The End Is Near?

Today started with my calling mom to make sure she was awake for her radiation appt. Being awake at 8am would not be a big deal 6mos ago. Even on her days off she was up before daylight drinking a whole pot of coffee. However, recently, I have seen mom wake up and go right back to sleep within minutes and sleep an entire day. So I HAD to make sure. She thought she was going alone today. She requested to go alone. But the girls and I were right behind her. Kids, once again, are not allowed, so we waved through the glass at mom and her fellow sick friends. She looked surprisingly good. Great actually. Then we told mom to meet us at the Donut Shop when she was done. 20 min and several calories later, I started to get worried. Really worried. It literally only takes 5 minutes to get radiated. Where is she? I started worrying that something went wrong. I started calling and texting. But no response. My sister in law(Jamina)  showed up at the shop and offered to keep the girls so I could go check. It was in that moment that I remembered that she sees the Dr. on Thursdays at THIS clinic. So many clinics, so many things to remember.

Her car whirled into the parking lot soon after this revelation. She came in a with a new found vibrance. She recapped the conversation she had just had with the dr. She told the dr. the contents of yesterday's appt. She explained that she was SO blown away that she didn't ask the obvious questions "Is my timeline shorter? Is that why we are discussing this?". He didn't exactly know why we had had that conversation. He admitted that those are things that need to be discussed. But not now. Mom has ALOT of fight left in her. He knows that by comparing her emotional/physical state to other patients in her shoes. He said she looked GREAT for what she was going through. And he believes there is NO reason to think her time will shorten due to this "drawback". However, it is NOT a good sign that the cancer has started growing back this quickly. Not good at all. This could mean alot of not-so-great things----but NOT NECESSARILY. She asked him about getting a second opinion. He recommended a couple different places to her and explained the pros and cons of each. Mom is not interested in seeking this opinion. But she is doing it for others. I am not in love with the idea of her doing these types of things for other people, not even us (me, Ronnie and Josh). I want her to make decisions for HERSELF. She is the one feeling the effects of these decisions. She says she doesn't want anyone to think "if we had just............she might be here today". I assured her that after our long talks, we (me, Ronnie and Josh) will not feel that way. I made her promise that her FINAL decision to put whatever in her body, would be hers and hers alone. Not biased by ANYone else. She promised. I still worry, but that is all I needed. Well, I also needed to hear those great things that Dr. Pimperl said today. It was nice to hear that all that scary stuff we spoke about yesterday was just talk---not the immediate future. He's right, my mom does have alot of fight. Enough to beat this thing. That's right....I STILL think KNOW she can!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Taylorsville. It was a page straight out of our happy little lives 6 mos ago. Before we got there,  Mom made the aunts promise they would NOT talk about cancer. Without that topic in the air, the conversation was GREAT! The visit was fun! We all laughed and joked and it was just like old times! I couldn't help but dwell on how GREAT mom looked. We drove by Papaw's old house, and that is never easy. I wanted to whirl in the driveway and go see what he had cooked and get the girls some ice cream to snack on. But I knew things were different. Things are different everyday. I almost can't keep up with all the changes. A quick trip by the cemetery ended our wonderful day. I drove mom back to her car and she took off.

Seeing her stay up over half a day was incredible. Yesterday, between mom's condition and that horrible conversation we had to have, I thought the end was near. But now, I know she has  NO timeline. There is NO TIMELINE. There is only today. And my mom is here today. Thank God for today.