Depressing

Mom is back in the hospital again.

She went to ER on Tuesday and was admitted. The symptoms which led us there included, disorientation, lethargy, weakness... mom fell twice in two days trying to get to the bathroom. She wasn't eating or drinking and on Monday wasn't able (perhaps not willing) to take her meds. She thought Dave was trying to kill her and refused any help at all from anyone until she was literally laying on the floor sobbing from pain and unable to get back up. Dave was at work while this was going on; Craig was visiting her and at his wits end. He called me around 5 pm and I went up there, but by then he had her back in bed and she was willing to take her pain meds again, so things had calmed down a bit. It was a very late night and very exhausting for all involved.

And so, Tuesday morning Dave called MOHPA to see about getting mom in for a blood test to see if her kidneys were shutting down again. He ended up having to leave a message. By 1:30 he still hadn't heard back from anyone and so I put on my "queen bitch" hat and called the clinic myself. When I was told that it would be best to leave a message and someone would get back to me, I said, "no, it would be best if I just wait for someone to take my call..." When someone came back on five minutes later and said that all of the nurses were still with patients and that I needed to leave a message and someone would call me back, I simply explained that mom was a patient too, and that we needed to find out where the doctor wanted us to take her (clinic or ER) because we needed to know if her kidneys were shutting down again, and we weren't willing to take the risk of waiting too long if there was a problem again. A nurse came to the phone. I repeated the whole thing, gave all the history, and she put me back on hold while she contacted mom's doctor. And so, ultimately we were told that we should go to ER. The doctor called ahead, which helped a lot. We were really hoping that they would see mom in ER, run some tests, and send her home again. Obviously, that is not how it went.

This morning they ran more tests. A CT scan. An x-ray. And a ca 125 test (blood test). The CT scan showed little change from the last one. The x-ray was fine. But the ca 125 showed extremeley high levels of cancer cells, a significant increase from the last test.

Dr. Boente met with us at 5:30 tonight. The results indicate that the chemo is not working. While the tumors do not appear to be any larger, the ca 125 results mean that the cancer is spreading. He said that the chemo they have been using is 75-80% effective in treating most people. But that mom is in the 20-25% who don't respond to the treatment. He said that there was one other type of chemo we could try, but we can't do that for a few more weeks because her body is so beat up from the first three rounds of chemo, that she can't sustain another round at this time.

He also said that we need to decide if trying more chemo is the course of action we want to take. He was not optimistic that it would help at all. He said our other option is to up the pain meds and make her as comfortable as we can. The problem with increase meds is that it will make it even harder to get her to eat, and she is barely eating now.

I asked if we could do both... increase the pain meds and do chemo. And he said that he must not be explaining himself very well. He never did come out and say it, but when he left, Dave and I both had the same impression. She is going to die. The question is how its going to happen...will it be the cancer, or the chemo, that will do it? Dr. Boente said he was sorry several times. He said he knew this was very hard.

I wasn't really sure he expected us to give any kind of answer, and yet, eventually we need to answer. I told him that tonight, we just had to get rid of the pain. She can't tolerate it, and she shouldn't have to. I keep thinking that if we can get the pain in control, then at least she'll have a chance of wanting to keep up the fight. But with the pain, she can't do anything.

Dave left the room for awhile, and mom asked me, "This is it, isn't it?"

I am not willing to hear it and I told her the same thing I told the doctor. Lets get the pain under control and then we can see where we are at. She nodded, but I didn't get the impression that she agreed with me, just that she wasn't going to argue with me.

Later on she told me that she could see Joe and Earl. I said, "who?" She said, "Joe and Earl, they live behind us."

Joe and Earl were twins we knew when we lived on 34th Avenue in South Minneapolis. Our backyard butted up against their backyard. They were my age. We moved to Lakeville in 1979 and didn't stay in contact with them.

Later, with her eyes closed, and in just a whisper, she started talking about her mom in the present tense... talking about visiting her. My grandmother, mom's mom, died years ago.

Dave said that before I got there today, mom was talking about all of the angels that she was seeing.

I probably don't need to say how hard this is. Each of us is trying so hard to hang on to the belief that she is giong to be okay, and each of us wants so badly for mom to be well, but we are also completely freaked out that this might really be a path to the end. And none of us is ready for that.... except maybe mom.