{"id":191,"date":"2011-09-21T00:17:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T05:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2014-09-10T22:20:49","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T03:20:49","slug":"recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/?p=191","title":{"rendered":"Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thankfully Mom was amazing at recovery.\u00a0 She surprised and impressed the doctors with how fast she was up and walking.\u00a0 Her determination was legendary on the 7th<\/sup> floor.\u00a0 It was so great to see after so much difficulty.\u00a0 She was so excited to tell everyone how far she had walked the last time and how far she hoped to get on her next walk.\u00a0 We were all so relieved.\u00a0 She would go and sit in the visitor\u2019s area and talk to whomever was there.\u00a0 She met some amazing people.\u00a0 There was the lady who sat and knit.\u00a0 She would hardly look up; she would just sit and knit.\u00a0 Finally, she started to join in conversations and we found out that her son was on the 7th<\/sup> floor due to cancer.\u00a0 He had been battling for a long time and he was in very bad shape.\u00a0 She was there day and night with her knitting.\u00a0 About 2 weeks before my Mom left I went after work and he had passed away in the night.\u00a0 My Mom didn\u2019t talk about it but I could tell it bothered her.<\/p>\n

Mom fought really hard to keep her mental health in the only way she knew how; self-preservation and denial.\u00a0 She focused on anything and everything positive and tried to deny that anything was wrong.\u00a0 She insisted many, many times over that she felt at peace.\u00a0 Which was good but she was also trying to keep up the appearance that she was fine.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want to show any weakness like if she did she was acknowledging the possibility of mortality.\u00a0 Before I would leave for the night I would \u201cput her to bed\u201d.\u00a0 I would take her for her last walk around 8 or 8:30 and we would sit and watch the sun go down over the Assiniboine River.\u00a0 The nurses would come to do their last checks of their shift and get Mom comfortable in her bed.\u00a0 Then I would make sure that she had enough water, a midnight snack, clean off her tray and make sure she had her newspaper or crossword book nearby.\u00a0 I would stay till about 9:30 or 10; with her usually telling me gently that I needed to go.\u00a0 One particular night I could tell that Mom was putting on a brave face.\u00a0 I could see that she was upset but wouldn\u2019t talk about it.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want to worry us.\u00a0 I did something I had never done before; I knelt down by her hospital bed and whispered in her ear.\u00a0 I told her that it was okay to not always be brave.\u00a0 That we were thankful that she was feeling peace but that didn\u2019t mean she couldn\u2019t tell us her fears.\u00a0 I tried to give her permission to cry, to be angry, to break down; to talk to someone.\u00a0 I told her she didn\u2019t have to talk to me or anyone else in the family.\u00a0 Just talk to someone.\u00a0\u00a0 But she was quiet.<\/p>\n

At some point while she was in the hospital she asked me after sitting quietly, \u201cDid they really say that I have breast cancer or do they need to do more testing still?\u201d\u00a0 My heart broke.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know what to say but I had to think fast and be honest.\u00a0 I told her \u201cNo Mom, they did say that you have breast cancer.\u00a0 I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d\u00a0 She crinkled up her mouth, looking out the window and very disappointed and said, \u201cThat\u2019s the one thing I really didn\u2019t want.\u201d\u00a0 Meanwhile I\u2019m sitting there stunned.\u00a0 She had been told about her breast tumor over a month before and it had been discussed in numerous meetings.\u00a0 And here she was in the hospital due to a mass number of tumors throughout her abdomen that couldn\u2019t be cured.\u00a0 But she was worried about a 2 cm slow growing tumor under her arm.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know what else to say.<\/p>\n

As difficult as those weeks were the fact that she recovered without any infections or complications was nothing short of a miracle.\u00a0 We were so thankful.\u00a0 By the end of her stay I was far more concerned about her emotional health than her physical health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thankfully Mom was amazing at recovery.\u00a0 She surprised and impressed the doctors with how fast she was up and walking.\u00a0 Her determination was legendary on the 7th floor.\u00a0 It was so great to see after so much difficulty.\u00a0 She was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}