If I Could, I Would Shrink Myself...And Remove Whatever Makes You Hurt But I am to Weak to be Your Cure

Last Thursday Mom and I got up bright and early and hit the road down to Orange County. I posted on my Facebook that I was going to be in town and got a few well wishes from friends to have fun while I was there and a teasingly angry email from my best guy friend from high asking why he hadn't been informed that I would be around and that we should head out and get a drink together. I hadn't made any solid plans to see friends, though, because the reason we were in town was not a fun one (it never seems to be these days!)- we were there because my Grandma recently found a large lump in her breast that turned out to be cancerous and she was being rushed in to surgery. She had had breast cancer about 8 years ago and on the other side, but this cancer is completely different.

Friday morning we got up and were at the hospital by 7am. Grandma seemed in good spirits considering and went in for surgery at 10:30. The doctor came out when it was done and Mom went over to see him. I thought he would just give her a general debriefing like I had seen other doctors come out and do with other patients' families so I opted to stay with our stuff and hold on to our seats. When Mom got over to the doctor, he directed her in to a small office and closed the door-"Ah, shit" I thought, this can't be good news. And it wasn't. Grandma had made it out of the surgery fine, that was one hurdle, but the bad news was that the cancer had spread in to both lymph nodes they had checked so they had had to remove the other ones and were going to process those to see if the cancer had spread.

Friday afternoon Grandma was pretty groggy, but not in a lot of pain because they had her on the good drugs. When we returned on Saturday morning, Grandma didn't remember that we had been there before and after her surgery the day before and she didn't think she had had the surgery yet, either. She told us that she was very unhappy because if she had had the surgery, she had heard it wasn't her doctor who had performed it, but an associate (which wasn't obviously the case) and she told the case worker who came in to the room to check on her just that (which we then had to correct). She was released Saturday afternoon and went from being in a lot pain and bitchy to being nice, happy Grandma who snuggled on the couch with me (a first in about 10 years since I am not the favorite granddaughter I once was since I am not skinny and Grandma has extreme disdain for anyone who is overweight) when she had taken some vicodin!

We left on Sunday afternoon to head to Cambria where we stayed the night to decompress after such a stressful weekend and Mom and I drove in two separate cars because Grandma decided she didn't want her car anymore and we took it so that Dad could sell it and make sure she got a fair price for it. It's a good thing she decided she didn't "want" to drive anymore because legally she can't. After getting in to two accidents in two consecutive Tuesday nights and taking out a total of 5 parked cars, her license has been revoked and her insurance is dropping her. We were just really fortunate that Grandma didn't hurt herself or anyone else.

If you ask me, this getting old thing doesn't sound like too much fun! I am feeling really badly for my Mom,too, because she is getting all of my Grandma's drama dumped on her. I don't mean to make it sound like we are cold, heartless people-the cancer stuff is a not drama at all and we are concerned for her about that, there is just a TON of other stuff that is drama, plain and simple, and, thus, avoidable that I'm choosing not to air on here that my Mom has to deal with in regards to Grandma all the time and it is definitely taking a toll and wearing Mom down.

We don't know the results of the other lymph nodes they removed yet, but we should know by the weekend so I'm sending some positive energy in to the universe that the cancer hasn't spread and I'd appreciate any positive energy or prayers you could send up for her, too.

Mookie's Last Christmas

Christmas time again and I went back to California to be with my family. S had had such a good time the first time, that he very readily accepted the invitation to come over again. This time I got a job at Target. Not a glamorous job, but at least I got a discount and could go back to Australia with some of my own money in the bank. Once again, we had a great Christmas morning opening presents and everything. Nae’s boyfriend came to town and we took Dad to an art exhibit about Yosemite at the Gene Autry Museum. We got to dress up as cowboys and take goofy pictures and it was great. Mom, Nae, S, and I went to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. We went to Santa Cruz again. I let S drive the rental car for a few blocks and he nearly killed us! He tried to turn left when traffic was coming at us because in Australia their left turns are like our right turns and you can do them on reds or whenever without problem. S and I also took a 3 day road trip through Nevada and Arizona. We had a really fun night out in Vegas. We stayed at Treasure Island and had a sweet room overlooking the Strip and the pirate show down below. We got free drink coups at the Sirens of TI show we went to. We hit up some buffet at the Rio my parents said was the best where there was big cheap drinks. Then we walked through a few different casinos. We won like $35 playing the Wheel of Fortune slot machine, I know that’s not a huge amount but it was fun and it was something. How many people come home saying they’ve won anything there? We hung out at the Venetian til 3 in the morning, just walking around near the “canals” and it was so deceiving because it was lit up like the middle of the day. The next day we drove on towards the Grand Canyon. We stopped at the Hoover Dam for pictures. It took forever to get to the Canyon. We went to dinner and then came back to the hotel and passed out. At about 4am the bedside alarm went off. The people who were in the room before us must have set the alarm to get to the Canyon for sunrise. I got up and peaked out the window and it was snowing. We threw on our jackets and shoes and went out to play in the snow. It was magical. S has video of me, I didn't know he was filming, jumping up and down saying, "Snow, snow, snow" and trying to catch the flakes on my tongue. Later in the morning, we got up and drove out to the Canyon. S was in awe of the place. He couldn’t stop taking pictures and we had to stop at every turn out. It was beautiful covered in snow. As we got farther out from the resorts it started snowing again and it swirled up from inside the Canyon. It was an awesome experience. The next day we woke up and our drinks had exploded all over the inside of the car because it had gotten so cold. There was snow for a few hours driving out of the park. We saw a huge golden eagle’s nest and then the next thing we saw was the two eagles themselves in a dead tree. We stopped at Lake Havasu to see the London Bridge and then we drove home to have dinner with my friends from the surf shop B and K. S went back to Oz and I followed shortly thereafter.