A Saint? Trust me, that is something I am NOT!!

Yesterday I was playing World of Warcraft with a friend of mine who lives a couple of states away. Yes, I am a nerd like that - I LOVE games!! And the friend I was playing with is my real life best friend. We are not internet acquaintances who have no idea who we are talking to, we are real live living and breathing in the real world friends!

Okay, I guess that might make her a little nerdy, too, since she is the one that introduced me to WoW.

As we were playing Mom began knocking on the table next to her chair for me to come take her to the bathroom. I messaged my friend what I was doing so she would know I was away from the game and she messaged back, "You are a saint!"

No amount of talking would convince her otherwise since she has an inkling of what all is going on in my world. Despite that, I continue to believe I am the lucky one since I am healthy. But I digress....

Far from being a saint, I would consider myself more of a martyr. I do resent that Mom can't do for herself and that it all falls on me. I am not always nice to her. She annoys me and frustrates me and I wish I didn't have this responsibility, that she was a healthy and sharp 87 year old woman. Do you have any idea how hard it is to see a woman with a veterinarian degree try to remember where she is going when you get her standing up? Or watch her try to read a book but not be able to make any sense of the words? It hurts, deep down inside.

So as the martyr in the scenario, let me tell you who the saints are. The saints are my husband and children. My husband who quickly steps in to help mom to the bathroom when he sees that I just can't do it for the second time in 45 minutes. My husband who gently chides her to take bigger steps and not hit the wall with her walker. My husband who appears to not care that he is physically putting his mother-in-law on the toilet and helping her back off it. That is a saint. He has never complained about her living with us for the three years she's been here. Let me also explain that she did not always warm up to him since he married her precious (HA!) daughter. I nominate my husband for sainthood.

My oldest daughter also qualifies. She helps with Mom an enormous amount. If I ask her to get Mom up in the morning she walks into her room with a huge smile and cheerfully greets her and chats at her the entire time she's helping her. Morning is probably my least favorite routine. Mom is incontinent and we don't get her up in the night. She has a plastic mattress cover to protect the mattress and she sleeps with a pad under her to absorb the wetness. It's smelly and icky to get her up and into the bathroom to get her into clean dry clothes for the day. And then rinsing off her teeth and helping her with those. Then after she is settled into her chair and fed her pills, cocoa and breakfast we return to the bedroom and bathroom to take care of all the wet stuff and get it into the washer. My daughter who cheerfully helps with all this deserves to be called a saint. She doesn't stop there. If she's not working or otherwise busy, she is always available to help or run an errand or start dinner. These are people who should be called saints.

My youngest daughter just finished her senior year of highschool. She helps with Mom but a little less often. She went through this last year of school basically on her own. When she wanted help picking out a prom dress, I was too tired. When she needed addresses and help sending out grad announcements, I was too tired. She never did get a senior portrait done professionally. Where was I when she needed me? I was either too tired or taking care of mom. What kind of a saint neglects her family for another? No, I was the martyr who sacrificed my family for Mom. My daughter has forgiven me and says she understands and that takes a bit of sainthood, too. At her age, this past year has been the most important of her life and I blew it.

It pretty much took being hit up aside the head with a 2x4 to recognize what I am doing to my family. I am grateful to the family member that helped me see that. I believe I am doing the right thing for my mother and I simply hate the idea of putting her in a home. I keep thinking, "I can do this. I owe her this. I want to give myself to her this way. She did so much for me!" But what am I really doing for her? One day is like the next for her and she doesn't remember the one before. I know she is happier here than she will be anyplace else. But I have to think of my family now. Are they happier without a mom/wife? What have I given up for Mom at my family's expense? How many times have I not been available for my family because I had to care for Mom? The answer is too many.

I have to start to think about my own bucket list, too, and how can I do that when I have committed myself to someone else's life? It's hard to think about but I have to do what's right for my family and probably what is right for Mom, now, too. My last question is can I wait until we make our move? It's a couple of months away and I think it would be harder on Mom to put her in a home here and then move her later. I think we can all hold on that long.

Another "Good" day makes a u-turn

Harriett has had some good days this week. Tuesday was Krissy's graduation and Harriett was able to go to her ceremony without any trouble and spent most of the day with the family. Wednesday morning she had the procedure to withdraw some bone marrow and that went well.

I was in the room when the procedure was done and this time I was the one that felt a bit queasy for a change. Harriett was on her left side facing the wall and the table of equipment was between me and the doctor. The doctor went through all the contents of the equipment packet and I sat and watched her pick up and examine some nasty looking mega-needles. Then she began the procedure by numbing up the area she would draw the marrow from. Harriett jumped at the first poke of the needle but after that she was numb enough that she only felt pressure. I, on the other hand, sat and watched the doctor jab her bone over and over again with the needle to make sure it's thoroughly numbed. She made a comment that the needle has been known to break during that part of the procedure.... ick!!!! Then she took a razor and made a hole for the needle to go in and then stuck a HUGE needle into her bone. That takes a bit of pressure. I watched as she pulled out two vials of fluid and then moved the needle adn took another little piece of marrow. All the time she was asking Harriett how she was doing and Harriett always said she was doing fine. Then she took all the equipment away and put a bandaid on the wound and that was that.

