October 4, 2009

This is such a roller coaster ride.  Friday night we thought we would lose Mom in the night.  Yesterday she had a better day.  Last night Mom slept through the night except for waking once.  This morning she seems a little confused again.  Her urine output since yesterday is declining, and she is uncomfortable with an overwhelming feeling that she has to urinate.  BP 111/59 Pulse 52  After she had her Lasix, she began to fill the bag and the pressure she felt was gone.

Aunt Janet and Annette came over and Mom woke up and talked to them for a bit, and went back to sleep as soon as they left.

Krista fixed a wonderful dinner for all of the family. Tina woke 'Grandma' and fed her a few bites of food, and then she went right back to sleep. 

Tina left at 5:00 p.m. for Chicago, and when she has left before, Mom would cry after Tina got out the door.  Today, Tina woke her to tell her she was leaving, she kissed Grandma, and Grandma told her to be careful and that she loved her and she went right back to sleep.  A few minutes later Tina returned for something and we were talking right near Mom and she didn't wake up at all. 

We've been told about the possibility of a coma, and right now that is what I am thinking might be going to happen, but the way things have gone, she might just be awake and better tomorrow.  It is so hard to tell.  But looking at her lying there is so difficult.  Mom has always been so vibrant and full of life.  It was nothing for her to jump in her car four or five times a day to run here and there.  She loved to see people.  She loved to play cards, and send greeting cards.  Now her thin little hands aren't strong enough to hold anything, and her eyes are beginning to blur.  I know she doesn't want to live like this, but I also know she doesn't want to leave us.  And the same goes for us....we don't want to see her live like this, but we don't want her to leave us.

When I think that just four weeks ago we sat for five hours at the county fair so Mom could see and talk to people, I am just shocked at how quickly things have changed.  I guess if you have to have that horrible, heinous, debilitating disease called cancer, and you are incapacitated where the life you have known is no longer, then death would be a gift.  Again, going back to what I wrote several days ago, I'm struggling with bitterness directed at those who may be thwarting a cure, and praying continuously for those working hard at finding one.