Remembering...

Last year on November 8th, I went back to school following the strangest week of my life. Two years ago, I had no clue that in just a few days, my mom would begin having tests and the discovery would be made that she had a large mass on her right ovary. My journal entry from two years ago on November 8th is that of a typical 19-year-old young music student with an eating disorder...

Nov 8th 2009
Once again the last page of a journal. Well, today was a pretty humdrum typical sunday. Church, helping out in sunday school, telling myself I'm not going to eat cookies and then doing so anyway (argh I have GOT to stop that!) having a simple lunch, mom and I went for a walk, me procrastinating on getting to work on my theory, then doing it while listening to N's [my best friend] mom on Musically Speaking (in this case theory was a deceptive resolution sequence, though I have yet to figure out why it is such) having dinner with mom, then I went down to walk and walked for 3 miles at 3 mph/10% incline and burning about 250-275 calories. I wish it was more. Way more. I did my 250 crunches and 35 pushes and now want to finish reading Coot Club [a book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome]. Sigh, I didn't practise today...

I was a little bit concerned about my mom's health at that point...she had been losing weight, didn't have much of an appetite, and then there was the coughing. I had actually forgotten about the coughing. It was one of the symptoms that actually pushed my mom to get in to see the doctor. Still, I was thinking that there was something going on with her lungs perhaps, as she had had bronchitis once or twice when I was child, and had had pneumonia several times when she was a kid. And, with her stomach acid issues (intense heartburn), we were all thinking that maybe she had an ulcer. Normal, everyday things, that can easily be fixed with some pills and a few weeks (if that) of treatment. But, in the end, I was more concerned about practising for my audition on November 11th. It was in the back of my mind that mom had a doctor's appointment on November 17th, but not at the front. I probably was thinking along the lines of how everything would be easier once she had the appointment because she would stop coughing (and having stomach problems because of the coughing and the acid) and the house would be calmer. Flash forward to November 20th 2009. The entry in my journal from that day...just 12 days later...has an incredibly different feel to it.

November 20th 2009
I finally have both the time and the ability to write again. This journal doesn't quite feel like a friend yet I guess [the November 9th entry was the first day]. And things have been just bouncing along. Yeah, right, bouncing along like someone being dragged behind on a rocky road, really sharp stoned, holding onto the tail of a big horse that was spooked by a snake and is now running top speed with me hanging on for whatever reason. Everything feels like it's falling apart and I'm in the middle. Might as well start at the beginning. That I skipped church to work on my canadian history essay. Well, in part because i had the performance at S.S.W's place on sunday afternoon. Which was okay I guess. Though, N cued us in and my gosh, it was probably at about 126 or 132, something like that. It was SO CRAZY FAST! And yet we managed to pull it off. Just as I managed to pull of my minuet that was due on monday although I don't know how I did on it. Though I felt pretty okay. [for the record, it was a B+...actually one of my lower marks in theory 3]. Tuesday of course was mom's appointment. Like I had anticipated, they did chest x-rays, trying to find the reason behind her cough. I guess they didn't find anything because there have been no phone calls. But Dr. R took one look at her stomach and ordered abdominal ultrasounds and ct scans. And she has a yeast infection but that should have cleared up by now. Her ultrasound was today-placed on the urgent waiting list does get some things done quickly I guess. Mom says that they did an internal as well. I am more concerned about mom though, now more than I have been except my worry about how my being in the hospital affected her. Her cough has gotten worse, so much so that she was sick last night in the kitchen because I was brushing my teeth and it came on suddenly. And when she mentioned that before Grandma even had her, she had had an abdominal cyst removed and before that had had a lot of fluid retention in her abdomen like mom. Though, of course, neither of us knows what she looked like-a little before our time! But when she suggested that, my mind started reeling-well, on wednesday. Tuesday I was still coming to terms with "this isn't an ulcer or just hormones". Now all I feel is that unspoken six-letter word-cancer. And I'm thinking ovarian cancer. Stage 3 or 4...incurable. My mom, the healthy parent, suddenly sick. It's a bit unnerving. Now we wait. It's going to take them a week or so to go over the ultrasound test results [it was only over the weekend-the seriousness of it warranted quick action]. She still has to go for a ct scan but they could phone for her to come in at 10pm! I guess I am also very worried that, well, what if they can't find anything from these tests? How much longer can she carry on like this? She has retained so much fluid that if you didn't know her age and didn't see her face you would think she was several months pregnant. And her heartburn she hasn't gotten any better. She has problems walking now, she can't go very far and her muscles are always bothering her because of the coughing. She has been coughing so much today. I grant that some is probably stress-related, but surely not this much, or this bad.

And mom is only part of it! M [basically my dad's boss at work during that time] is being nasty [I really wrote 'nasty'?] again. Dad got a letter dated Nov 3rd in his mailbox at work. Yet another one about why he shouldn't be there. Dad showed me the original claims and his rebuttals. Her claims are absolutely preposterous, ludicrous, insane, abysmal, ridiculous. And to think that I once admired M! I think I can cross that name off the names of girls that I like. Along with Anna. I used to think both names were beautiful, I no longer do. Dad talked with a lawyer today, the one who is across the hall from the place where my mom works. This may even involve Dad sueing or the Human Rights Board because of their claims that his health is a risk to the mission and the patrons as well as himself. I would say M is even more in trouble when it comes to health than dad. She's close to 300 pounds and definitely doesn't eat well. Dad mostly doesn't eat so much bad food, just too much.

Which brings me to my own tuesday. I took my laptop to school to work on my essay. Turns out it's heavier than i thought! But it was very useful. Although when I got home I had to work on my essay for longer and still didn't finish it on tuesday evening. I stayed up past midnight but then I saw the perfect way to keep questions down and yet still get to my morning appointment. I then slept in a bit, though my sleep was interrupted BEFORE my alarm by mom seeking comfort. Which at 7:15 in the morning all I could do was be "the voice of reason"-her words, not mine.

And so begins the mention of the word cancer in my journal entries. Probably can't think of a journal entry after that that didn't have the mention of the word cancer until perhaps recently when I wrote only a couple of sentences, or the journal entries that were just my attempts at scheduling and making to-do lists.

I hate cancer.