This was the first visit that the Onc realized we had moved here from Seattle. She had also lived in Seattle and worked/trained at the Hutch Cancer Center and then Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. She lived in the same neighborhood we did, too. It was nice to make that connection with her and she shared this joke with us:

Three men were out camping. One was from Texas, one from California and one from Washington. The Texan had a bottle of Jack Daniels. He took a long drink from his bottle, threw it up in the air and pulled out his pistol and shot it. The other two asked, "What did you do that for?" The Texan replied, "I am from Texas and we have more than enough Jack Daniels!" Then the Californian took out a nice bottle of Napa Valley Chardonnay and poured himself glassful, swirled it around, sniffed it and then drank it down. He threw the bottle up in the air, pulled out a gun and shot it. The other two asked, "Why did you do that?" He answered, "I am from California and we make an incredible Chardonnay and have plenty!" Next the Washingtonian took out a bottle of microbrew (probably Red Hook), drank it down, and threw the bottle in the air. He pulled out a pistol, shot the Californian and caught the bottle before it hit the ground. The Texan asked, "What'd you do that for?" The Washingtonian said, I'm from Washington. We have way too many Californians and we recycle."

Today we went back to get the results of the marrow test. It was the best of the three things the Onc said it could be. It was breast cancer cells in the bone marrow. It was NOT leukemia and it was NOT Myelodysplastic Syndrome which can become leukemia. It does change the course of treatment but mostly in that we have to watch the platelet counts and her chemo therapy will depend on how high that is. If it is too low she will have a week off to allow her marrow to recover and build platelets. So she still is a candidate for the Taxol and the doctor then scheduled her for that chemo today.

So we left the doctor's office and ran home to get my bag of "let's keep Betsy busy at chemo" stuff and headed to the chemo center. I stopped at Starbucks along the way, but they were INCREDIBLY slow so by the time I got to the window I drove on through. I am not paying for coffee that takes 20 minutes to serve three cars!! We got on the freeway and Harriett got nauseated and threw up. (which is okay, because we have learned to be prepared in the car for such things). She was looking and feeling horrid. We got to the hospital and she began to lose it again. The nurse and the pharmacist came and talked to us and pulled a list of her meds, which by now are almost all anti-nausea meds. The pharmacist called the Onc to find out if it was okay to give her another pain med so she got morphine. The therapy starts with an antinausea and benadryl so they weren't really thinking about giving her more antinausea. It was so obvious how much pain she was in though. Eventually she was pretty much out of it but at least she felt better. When they called the Onc, she wanted to talk to me because she really couldn't believe that she had gotten that sick just in the time since we'd left her office. She said she was laughing and doing well there - could it possibly be anxiety? I'd thought the same thing and asked Harriett when we were still in the car and she said she wasn't more anxious than normal.

The pharmacist said that the pain med she was on was one that many people had problems with so the Onc prescribed a new one. I am praying that this will do the trick. I was having such a hard time seeing Harriett going through all this again. It's bad enough that she is as sick as she is - does she have to suffer every day, as well??

In the Bones?

After such a good day yesterday, this one seemed to be off to a good start and quickly took a wrong turn.

First appointment of the day was with the oncologist. Of course we were concerned with Harriett's nutrition and her lack of weight gain. Doctor made a few more suggestions and prescribed another medicine that would increase her appetite. I asked about the results of the stool lab and she went to get those and reported that everything was normal. About that time she noticed that Harriett's labs were done yesterday. She didn't say anything more than that as she reviewed them on her computer, but I knew something wasn't good.

Turns out Harriett's platelets were down. That means that something is wrong inside her bones. It might mean that there are breast cancer cells in the bone marrow or it could be a disease that older women get that causes the marrow to produce less platelets. Harriett will have to have some marrow drawn to find out what is going on. Which involves a large needle being inserted low in her back into the bone. Harriett hates needles. Not to mention that bone marrow cancer is just one more thing going bad.

Today was the first day Harriett was going to have a chemo drug. That now has been postponed because it's too harsh on the blood and the blood is not up to parr right now. Besides that, it could change the result of the marrow test. In the mean time Harriett had to have two more units of blood today (at a time rate of 2 hours per unit) along with the herceptin.

It was an extremely rough day for Harriett with the new issues. She felt very nauseated during part the second unit of blood. Although they had put a strong anti-nausea in her at the beginning of the therapy, the nurse encouraged her to take another pill she had with her. That quickly sent the nausea away, yeah!! However, when we were ready to leave the diarrhea snuck up on her and caught her off guard. Fortunately, the restroom was very close by and most of the patients had left already. Her nurse came up with a pair of HUGE scrub bottoms, some towels and a plastic laundry bag. Poor Harriett was so embarrassed.

Mark got a hold of someone to sit with Mom tomorrow during Krissy's graduation - I am so relieved. I had about resigned myself to taking Mom to the grad with us, but that would have been awful. This is so much better.

The next day

The good thing about having a day of breaking down is that the next day is usually much MUCH better! And that is today and I believe it is much better.

I overheard Mark & Harriett talking about me this morning. I wasn't trying to listen but I know they were talking about my breakdown yesterday. Mark tried to explain that it just got overwhelming for me and listed out several things, including "losing" Krissy to school next year. That was sweet of him because the last thing I want is for Harriett to feel guilty and think she's too much of a burden. I think I also overheard her say she is thinking of looking for another place to live. I wasn't trying to overhear any of this - I was in the bathroom helping Mom with the morning routine and it's just easy to hear from there. I left the bathroom and went and gave Harriett a hug and told her that I love her and there is no way in H*LL I will ever let her go through this alone.

No one told me about their conversation so I really don't know if I have it right or not.

Harriett was very talkative today which is an incredibly good sign of her feeling better. She's got a theory that there is something other than the cancer wrong with her which is why all the nausea and diarrhea. Her onc ordered some more tests to look into that and we don't have those results yet. However, on Friday she was given an IV antibiotic when they put in the power port and she's been feeling better since. There really might be something to this line of thinking.

Today her BP was back in the normal range as it was yesterday so there was no IV fluid treatment. The nurse did take lab work through the port though, and it was all incredibly simple. Yeah!!! Maybe we really have turned the corner on this one....