Feeling Fragile, Again.

It is a rainy fall morning here in the beautiful state of New Hampshire and the weather is fitting my mood.  It has been the end of a long work week and I am looking forward to the weekend.  My Saturdays and Sundays are full of support and activities that I enjoy, alpacas, writing, painting, knitting, meetings with friends. 

Things with my mother are not going well so I am just looking for some more spiritual support and virtual hugs from my online friends.  Mom has now been told that she has "unspecified carcinoma of unknown origin."  In other words, "Joann, you have cancer but we don't know where it started and we are not sure what kind."

They biopsied a lymph node and ran all sorts of tests in order to come to this lack of a conclusion.  In the mean time she gets sicker and sicker and is only receiving medication to alleviate her symptoms while not treating the problem.  If they can't figure out what kind of cancer she has they are uncertain what kind of treatment to use.  They may have to just start experimenting with chemotherapies and see which one works.  I could write a whole other article venting about my feelings in regards to Medicare and other insurance programs and how they restrict the options a person has for their care. But I won't.  I am already upset and I need to stay peaceful.

Mom spent six days in the hospital this past week because she had become dehydrated.  She returned home on Tuesday and her symptoms are such that there is a good chance she will be returning to the hospital again for more fluids. 

My sister, Barbara, is wonderful.  She lives only a couple of miles away from Mom. Barb and her husband are doing everything they can to make sure Mom is taken care of and comfortable.  It is the not knowing, the uncertainty, that makes us all frustrated.  It is watching Mom continue to suffer and not know why or how it can be alleviated that keeps us all tired, tense and scared. 

All we can do is live day by day.

Thank you for letting me release some of this.