Gentle

I’m at a prayer retreat with my Servant Partners internship this weekend, and we did a Lectio Divina on Matthew 11:28 – 30:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”

The word that stuck out to me was the word “gentle.” And after sitting with and asking Jesus about it, I know why: because all this stuff with my mom is anything but gentle.

In fact, all that has happened so far has been really, really violent. The stroke itself was violent, the news of the cancer was violent, and on an on and on. Nothing has come up slowly, or quietly, or easily. It has all come quickly, screaming at us, attacking us with its ugliness.

My soul feels mutilated. My soul feels like its been bruised, and stabbed, and broken. My soul has suffered a lot of trauma.

And so I need the gentleness of Jesus. I need his gentle presence, counteracting and overcoming the mutilation, the trauma, the violence. And I need to be gentle to myself, and find people who will be gentle with me.

Gilmore Girls Addendum

Remember how I said I didn’t think I could watch Gilmore Girls anytime soon?

Well, I found a solution: watch it with my mom.

It works really well – she loves it, she’s got a lot of time on her hands, and it’s a beautiful thing that we can share. My dad even likes it!

I just hope we can make it through all seven seasons together.

"I'm glad I'll have more time with you"

When my mom first said this to me today, after we got home from the oncologist, I thought she meant “I’m glad I got to spend more time with you today.” But she didn’t.

She meant: I’ve chosen to do the treatment (radiation and the chemo) and I’m glad I get to be with you a little longer, before I die.

That’s the first time she and I have really talked about the cancer. We talk all the time about her progress in recovering from the stroke – that’s the obvious, easy stuff to talk about. And I’ve talked with my dad a lot about the cancer, and he’s talked with my mom a lot about the cancer. But I hadn’t talked to her at all about the cancer.

And I know she was trying to protect me by not talking about it – still trying to be my mom, still trying to be strong for my sister and I. (I wrote a post about this earlier.) And I know I was trying to still be her baby daughter, still wanting her to take care of me and coddle me like she used to, protecting me from all the worlds ills, and making everything okay. 

But today, when me, my sister, my dad and my mom were all in the room when the oncologist said that if she did treatment, her median life expectancy was a year, but if she didn’t do treatment, she would probably only live two or three months, that was when she and I realized we couldn’t pretend, couldn’t avoid it anymore.

She chose to do treatment because she wants more time with us. Because if she didn’t, she could be dead by Christmas, and that’s just not enough time.

So instead she will do treatment, radiation & chemo every day for 6 weeks, and then chemo five days a week for the next year. And maybe with treatment she’ll live til next October, or maybe the October after that or maybe… we don’t know. But however long it is, it’s more time.

If the radiation and the chemo make her too sick, though, she’s going to stop. They’re not supposed to be too bad. (“In 99% of cases, so and so was skipping and jumping* with extra energy from the chemo – its very well tolerated” *skipping and jumping is an exaggeration. Do not try this at home.) But in case they are, she needs to be free to choose a good quality of life for her last days, even if she has fewer days left.

But regardless of the chemo, and the radiation, and her quality of life now (I mean, she can’t pee without help. She can’t dress herself without help.), and all the extra craziness of blood clots and seizures, and even my dad’s eye surgery, she still wants more time. She wants more time with us. She wants more time with me. She said it very clearly to me: “I’m glad I’ll have more time with you.”

And I’m glad that I’ll have more time with her, too.

Surgery

But not for my mom. For my dad. And not on his back. On his left eye.

Surgery number two, actually. Apparently his retina is lifting from where it should be, and it has to be lazered, and injected with some air bubble thing to hold the retina down in place as it heals. He has to keep his head down all day for one day, and then on and off every few hours for a week. He can’t look at a computer screen or read for two weeks, and he can’t drive until the bubble eventually dissipates (which took three weeks last time).

This wouldn’t be such a big deal (he’s had it before, it’s a pretty easy surgery to recover from and I’ve already freaked out about this once the first time it happened, so I don’t have to again, right?) except the whole my mom can’t walk, my mom can’t drive, my mom can’t cook, and she can only kinda talk. You know, the usual. And as if he wasn’t in enough pain (exacerbated by standing up a lot to help my mom with things), the whole putting-your-head-down-and-thus-not-putting-your-leg-up thing certainly doesn’t help his back feel any better.

His surgery is happening on Thursday morning. Let’s hope this one sticks, and fixes everything that the last one missed (and anything that the next one might catch). They almost did it today when he went in to get his eye checked. But now he has time to find rides – for him to the doctor’s for the surgery, for him and mom for different doctors appointments throughout the next few weeks. And of course I’ll be on duty if they need anything, even though it takes me 45 minutes to get there.

But yah, so it would be nice if all this stopped. The hospitals, the surgeries. I’d really like this to stop, if that’s okay. I don’t know how much more we can take right now.

Standing!

My mom stood today for the first time since the stroke. She stood for about two minutes, which is amazing.

She can also move her toes and her ankle on her right foot, and can sometimes move her right wrist. Go mom go!

Also, this picture came from my dad. He texted it to me. Isn't he fancy?

Sunflowers

Even though it's now officially fall, and is finally starting to feel like fall, I have one thing to say:

I love sunflowers. The bring sunshine to any room, and make me smile. So here's to sunshine all year round.

Choices

This weekend, I chose to stay in Oakland and have fun instead of going to visit my mom for the weekend. Not that hanging out with my mom isn’t fun – it is. But it’s a different type of fun. This weekend I chose to hang out with friends, and drink good beer, and just do fun, Oakland-y things.

It was a hard decision. And I felt very torn this whole weekend – a part of me wanting to be with my mom, and the other (and overriding part of me) really glad to be staying in Oakland. It was a good decision, and a super fun one, but still hard. It’s hard to choose to care for myself and choose my own enjoyment over caring for my mom.

It was a really fun weekend. (Have you gotten it by now that it was a really fun weekend? Can I say fun a few more times in this post?). On Friday I chilled with friends. On Saturday I went with a friend to Oaktoberfest, and tried tasty homebrews and local beers, watched some street dancers, listened to some Zydeco music, and ate some brats. And people watched – I saw so many different faces of Oakland all in one place. And then Reuben sandwiches and pumpkin pie back at home with roomies and friends.

I’m glad I decided to stay in Oakland. I really had a super fun weekend. (Thanks friends who made it so fun!) I think I needed the break, and I needed the chance to just chill with friends. And I still got to hang out with my mom today for a few hours.