Where do I begin this one? A month ago? Two? Three???
I know.
I will begin and end with Neil Diamond....
....there are worse places.
A brief history; My mother is a HUGE Neil Diamond fan (hereafter referred to as 'Neilikins', which is what she calls him ;) ) We have seen him in concert countless times over the last 30 years. In fact, we have not missed a show that he played in Toronto in that time...Usually alone, sometimes with company. One memorable year we saw him with my high school best friend and her mother at Maple Leaf Gardens. When there still was a Maple Leaf Gardens
Soooo....
When it was announced last fall that he was returning yet again I thought it was perfect timing! I would buy her tickets for a Christmas present and we would see him in July of this year. Excellent. (I went online to buy the tickets 3 hours after they went on sale. There was one set of two left. A few random singles here and there, but only ONE pair left together...the man is selling out the ACC 40 years after he started in the biz..that's pretty impressive, I must say. But, I digress....)
Christmas came, minus my sister who was undergoing surgery for a rogue gall bladder that had gone to the dark side; the tickets were given, there was much merriment....
Fast forward to February 2012. Mum had been having back and side pains for a while plus a couple of cases of 'food poisoning', sometimes the 'discomfort' was enough to keep her up at night. Her doctors said that it was probably scar tissue from HER rogue gall bladder....20 odd years ago.,,
Not bloody likely, thinks mum.
One day she'd had enough, and was a little worried that the 'pain' was her heart, so her sister and she went on their merry way to the emerg. I receive a phone call from my mum telling me this. I was still working 11 hour days in The Pit Of Despair (a basement I rented for my grooming shop....Hades, Hell, The Dungeon...it had many names, but only one purpose; to suck the life force out of me...) She wanted me to not be expecting her to be at home when I got there. Thanks :)
I get home around 8. My aunt calls.
She tells me to come to the hospital.
She tells me that my mother has pancreatic cancer.
I was just about to eat dinner.
I almost threw it all back up.
I didn't finish it.
I rush to the hospital. We sit there until about 4am when the doctor finally comes in to tell us that she's not sure it's pancreatic cancer. it could just be a cyst. Right on the duct, thus the pain
(thank Dog for the pain)
and that they want to keep her in for a few days.
This is where it started.
She had a Whipple (they take part of the pancreas, intestines, bowel, gall bladder and everything else that is connected to the pancreas, then re-route everything, sew it all together, and hope for the best. It took 7 hours) procedure performed on March 21. The three year anniversary of my father's death. I wasn't too happy about that, but I try not to be too superstitious. It went well.
From there it was downhill.
I closed my business at the end of March, figuring that I was, really, the only one in the country, save for my 82 year old aunt, so I needed to be more available. I took up house call grooming.
My mother ended up having two more surgeries. One was 'minor' to repair a leak. One was MAJOR to try and stop a tiny artery from bleeding her to death..
she was close....
She spent a week in the CCU, or 'Hades' as she likes to call it. She became depressed, she became non-verbal. The occasional communication she would offer was through nods, head shakes, or grunts. This was WAY too close to how my dad had been. I was spending every visiting hour that I was not closing up shop, moving out of The Dungeon, or house calling at the hospital. I was exhausted. I couldn't cope alone. I was terrified of losing my mother, I was terrified about closing the 'sure thing' business which was killing me, I was terrified of ending up in the gutter. I was terrified of being alone, even though I should be used to that by now.
She pulled through. Warrior that she is.
She spent some time in rehab, she got stronger. They said they were going to start chemo and radiation "just to be sure". Here we go again.
The first three weeks of chemo was ok. She had regular doctors appointments which involved us sitting around in the hospital for 4-8 hour days waiting, patiently, for her morning appointments to finally take place, usually this happened in the late afternoon. I lost more and more money, I became more and more panicky.
What was I going to do? I was able to groom a few dogs a week, fitting them in around her schedule, my account was constantly in the negative column, creditors were calling wanting their money, I wasn't able to pay any credit card bills off, I was barely even able to scrape together enough change from the floor of my car and the black hole it the bottom of my purse to buy milk and bread...
I couldn't tell her though,
She was going through enough.
She had a week off chemo before starting a daily radiation and a 24 hour chemo drip.
In that week off, oddly enough, Neilikins came to town.
I took to Twitter that day, I tweeted to my (pathetic number of) followers
(most of whom are just random porn accounts...why? Seriously, you have nothing better in your life?)
that I was taking mum to #NeilDiamond and with everything that had happened in the 6 months since I gave her the tickets, we really weren't sure she'd even be around for the concert.
I didn't know that they were putting tweets up on the screen before the concert.
Mine came up last.
It stayed up the longest.
It faded just as the lights did and the music started.
I thought mum would cry.
The rest of the story is still being written. Well, dictated, I guess.
She is still doing well.
I now have another (mind numbing) part time job and between that, the grooming, and mum's daily radiation/doctor/random 4 hour magnesium infusion appointments I am working non stop. Only some of it earns me a little money which, may, slowly, climb that - into a +....I hope.
I don't want to end up in jail for non-payment of everything.
There is more I want to write about this. About her/our experiences with the hospital. About her pain, her treatment, her strength, and about
mememememe
and my own trouble...but I just can't. This is not the time to be selfish.
My trouble will sort itself out.
I have time to make it right.
Mum is immediate.
I want to write about how the lack of family here has made me really, really want to get my dual citizenship and blow off to England, where everyone is a stone's throw from everyone else, and things like this are not dealt with, mainly, alone. Where if one person can't do this day, then there are a dozen or so more on the family list who can. Where there is family, where there are so many people with my blood in their veins that I really couldn't feel like I was trying to swim in quicksand, there would be someone a few doors down to pull me out, brush me off, and stand beside me, to reinforce me, daily, so that I could continue to help mum, and not feel, daily, so selfishly, like I wanted to collapse into myself and just stop.
I'm too tired.
I'm too stressed.
I'm too panicky.
It's still to fresh,
But, thank you Neilikins, thank you for giving us, at least, one more concert that we went to together.
There.
I managed to start and finish with Neil Diamond.
Like I said I would,
'till next time;
You only get one family,
cherish them while you have them.
Unless they're total wankers,
Then just do as you see fit.
IrishRed
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
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