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My mother is dead.  She died sometime last night in what I assume was peaceful manner.  We don’t know if she was in pain, being doped up as much as she was.  There has got to be a better way to do this, other than the hospice.  Sigh.

I could write more, but I dont feel like it...

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My mother is dead.  She died sometime last night in what I assume was peaceful manner.  We don’t know if she was in pain, being doped up as much as she was.  There has got to be a better way to do this, other than the hospice.  Sigh.

I could write more, but I dont feel like it...

Oh man...

My mother was of average shape for the woman of her years and condition.  But when we took her into the doctors and they preformed a biopsy, things have really just gone down hill from there.  Damn you cancer.  We assume the same tumors that are making her lethargic and not eating have made her not really able to walk without serious help.  With that said, my brother and myself have taken my mother up to his place and we are putting her in home hospice care.  We have did that today and the trip was tiring for both us and I assume my mother as she is still out of it.  She just has days left...

Fuck you cancer!

You wanna do wha??

My mother is a very complicated person.  Yesterday she was up and appeared to be in good spirits.  She even went out and gambled.  She was gone for almost twelve hours.  Now she is in bed lying there like she was all last week.  I dont want her that way.  I want her out and about, gamble, go to temple, something, anything, just be active.  But she isnt and it breaks my heart.

I believe (now) that is all from her depression.  There is denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  The first step is denial, for after she was diagnosed, she was like "I dont believe it is cancer.  I feel fine."  But she has gone on to depression.  But she has been depressed for a long time.  She has skipped anger and bargaining?  Sigh, I do not know.  Maybe because she was depressed for all that time, she has skipped anger and bargaining.  I have only seen my mom truly angry only a handful of times.

Blah.  All I am doing is going about in circles.  I will have to wait and see if she can beat this depression.  I will be angry for her.  FUCK CANCER!!  Yeah, thats more like it...

Depression

No, not me.  I do not think I am depressed by any stretch of the imagination.  I do internalize what I am feeling and churn out stuff like this.  I maybe bummed by the situation but I am not depressed.  My mother is.  It seems that she was suffering depression for quite a while and I didnt even know it.  Now that my brother and his wife said that my mother was suffering from depression, I am kicking myself for not noticing this.  The thing is she is not even suffering from depression from her having cancer, though she is going through it right now.  My mother is a buddhist and when we were told she had lung cancer, she was like, "Oh well.  How much time do I have?"  She did not cry, but was strong in the face of death sentence that her lung cancer gave her.  Now that I think about it, her depression started back when Dewayne died.  She had always seemed fine to me, but arrrgh!  I should have known.  There was a lot of stuff that I could have done but didnt in those years.  Right now she is in the lying in bed and not doing anything.  I have tried to get her to go out with me to go for a walk or out shopping or something to get her active.  All I can do right now is just wait for her to drag herself up and out of her slump, and failing that, there is anti-depressants that we are going to look into at her next doctor's appointment.

Fuck you cancer!

Mom...

My very good friend Ron said that I should vent, cry, do something.  Well, this is something.  I did not cry when my Dewayne or my father died.  Yes, Dewayne dying was rather a surprise as he was dead in a day.  He was doing to so good with his chemo.  The thing is, I made peace with Dewayne and my father dying.  The hardest thing was living with them in those end times.  Let me explain.  It is hard to see them in pain.  When my father was dying he was in such pain those last weeks of his life.  He wanted it to be over and it is so hard not to follow his wishes.  It was like my great-grandfather.  I stayed with him and my great-grandmother in his final weeks as he suffered from alzheimers and bed ridden.  On those days when he was lucid, he kept on asking why he wasn't being allowed to die.  I think it should be the right of a terminal patient to decide when they should pass.  I think it would be much more kinder to those who remain alive to remember them as they were, and not the bed-ridden and weak scarecrows that they are becoming.

So here we are, with mom.  She was in pain, terrible pain when the cancer spread to her adrenal gland and caused internal bleeding.  Now that we have got her pain under control, pretty much all she does is lay in bed.  She has a couple of time felt good enough to go out for the day (usually gambling) but I am afraid for her.  I dont let it show as I want her to go out and "be free," as she puts it.  She doesn't want anyone to care for her but myself, Roger, his wife V and her granddaughter R and everyone else tells her to hang on, because we care.  She isn't in pain at the moment and that is where I want to to be.

Anyway, I think her meds are making her sleepy, way too sleepy.  It is a good thing she has a doctors appointment this week and I am going to ask her doctors about it.

Fuck you cancer!

Cancer, it is a real pain in the ass...

For those of you who do not know who I am, my name is James.  I do not have cancer myself (thank goodness), but in my life I am watching it claim my family members one by one.  I come from an average family for the times.  Besides my parents I have (or should I say had) two younger brothers.  My littlest brother Dewayne died of leukemia.  He was the littlest among the family and I didn't get the chance to tell him what I felt.  Roger the middle brother did, my parents did, but me, I was at work.  When Dewayne died, I saw a light go out in my parents eyes.  So much so that my father died a couple of years later due to colon cancer.  Now my father was a Vietnam veteran, a Green Beret who did three tours of duty of active combat.  He was sprayed with Agent Orange when he was there.  We suspected, no, we KNOW that it was the Agent Orange that gave him the cancer.  Further examination of the Agent Orange states that my father and descendants (myself and by brothers) could have an assortment of cancers and other things such as strokes.  Oh, did I forget to state that I had a stroke between my brother and father dying.  So as far as I know, our family does not have a history of cancers.  It was only my family that has it in spades.  Now my mother was just diagnosed three weeks ago with lung cancer with metastasis to the brain.  It has spread to the lymph nodes and the adrenal gland.  I have learned that her father died of liver failure but I do not know if it is because of cancer.  My god, dear buddha, and whatever is above or below, cut it out already!  I am sick of this cancer taking the ones I love.

Pfft.  I am writing this blog to get my feelings out on this whole matter.  There is more to come.