What a year...

It's been quite a while, but it's time to pour my heart out again.
Mom is doing better.  She isn't cured and never will be, but she is in a steady orbit for now. Dad is .... I don't know what to say.
But, today... I did the hardest, yet most compassionate thing I think I have ever done.  It's tearing my heart out of my chest, but it was the right thing to do.
For the last nearly 15 years, I have had the good fortune of sharing my life with the most beautiful soul I have ever known.  Piper, my dog.
This little Border Terrier picked my heart to get squished into.  And she will be there forever.  However, today, I had to send her to the angels.  God... just writing the words rips me apart.
I am of the belief if they are suffering, it's time to intervene.  I know this, I believe this, but it still FRIGGEN sucks.
She has been with me for so long, I can't imagine life without her.  I miss her so much already. She went everywhere with me.  She had her own luggage.  Yeah, I said it, her own luggage. 
She loved everyone she ever met.  She made everyone she ever met smile.  At times she had wild hair.  At times she could gas you out of the room.  She had a way of communicating and understanding me better than any human I know.   She was my "fur person."
I wasn't there when she came into this world, but by God, I was there when she went out.
Piper, I will love and miss you forever.

Been a while...

Things are looking better these days.  Mom is responding to chemo.  My dad and sister are doing great too.  It is such a relief.  I have been back at the gym now that my back has healed from surgery.  Focused on work and living a little.  May all your clouds have a silver lining!

Finally, a little relief.

Mom got a cat scan on Tuesday, we got the results Wednesday.  Chemo is working!  Major reductions in most of the spots with cancer.  Yeah!

CAT scan next week

It's been crazy.  The spring trip to Hawaii was bumped up to this fall.  Mom has a CAT scan next week. 
She is starting to become more tired and sweets don't taste good anymore.  That's got a be a bummer. 
Meanwhile, I am contending with a vicious cold and some big deadlines (my own inflictions of course).
No matter what your status, don't forget to tell the ones that you love, how much you love them!

Big Reality Check

All my life my family moved.  We rarely went to the same school two years in a row.  The one exception was junior high.  We actually attended school in the same school district for approximately 4 years.
I have never stayed in touch with anyone from school/college.  I moved a lot as an adult too. 
This means that my Mom and sister, Michele, are the only other people that have been through everything in my life, I realized I don't have a huge network of friends and family that KNOW me and my life.
With Mom fighting her battle and a sister that is in the military, works as a nurse and a single mom... I suddenly became aware that once my Mom completes her life cycle, all I will have left will be my sister. 
I feel like my life is disappearing.  I don't have the network of life long friends to help me re-live the memories of my life. 
I love my sister, but the truth is that she has a busy life and struggles just to remember to return calls.  She has never come to visit me.  I don't even know how she could pull it off with her demanding schedule.
I am terrified....  I don't have a husband, children or anyone else to help me remember my life... my history.
My father... is starting to forget.  The Alzheimer's will take his memories and history too.
This has become the most lonesome and frightening emotion that I have experienced in this journey.

1 Quiet Week

Finally a quiet week without too much to report on the "parental units".  I needed one of those.  It's Sunday, I have today and tomorrow all to myself to do whatever I want.  Don't you just love those days!

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

The story got interupted....
Mom now has intrusions on her liver.
How in the hell are you supposed to say that?

I am pretty overwhelmed.  I started out with just telling a story because the life was painful.  Now it's... alarming to say the least.

Re-cap
Breast cancer
Re-occuring breast cancer
Dry cough led to re-occuring breast cancer
   Sternum and lung
Therapy to try to hold the growth
New chunks on liver...

This isn't eloquent.  I ususally try to be but I am so beat down, I can only be honest.  No patience for sensitivity right now. 
There is another portion of the recent equation that is troubling, but I don't have strength to talk about knee replacement or plastic surgery....
Oh yeah, that's in the mix too.
How does one find the logic??????????? 

The saga continues.

The rest of the summer remained quiet.  Fire season was also very mellow. 
In October, on Halloween, I got a call from my Mom.  My grandmother had passed away.  She had been declining, not eating and was finally ready to go.  And she did. 
I thought I would be a mess, instead I felt relief for her.  She had been struggling since the first of the year.  Now she could truly rest.
I didn't go to the funeral.  I can't handle funerals.  I had said goodbye in my own way while visiting her the previous February.  I didn't really want to be around a bunch of people during that time.  My grandmother would understand my decision.

Later that summer...

