March Madness

Despite the title of this post inferring it's about the College Basketball tournament, I have to fess up right now that it's about my life in general at this time.

Jeannie and I went to Houston to visit my brother, his family and to spend some time with Mom (before things really start to go downhill). Obviously we all know that things WILL go downhill...the only question is when and how fast that will happen. A few weeks ago we thought that time was now...she suddenly spiraled to the point she could barely speak, let-alone sign her name or answer any questions. Her Dr. recommended she starts Hospice. But then her Dr. ordered blood-work (as he thought the decline WAY to rapid) and found she had way high levels of ammonia in her blood. He prescribed some medication to get that under control, and she bounced back pretty quickly!

So anyway, we had a pretty good visit, and it was great to seem my brothers family again (been years since I've made it out to Houston sadly). Spending time with Mom while she can still enjoy it was priceless! Jeannie keeps asking me how I"m doing with this, and honestly I have to answer that so far it's like nothing bad is going to happen. I mean, she's doing pretty well, and I'm NOT there to see any decline on a daily basis. However, that will change at some point in the future...barring a miracle. Her cancer is running un-restrained as her chemo was stopped back in January when her oncologist saw spots all over her liver (which weren't here before).

Nobody really as any idea on a timeline....it is what it is. Mom has accepted this and is making the best of what time she has left. She will be flying back up to Minnesota to see her husband in another week or so. Of course my brother will fly with her and be there, like he was when she had that horrible Dr.s appt a month ago when she found out the chemo was not working and was being stopped (a surprise to all of us is a huge understatement). Her husband John spiraled down quickly after her diagnosis a year ago, and soon was living in a nursing home. We had word last week that he has gone so far so quickly that HE is now on Hospice! WOW! I know his daughters are living what we will be soon enough.

But hey...enough on that...I'm trying to be upbeat about things. And THEN I come home from work last Thursday (I had the next day off, woo-HOO!) and find vomit all over the living room...not really food type goopy icky stuff...just lots of slippery (and kid of stinky, tho not in a poopy way) yellow goo with grass in it. Very much like what we had THREE times with Sydney many years back when she had THREE separate intestinal blockages and needed surgery THREE TIMES. Yep...little Abbey, just 13 months old, had her first intestinal blockage. So Thursday evening I took her to the Pet ER, where they did a bunch of expensive stuff to determine what we already knew...she was blocked and needed surgery. Which they did Friday morning.

The good news is she is fine...just has a nice long (about 4 to 5") line of staples just in front of her Spaying scar from a month ago. The bad news is that the price for a intestinal blockage surgery has gone up in the last 5 or 6 years (about how long ago Syd's last one was). Sheesh...just can't get a break here. But all in all we're very happy that we can afford it, and our little monster-darling is fine. I brought her home Saturday afternoon (they kept her a 2nd night monitoring her before releasing her). And we now have ANOTHER cone of shame to add to our collection.

Good thing our couch is doggie-proof (sort of). All the slip-covers come off and are washable (and we have 3 more sets of diff color covers). There were many OTHER pools of yellow goo around the house, not just on the couch. I watched her drink a bunch of water and w/in a few minutes start throwing it back up. Yep...Stomach blockage. Surgery required. Throw a bunch of money out the window. Wee....there it goes. Ahh...we are total veterans at this, not rookies anymore.

 Resting at the vet w/ her first cone of shame (Jeannie took the pic while I was out mt biking).

And her new little zipper in the belly. too bad they can't put an ACTUAL Zipper in there...wouldn't THAT be handy! We don't even know for sure what the blockage was...it looks sort of like some furry seed-pod, OR someting from a stuffed animal that she swallowed (hard to tell for sure, and it was REALLY REALLY REALLY stinky so I didn't examine it too carefully...just opening the outer of TWO plastic baggies almost caused me to vomit). That little momento is in the trash....what a HORRID smell that was!

And so...she's back home with Sophie, and life in our little abode is about back to normal

Oh...and there IS a little college basketball tourney about to start....something about 64 teams and a National Championship at the end...you may have heard of it? At least I don't fly to CO Springs tomorrow as originally planned...I got a call on Friday (well, they left a message) that there was a meeting and they shifted the trip another few weeks...I"ll now fly out on April 2nd for 3 more weeks. That's ok...things are still kind of crazy here and it's nice to be home. AND it will be a bit nicer up there in April (I HOPE!). 

AND HEY....bike racing is in full swing, and the Spring Classics are HAPPENING! (not that I get to watch any of them). 

OK. I'm done. Tired (however, SO very happy for the time change...I can hopefully get my own personal cycling fitness level back to satisfactory from it's current state of PITIFUL. 

And I also have to say that I"m sorry that I've been SO BAD at posting the last few YEARS! Not sure what happened. LIFE? Can't say for sure. But hey...I'm here NOW.

So...cheers, and get out there and DO SOMETHING in the evening sun! HOORAY for the evening sun!

Later gaters! (speaking of gaters....we saw some down in Houston...who knew there were gators in Texas?

