A Year of Change

I think it's funny that this month's NaBloPoMo theme is change, because 2008 was a year of change for me.

Some of the change was great: my beloved husband finally finished all his schooling, allowing him to get a position as a school media specialist. This meant we got a new apartment (big yay!), moving to Gwinnett County from DeKalb. Nice apartment with a high balcony, which means the kitties can go outside. Of course, moving and a new job for my husband meant big changes to our schedules: I wake up between 5:20 and 5:45 every morning. Not so hot for a dedicated night owl, believe me. But so worth it.

Because of the new apartment, we've been able to host a few overnight guests: a Guild Wars friend and his wife and family in July, and some other Guild Wars friends for Dragon*Con. I have loved the freedom to invite people over whenever we want!

There was even bigger good news for my family: my sister got married and is pregnant. He will the first baby on my side of the family. I take great pride in having bought him his first stuffed animal (a frog from Ikea), only three days after I found out she was pregnant and before most people even knew!

I've done some cool stuff artistically this year, too. In February, I took an art journal class, Love This Journal, with Jessica Wesolek. I loved it, and I've almost filled my first Moleskine. I also got a spinning wheel, which I adore. (Note that I don't claim to spin with any degree of skill...)

At church, we called a new music minister, just in time for our Christmas program. Exciting for sure; we've needed him! Still, I'm glad we didn't jump into a decision.

Not all the change was good though: my life was really shaken up in October, when my mom was diagnosed with lymphoma. Her prognosis is excellent (as I've posted before), but it shaken up everything. (Even more so for my brother and uncle.) But it has definitely reminded me of how much I love all my family. The blessing in all of this is that once my mom is cancer free, she should be in better health than when she started! Turns out the cancer was behind some health problems she had been having...and they discovered her gallstones before they caused her any problems. Since they are taking out her gallbladder once chemo is over, she'll never have any problems with them!

It's true that 2008 had some very serious, scary problems, but life is always like tht. Regardless, it was a promising year for us.

Another Mom Update

So...my mom started chemo unexpectedly yesterday. She thought she was going in for a consultation; instead, they sent my uncle to get some food for her, so she could eat before it started.

It is in her bone marrow, which make her cancer Stage IV. They gave her only two of the drugs they will be giving her, since they're waiting for some test results. Fortunately, she didn't have any serious reactions. Her only reaction was a bit odd: it made her very hot. Apparently, chemo gives everyone else on the Prime Material Plane serious chills. That's my mom for you!

My brother is trying to help her, work, and keep up an A average in school. Oh, and take care of my grandmother, who lives with them. That in itself is a big job, because she won't do anything for herself if she can help it...even though she has better mobility than my mom does healthy!

My uncle is shouldering the rest of the burden for my grandmother and mom. It's such a blessing that he is retired and lives only a few minutes from my mom! But he's the type who loves peace and solitude, which he does not get at my mom's. My mom's chatty even under normal conditions, but the medication is making her ramble (and not always coherently, either). We measure my uncle's day by how many miles he has to walk for his sanity. Friday was six; Saturday required nine.

Oops.

I hate to admit it, but I think the stress is making me a little bit cranky and restless. I feel so bad about that, because I have an absolutely wonderful husband. I thought I was doing great and was stress free, until I developed a cold sore a few days ago. Apparently my body knows me better than I know myself; I only get those when I'm stressed.

Oops again.

On the good side, this might fix several problems my mom has had over the past couple of months, at least once all the chemo and stuff is over. So yay!

Mom Update

I have so many online friends and family that I gave in and decided to do a full update on my blog instead of rewriting it several places.

For those of you who don't know, my mom was diagnosed with Stage III non-Hodgkins lymphoma on Friday, which is cancer of the lymph nodes. She has one cluster around the bile duct, which was choking the flow of bile from the gallbladder. There is a second cluster near her lungs, which is not causing any major problems right now. (Except that, well, it's cancer…) Her prognosis is good.

She is a cashier at a Publix grocery store near her home. Last Monday, she went to work with a slightly sallow complexion and came home very yellow. My brother took her to the doctor, and they scheduled her to come back for additional tests on Wednesday.

By Wednesday, she was golden yellow, almost orange. She was tested, then sent to two other doctors for tests. The third doctor wanted to send her straight to the emergency room, but she had driven herself. She talked the doctor into letting her go home, take care of my ninety-two-year-old grandmother, and have my brother drive her to the hospital as soon as he got home.

At the hospital, the barrage of tests began. The extreme jaundice was a pretty good clue that something was wrong with the gallbladder. They stuck her so many times that by Saturday the inside of her left elbow was purple and sunken, and they were no longer able to take blood from either elbow and were moving on to sticking smaller vessels. Did I mention my mom has a major fear of needles?)

At first they thought she had hepatitis, but that turned out to be a false positive. Since my grandmother is so old and my sister is pregnant, we're especially thankful that was not the case. My mom would have been so depressed if she couldn't be around her daughter while she was pregnant with my mom's first grandchild! (My sis is having a boy.)

Friday they diagnosed the cancer: twelve lymph nodes in two places, I believe. They did surgery to put a stent in to allow the gall bladder to drain. I think this was the worst part of it for my mom: she was awake for the procedure, which took over three hours instead of the usual forty-five minutes. And despite what the doctors said during the procedure, she remembers all of it. (Which is ironic, considering that the overload of bilirubin in her body and the medications are temporarily interfering with her short-term memory and ability to concentrate.) They also did a biopsy of a lymph node under her right arm, but that was fine. They thought they may have to do a lung biopsy, but the CAT scan made that unnecessary.

By Saturday, she was much less yellow, though that is relative. She was still very jaundiced, but she had dropped from twenty-two times the norm to nine. Still lots of medication-induced fogginess, though. Nothing changed Sunday, except that she continued to improve.

On Monday, they put a port in her collarbone and did a bone marrow biopsy a couple of hours later. They also did an echocardiogram, which came back fine. We won't have the results of the bone marrow biopsy, though, for a few more days.

And yesterday she went home. Infection control is a big issue with her stent, so my uncle and brother cleaned and disinfected the entire house. She'll be starting chemo soon; she also has gallstones, but they're going to wait a couple of months on her surgery.

So right now, we're praying for good results on her bone marrow biopsy and making sure she takes it easy. As long as her bone marrow is cancer-free, her prognosis is very good!