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???????????