who actually knew exactly what was going on; a doctor or something. I called my big sister.

“What is going on? He just called me and said Mom is fucking dying. What the fuck. How can he just say that to me?”

“I told him to say that. I’m sorry; I guess we should have done it differently. Aunt ____ just called and told us that it’s stage four cancer and that we need to come to the hospital.”

I couldn’t accept this. I had already watched my mother-in-law die. I couldn’t watch my own mother die. No. No. It just couldn’t be. No.

***
“Where are we going?” Anna asked me.

“We have to go to the hospital. GG’s in the hospital,” I told her.

“Is GG going to die?” Of course she would associate the hospital with death. She had visited both her paternal grandmothers in the hospital, and they died.

“Not today, baby. Not today.” I hoped. I just kept thinking that there was more to know, there was more to find out. More time. More they could do.

Endometrial cancer was the diagnosis. Their main goal was to regulate her pain. Aggressive chemo, then possibly surgery.

We eventually convinced Dad to come back to the house on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning we woke up and watched the children open their presents. The stacks of our own gifts untouched. It just didn't seem like Christmas. We drove to the cancer center and spent Christmas with Mom in the lobby. I had gotten her the most awesome present ever; Season 1 of Northern Exposure. She gave everyone t-shirts that said "Roark's Irish Pub." Except the kids. She didn't think that would be appropriate attire for the children.

****
My eldest sister and I had been out shopping, ending our little trip at Baskin Robins. A little sign by the register advertised, “Free scoop of ice cream on your birthday!” She pointed it out to me as I slid the boxed ice cream cake onto the counter.

“It’s my birthday,” I said to the high school boy behind the register. He looked doubtful. I could almost hear him thinking, yeah right.

“No, it totally is. I can show you my ID,” I said, fishing in my purse for my wallet.

“No. I don’t care.” He really didn’t. “What do you want?”

It was just the way that he said it. ‘I don’t care.’ ‘Oh, it’s your birthday? Right. I don’t care.’ Not, ‘we get that all the time.’ Or, ‘is it now?’ Just, ‘I don’t care.’ My sister and I laughed about it the whole way home.

Mom had her first chemo treatment that day, the day after Christmas. When we got back to the house, Mom had left a message. When I called her back, she was still getting her treatment. She sang me happy birthday and told me that she loved me. But she didn’t remember doing it, because a little while later she called back to wish me a happy birthday again, apologizing for not having called earlier in the day.

I closed the phone and squeezed my sister’s hand. That was the exact moment it felt really real to me. I had to accept the possibility that I could lose my mother.