a lot has happened, nothing has changed

I've worked. I made a business trip to London (with a flying side trip to Glascow to see a customer as well). While there I did some touristy things. I felt guilty about it. I bought my mother souvenirs because she asked me to do it. She asked me to 'buy Sarah some, too.' I did it.

Mother has been in hospitals for 57 days. But who is counting? When I'm not there, I feel guilty. I've gone on with my life as far as possible. I've cancelled a few social occasions and FFP has gone with someone else. Most of them I try to make. My 85-year-old dad sits with her endlessly.

There is progress, of course. Mom has no tubes. No feeding tube in her nose. No IV hanging out of her hands. In fact, the bruises have healed up. Then they put an IV set back in today to adminster another four days of Decadron. Her skin is so much better than Dad's, I think, as I hold her shoulder and rub her back while we clean the bed up. I think I got Dad's skin.

Mom has stood a little. She feeds herself puréed food and thickened liquids, is getting pretty good at swallowing. But she is weary. A little out of it and confused at times. Weak. Why confused and sleepy? The narcotics? The disease? Her seizure disorder? All of the above? They give her iron for her anemia. All her pills are crushed and mixed with the puréed fruit or puddings but she's getting them down. Vicadin or Lortab, Tegritol, iron, stuff to stave off the constant threat of constipation. After her Foley bag (constant catheter) was removed she had trouble voiding her bladder and they had to in/out cath her. But that is improving.

She worries about going home. She suggests new furniture, a grab bar here, a lift to get her in the jacuzzi. She tries to hire the aides she likes best to go home with her. I don't know if she will go home. The doctor visits each day for maybe ten minutes. Encouraged by her progress in rehab. I don't ask him about the prognosis. He is a different doctor from all the ones who treated her for all her symptoms before. And a different one than the one who admitted her. No one has told me why. I haven't seen the oncologist in weeks, but maybe he's been there. Just concentrate on what's in front of us. You can't completely ignore the other cases either. People learn to walk and go home. A guy on a ventilator. Why is that bed suddenly empty? The stroke victim with the family huddling with the docs and nurses and patient reps over care issues. Concentrate on mother. The days run together. Different nurses, therapists, drugs, crises. Not having any idea when and how it will end.

Yesterday Mom was sad because one of their neighbors in Mesquite had died. Dad thinks she had Multiple Myeloma, but from talking to another former neighbor I wonder. Whatever. It makes her sad, anyway. Sets her back a little. Doesn't help that Dad was standing by her bed when I told him on the phone. He got tears in his eyes, she tells me. I could hear them in his voice.

So, life is hard. A friend at work finds out her friend (and CPA) has died and she didn't know it. Asks me to look for the newspaper from that day. I happen to find it in the old papers I stuck in a bag to read while looking after Mom. She was 54.