Sometime in July, my Mom tells me that my sister wants to plan an all family trip to Austrailia.  I was excited at first, but that didn't last long.  I work in the wildfire business and it happened to be one of those mild summers without many wildfires.  So money was tight.
Then I started thinking about what that trip might be like.  My sister tends to hand her kids off, to anyone when she's on vacation.  Furthermore, no one in the family is a night owl like me.  So after tending my sisters kids all day, watching my mom wear herself out telling dad what to do all day, there would be no one up past 9PM to go to the bar with me for a WELL deserved drink.  Besides, me drinking alone in bars full of aussie's would probably be grounds for a new reality show.
So a few day's later, I called my Mom back.  I told her how I felt about it.  She said she understood about the money thing and the other logistics.  She suggested that I call my sister.  A couple of days later, I finally get my sister on the phone.  I let her know how I felt about the trip and my concerns and issues.  After a few moments of hem-hawing around, she drops a bomb on me.  Moms cancer was back again. 
I really don't remember much about what was said during the remainder of the conversation, but my heart, brain and body was struggling with all the competing emotions.  Sadness, fear, anger, abandonment, heartbreak.... just to name a few.
I immediately called my mom back.  I wasn't very nice, but God Damn It, just because I am so far away doesn't me that I don't need know. 
I could go into details about that lengthy painful conversation, but I think you could put 2 and 2 together.
Later that week I called Dad to see how he was doing.  He was freaking out.
The bad part was I got so hungup on the emotional battle, I didn't do any more homework on the situation.  And I doubted that my Mom would have told me the truth anyway.
I will stop here, because the next part of the story will require some clarity.

Meanwhile....

My dad had been diagnosed with the beginning stages of Alzheimers the previous summer. 
Things were getting increasingly worse.  On new years my grandmother broke her hip and had it replaced twice in the next couple of weeks.  She never really got better. 
By Valentine's Day, I flew to California to say "Goodbye."  She had lost so much strength and will, she wouldn't eat and couldn't talk.  At first, I thought I might surprise her, but her conditioned worsened before I got there.  I told my Mom, "Tell her I am coming, give her something new to be excited about."  That did the trick.  She leveled out, but still not in great shape.
The first day I saw her, she looked up, her eyes fluttered, then she winked and mouthed "I love you."  I nearly lost my cool.  But she had been a rock for me in my life and now it was my turn.  She looked so frail, so vulnerable.
I spent the afternoon feeding her, holding her hand and trying to share some trivial info about my new job, location and such.  She finally fell asleep.  So I left for the day.
The next day, she was visually improved.  She started making sounds and ate quite a bit more than the previous day.  In general, she was more responsive.   I was building hope, but knew it would be a long road ahead.  She lasted a little longer before falling asleep.  I would come back tomorrow.
The next day, she was even better!  She fed herself and she gobbled it down!  It was such a huge relief!  I can't take all the credit, but it sure reminded me how the love between family members is a powerful thing.

The next chapter...

Around November 2008, not long after I moved to Montana, I found out that my Mom was staying with my sister for an extended stay.  I figured my sister was going on a military assignment or something.
Around Christmas time, I found out that Mom's breast cancer had resurfaced.
I felt betrayed.  No one told me again.... until well after.
I felt like I was a bad daughter, because I couldn't be there to help. (I don't know how I could have helped.)
I felt like a "puppy sucking hind tit." HOW DID I GET SO LOW ON THE FOOD CHAIN!!!
I was hurt.  My Mom decided not to tell me because I had just moved, starting a new job and was concerned with putting me under extra stress.
I will stop here for the night because the next diatribe will go on for a while.
Remember, life is a cycle, we just don't know where we are in that cycle.

From the beginning...

In October,2005, I found out that my mom had breast cancer and my father had prostate cancer.  Needless to say the heartbreak was unimaginable.  I felt so lost.
I couldn't eat, when I did, it wasn't staying around for long.
I finally went to visit them, I didn't realize that they had been undergoing tests and had tons of lab work.  This was the first time I felt out of the loop!
Mom had a mastectomy on her left breast and had reconstruction to the other.  Dad went to Loma Linda Cancer Institute and had proton therapy.  He is clear to this day.  However, about 2.5 years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimers.
And that is the first part of the journey.

The first day...

I finally did this.  I needed a forum to get what is in my head out there.  I struggle day to day with the fact that both of my parents are ill.  I live a long ways from them and my sister.  She isn't the best at keeping me updated. 
I feel disconnected from my family. 
To top it off, I moved to my current community in Nov. 08.  I haven't made a lot of friends yet, due to the nature of my work.  So all my BEST friends are far from me too.
It can feel a bit lonely at times.