OK...I'm not REALLY that close....just a little fun with Photoshop. But that is indeed a Texas Gator! Pretty cool actually! They were growling at each other...it was AWESOME!

And now I'm done.

Life can be hard

Well....it's the middle (ok, past the middle) of January already. Wow...how did THAT happen? I just flew back into CO Springs again for another 3 weeks. Of course, the last few weeks have been in the 50s and 60's...and then it SNOWED yesterday, and the forecast is a high in the 40's (or lower) for the next TWO WEEKS! Of course, that could change any time...and I sure HOPE it does (for the better, let's just get that right out). I will have my mt bike as always...pick it up from work tomorrow and bring it back to my hotel.

Anyway, life in our family took a terrible turn for the worse a bit over a week ago. Our Mom had her 9 month cancer scan (after the first 6 months of chemo things were shrinking so her oncologist switched her to 2 diff chemo's to try to shrink what's in her lungs)...a week ago Thurs was the scan n Friday was her appt w/ her oncologist. Well. It seem that NONE of us were ready for the results...we were all expecting continued progress, and maybe even to set a date for surgery to remove the shrunken original ovarian tumor. That was not to be. It seems the cancer stopped shrinking and was attacking anew...now she has spots all over her liver which was clear 3 months ago. Her oncologist said she's sorry but it's beyond hope and stopped her chemo, and said to make her final arrangements...gave here 6 months...give or take (said she really didn't know and it was just a guess).

To say that we ALL were totally dumbstruck and blindsided would be an understatement of biblical proportions! Thank goodness my little brother was there...he had flown in to help w/ the financial stuff (Moms husband John is now in a nursing home, and the state is looking to get money, looking at things like taking his house, maybe my moms house, any money they have saved, their annuities, stuff like that). Mom took it all pretty hard obviously (her surprise diagnosis)...even tho her husband is in a nursing home (where she has a little apartment attached to it so she could walk over and be with him pretty much all day every day, except chemo Fridays) she has been still 'sort of' his caregiver...keeping the nursing home staff on their toes making sure they do it right and don't skimp on him.

So...now what to do? She is up in Minnesota (they went there for her Chemo as that's where her husband is from and their health insurance is based there, they can only be out of state for so much time each year...so they couldn't stay at her place down in Arizona for her treatment). So back last May they flew to MN for her to begin treatment, and it wasn't very long after that when her husband started a RAPID decline in his health...he has Parkinson's and leukemia...but it's been pretty well under control and he was quite able-bodied and able to drive the golf cart down in Yuma, and pretty much take care of himself.... and suddenly he declined so far so fast that they had no choice but to put him in a nursing home...certainly my Mom can't take care of him...(her oncologist stressed that from the start that she is NOT to be his caregiver, or she wouldn't even consider starting her on Chemo). Her diagnosis of stage 4 Ovarian cancer REALLY wiped him out and he declined so rapidly from that point, it was hard to believe!

I have to admit that we all were truly thinking she would beat this...or at least get it to a point where she was keeping it at bay and live rather normally. But that wasn't to be...seems we were looking at it thru rose colored glasses. And now she's SO far away from all of her family (me and my brothers) that we can't possibly mount any kind of continued presense. John's girls (he has 3) are all up in MN in that general area...but 2 of them live 3 hours away, and the other is fighting major health concerns of her own right now...so they aren't able to 'be there' for him at the nursing home either.

Being as the diagnosis for Mom is terminal (and who really knows how much time she has...her Dr. said the 6 months was just a guess..it could go wildly either way)...so my brother asked her to come back with him to his home in Texas where they would care for her until the end. She finally agreed (she realized that she was leaving her husband fairly soon one way or another, but if she goes to TX at least she won't be ALONE...and if she waits too long she won't be able to travel..so there was a time constraint to the horrible decision). So last Friday she said goodby to her beloved husband for the very last time and got on a plane w/ my brother and flew to TX. I can't possibly fathom how hard that was for her to do...it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. And I know that my brother has been a true Rock of Gibraltar thru the last week and a half of HELL ON EARTH...I can't even begin to say how difficult it was for him to get this far.

So...Mom is now down in TX with family...I will likely fly down to visit when I leave CO in early Feb, as I'm really hoping to see her before things get really bad...and we all will just take it from there.

And so....just WOW! How quickly life can throw a wicked curve-ball at you! We are all (my family) pretty much in uncharted territory here...as we've never dealt with anything like this before. We're VERY happy that Mom is with my little brother and his family...they are really (REALLY!) awesome people...probably the best people I know...and it's by FAR the best place I can think of for her to be thru this end of life ordeal.

Well...that about brings you up to date with our descent into a not very fun time. I guess everybody goes thru something of this nature, as their parents get old and eventually pass on. I guess there are better and worse ways for life to end, and none of us get to choose. We can only hope to go without pain and hopefully as easy on the remaining family as possible. I forge the quote, but it's something like "none of us will get out of this life alive".