As August approached along with our week of vacation I got nervous.\u00a0 I was scared to go too far from home.\u00a0 Mom just seemed on the edge.\u00a0\u00a0 But what edge we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Mom had a CT Scan of her abdomen at the end of July \u201cjust to be sure\u201d. \u00a0Even though the breast tumor had been found the doctor wanted to be sure there wasn\u2019t something else lurking to explain Mom\u2019s quickly failing health.\u00a0 Pasith and I were leaving on our trip on the Monday but the doctor requested to see Mom that day so we drove south to Steinbach before heading west.\u00a0 Mom, my sister and I went in to hear what the scan results were.\u00a0\u00a0 I had done this enough times that I knew if it was requested that Mom bring her daughters it couldn\u2019t be good.\u00a0 There were \u201cnodules\u201d found in her abdomen; all over her abdomen.\u00a0 Not contained in a particular organ but on the outside of them.\u00a0 When asked if the nodules were cancer the doctor answered with the obligatory response of \u201cwe won\u2019t know without a biopsy\u201d.\u00a0 Well I had my answer.\u00a0 Mom took it in stride as she had everything else that summer.\u00a0 It was a combination of not understanding and not wanting to ask to gain understanding.<\/p>\n
After the appointment we took Mom back to her apartment and she just looked sick and tired.\u00a0 She had a hard time walking or talking and requested to just go inside.\u00a0 Auntie A helped her up the 3 steps and my sister, Pasith and I took a walk.\u00a0 I was having a terrible feeling about going away but was told to go and have a good time.\u00a0 Everything would be fine.\u00a0 My sister and I discussed the \u201cnodules\u201d and what it could mean.\u00a0 The analogy that came to my mind was one we had used with Pasith\u2019s Dad during his first major emergency.\u00a0 That first jolt is like you are suddenly rolling down a hill out of control.\u00a0 You land at the bottom looking up into the faces of doctors and nurses who now control your life.\u00a0 Your life is no longer your own.\u00a0 The bottom was coming.<\/p>\n
Pasith and I left and I was sick as we drove away not knowing if I was going to regret this decision to go on vacation at this time.\u00a0 We went to Minnedosa, Manitoba to lie on the beach for a few days and the weather was perfect.\u00a0 Being in a remote location our cell service was spotty, especially in the hotel.\u00a0 So on Tuesday morning when I saw that there was a text from my sister saying Mom was in the ambulance on her way to St Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg it was a horrible jolt.\u00a0 And the text was over an hour old.\u00a0 I ran around the lobby of the hotel trying to find a signal to call her back.\u00a0 Mom had gotten up in the middle of the night and started throwing up, really bad ugly stuff.\u00a0 She woke up Auntie A to take her across the street to the hospital.\u00a0 By the time she got there she was in very bad condition and they were discussing surgery but the surgeons in Steinbach aren\u2019t trained for specialized intestinal surgery.\u00a0 So they decided to send her to Winnipeg not knowing if she would survive the ambulance ride.\u00a0 Auntie went back to my Mom\u2019s and collected a few things and took off behind the ambulance.\u00a0 My Aunt can describe this scene much better than I can since she was there but I just know that it was a grave situation.\u00a0 They got Mom settled in with a tube down her nose into her stomach and tubes coming out of just about everywhere.\u00a0 The doctors decided she wasn\u2019t stable enough for surgery they would have to wait.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t allowed any food or drink, just ice chips.\u00a0 My Mom was at the bottom of the hill looking up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As August approached along with our week of vacation I got nervous.\u00a0 I was scared to go too far from home.\u00a0 Mom just seemed on the edge.\u00a0\u00a0 But what edge we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Mom had a CT Scan of her … Continue reading