Though I’m usually throwing something up on this blog, whether it’s an ode to the shiny grandeur of marbles or a tirade regarding people who hate eggs, this week has overwhelmed me with real world non-internet related issues.
- My 7 months pregnant aunt has advanced (stage IV) invasive breast cancer. She just found this out. Her baby is going to be delivered prematurely in the hope that she will be able to start treatment as quickly as possible.
- My grandmother, who lives with my aunt and has also had breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer, has cancer again. She also has Alzheimer’s disease that has gotten progressively worse over the course of several years. She remembers very little and has some delusions.
- My mother moved into a new house, next door to the aunt who just found out she has life threatening cancer. The previous owners left the house in atrocious condition, violating their contract a thousand times over, and are insane hillbillies. They left piles of trash in the house and all over the yard. These piles included a (filled) rented dumpster, broken glass, a semi-trailer filled with their junk, bread, coffee, clothing, dirt, their plunger, toilet bowl cleaner, torn up insulation padding, random pieces of wood, oil, unidentifiable objects, and a wealth of other goodies strewn carelessly throughout the premises for someone else to clean up. It’s disgusting and they’re actually going to save money off of the whole thing because they’re practically bankrupt and can’t successfully be sued.
- I cut my dog while trimming his hair, which is minute in the grand scale of things but still saddened me.
- Common Relationship Problems Being Magnified by the Stress of these Other Things
Suffice it to say, it hasn’t been a great week for… let’s see… apparently anyone associated with me. I’m actually doing relatively ok, all things considered, with my anxiety only slightly more amped up than usual. By some divine circumstance I have never once felt like my aunt is really going to die. I know that she could, that she very well may, but something has been telling me she won’t. I’ve been trying to use that information to comfort my mother, but she believes her sister is probably not going to make it. I knew it before and I know it again now: breast cancer fucking sucks.
icedmocha said,
March 10, 2007 @ 5:05 pm
Good heavens. I’m sending best wishes your way for your family members. So much to deal with. My thoughts are with you.
gingermiss said,
March 10, 2007 @ 8:45 pm
Thank you so much. I really do appreciate that.
knitagirl said,
March 12, 2007 @ 11:48 am
I’m so sorry to hear about all that – I’ll be thinking of you.
Don’t worry about cutting your dog, they do much worse things to themselves. Like climbing on the garage roof and deciding they want to chase a magpie, and then ending up in a water butt. That’s what mine did this weekend anyways.
Stay calm *hugs*
x
daisies said,
March 12, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
am so sorry to hear all this … sending you all kinds of good warm thoughts …. hugs!
Pony said,
March 13, 2007 @ 6:32 am
All this, in one family at one time! I am astounded and admiring of your ability to lay it out so dispassionately. Once, for circumstances much less trying which nevertheless threw me, a very pragmatic friend said:
“It’s a test. You have no choice but to pass.”
Please keep us posted, about your mom, your grandmother–and your dog, poor brave creatures the things we do to them–but especially about your aunt and her child.
How are you holding up by the way?
totaltransformation said,
March 13, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
I just stumbled across your blog. I am sorry to hear about all the bad things happening in your (and your family’s) life at the moment. If you don’t mind I would be glad to include your aunt, her unborn child, and your mother in our family’s prayers. Keep us posted about how the situations unfold if it isn’t too personal.
J. Kaiser
gingermiss said,
March 14, 2007 @ 4:45 am
Thank you to everyone for the kind comments and support. I really do appreciate them.
My aunt delivered her new son over the weekend, who was remarkably healthy for a premature delivery. He was able to go home the next day, as was his mom. My aunt is heartbroken because she’s going to have to go back into the hospital for two days for her PET scan and he won’t be allowed to see her. Then, pending the results of the tests, have her masectomy which will prevent her from being able to hold him against her chest while she heals.
My grandmother is doing very poorly. This will be her third round of chemotherapy treatment for combined bouts of breast and ovarian cancer. She went to the hospital earlier this week where they drained 3 liters of blood pooling in her abodomen. I love my grandmother, but she’s an older woman who has been deteriorating for a while and it will be less shocking if she dies. I don’t want her to die, but I know that she has stayed alive for so much longer than she was originally supposed to that, if she does, we’ve been lucky to have her as long as we did. My mother will be devastated if she dies.
Pony, I really like your comment. That’s the attitude I’ve been trying to project to everyone. My grandmother and my aunt are both extremely tough, proactive people. I keep telling my mom, if there’s anyone who can get through something like this, it’s the two of them.
Thank you again to all the wonderful, uplifting comments.
After all of this happened last week, I read about the dissolution of funding for the Office of Women’s Health on Women’s Space. Suffice it to say, my normal anathema for the sexist anti-female agenda of many politicians in Washington was magnified ten-fold – and it was pretty damn high to begin with.