Thursday, January 19, 2006

Another oh shit moment

My mother had another stroke on Tuesday.

She called me up this morning, AFTER she got home, and told me. Jesus christ; AFTER she got HOME. Of course my brother never bothered to call me.

They told her this time that it looks like the cancer has come back. It seems that she finally has the large, inoperable malignancy that they've all been worried about for years. She's going back for another MRI next week; but theres a lot of unexplained shadows; and the effects are exactly what they'd expect.

Worse, they actually KNOW she's had more aneurysms.

She's lost almost all her short term memory; she has a ten year memory hole (she doesn't remember her second marriage at all - which on balance isn't such a bad thing); her speech is seriously impaired, she's lost the ability to perform basic math, all control of her left hand, and most of her left leg...

As my regular readers know, she's been a pretty bad way for a long while; but now she's really getting ready for the end now. She's asked me to go through all her financials, insurance etc... and get things sorted.

So I brought Mel and the girls to meet her; and it was great. They all got on famously, my mom had some actual joy in her life for a few minutes. She loved the girls; she loved Mel. It was the happiest I've been in a hell of a long time.

Then of course my brother showed up.

Yeah that was fun.