As previously (and briefly noted), things haven’t been going too well medically for Karen (Sean’s Mom). The upper lobe couldn’t survive on its own and she wound up having to go in for the section surgery to have it removed. She’s fully lost her left lung. Originally we were all set to believe that this was a Carcinoid tumor and was something that could be removed and wouldn’t require anything further than the healing time from the surgery. Unfortunately… it’s not the kind of cancer we were all originally informed of. Karen is in stage 3 lung cancer, it was found in the lymph nodes and at this point in time the only option for her survival is to begin Chemo. The doctors want to wait until she’s reached the 6-12 weeks recovery mark. They’re factoring in that she went in for two major surgeries 8 days apart, also factored in that she had a heart episode after each surgery. The first one being a possible heart attack that they’re referring to as an “Episode” (crock of shit there Hopkins, crock of shit). The second episode (following the second surgery) was a complete fuck-up by an ICU tech where she was basically overdosed on a pain killer and wound up having her heart rate at a dangerously low level. The biggest thing to piss me off about this second “episode” (as they’re calling it) is the fact that NO ONE was called to say that she was flat-lining. The secretary is sitting there on Facebook making plans for the night – what the fuck else do you have to do??!?!!?
So we spent a total 12 days in Baltimore, basically living at the Best Western on o’Donnel Street (They are more than accommodating to Hopkins patients/families in case you’d ever need it! They truly go above and beyond expectations.) We were informed by her doctor that she was going to be released earlier than expected so Sean and I pretty much high-tailed it out of Baltimore to get the house prepped for her arrival home. We gutted the living room, cleared paths for her to get around, and I scrubbed/sanitized the bathroom like it’s never been scrubbed before. We when loaded ourselves into the car and drove up to NY (the following afternoon) so that we could begin the daunting task of packing up all of our clothes Bella (who’d been in NY for almost 3 months without us), and necessary belongings to head back down to DE indefinitely. We hopped back into the car the following afternoon and met Karen and George (Sean’s father), at the house. So figure in the course of 2 1/2 days – we were on the road for 16 hours.
We’re now slowly settling into life back in Delaware. Originally I had everything setup in the corner of the living room but it’s proving difficult to concentrate when there’s constant activity in and out of the living room and the house itself. There’s been absolutely no smoking in the house for the past two months and I’ve done everything I can to try to void/mask the smell but there are still some areas that it’s just so soaked into I’m unsure how to go about clearing it out anyway. The activity increase is the fact that the dog is constantly running around the house finding bones that she forgot she hid 10 minutes before (attention span of a damn gold fish), plus there’s George and I going in and out for cigs (he more than me, but I’m no stranger to my seat on the porch either). Plus it doesn’t help that when you get a whiff of it, you wind up wanting one yourself. SO, to solve all problems, we’ve reorganized the spare bedroom and I went out and purchased a $37 folding table from Kmart that I’m now using as a desk. It’s larger than the table I was previously setup on and the table itself is a lot more sturdy so it makes me feel better about having a 40lb iMac permanently resting on it.
My sleep schedule was under control for a little while, but now I’m finding myself having trouble accomplishing just about everything work related. I’m up earlier in the day (which is nice, I enjoy the sunlight for a change), but I’m back and forth running errands and going to doctors appointments. We actually just got back from Baltimore not too long ago for a post-up follow up. It was the “Let’s discuss our course of action” day with the Oncologist. From there it lead to blood work and a scan. Woke up at 6am, was out of the house by 7am, home by 4pm and now (after reorganizing and dealing with a horrible headache), I’ve finally be able to sit down and get something accomplished – Blogging. I’m supposed to be working. I just needed to vent and having the same conversation with people inside the house just wasn’t doing it for me. I need to talk to the World and we all know that Twitter limits your character count… I’m already on 860 words hah.
So where do we go from here? Sean and I have basically taken over the house. It’s not that we wanted to, by any means, we just had no real choice in the matter – for our own conscience and moral well-being. Karen is heavily medicated to deal with the pain, she has no left lung, she’s slowly losing her eyesight and she’s dealing with high blood pressure. She’s only fricken 54 years old, she’s not someone who’s in her 90’s where this was a “Welp, you lived a good life, right?” situation. She should be able to go on at least another 15-20 years! Every time I’ve pictured my life 10-20-30 years from now, she was in the bulk of the pictures. Why? Because she’s a second Mom, and a woman I hold dear to my heart. Yes, like any ‘mother-in-law’ she’s a pain in my ass, but I wouldn’t change a thing because regardless of the quirks (that we both have) we get along really well. Not many people can say that. There’s always this ‘aura’ of the Demon mother-in-law… I personally don’t believe it and Karen’s living proof of that.
With our moving in we’ve done more than taken over the house, obviously. We’ve been working our asses off to get all of her debt paid off. Thankfully she doesn’t have any credit cards, so it’s really utilities/cable that we’re taking care of but she had disconnect notices for just about everything. She did have a job prior to all of this crap going on, but she was spending her entire paycheck to put gas in the car to get to work when you crunch the numbers. She worked 25 miles away and drives a 2006 Dodge Caravan. It’s a gas guzzler in its own right. PLUS, when we started with the frequent trips to Baltimore it was more gas in the tank and tolls, but less coming into the account because she obviously wasn’t able to go to work when she was 3 hours away in a different state.
So we added a good 1,000 a month to our outgoing expenses. Thankfully by changing the billing address with Verizon our cellphones dropped like $20, that puts money back in our pocket. We’d like to drop the car insurance down but we’re having some trouble (with the stacks of our paperwork) locating the loan information for the truck and Delaware makes you pay sales tax on a car while there’s a lein on it. I find that absurd considering the sales tax in NY is a hell of a lot higher than DE will ever be. I bought the truck on Long Island, we’re on the top 10 highest counties in America for crying out loud. In order to get everything shifted down here it’s going to cost either 10% of the car, or 10% of what’s left on the loan (not sure which, honestly), but based on the balance left on the loan and the Blue Book – we’re screwed for about $1,200. So obviously the priority (before attempting to save $100 a month) we’re going to insure we’re doing it for the cost of registration – not 10% of the truck.
So yea, I didn’t want to sit here for a half hour but I couldn’t really stop myself from typing so I went with it. Minus the medical stuff, I guess we’re all doing OK. Mentally we’re fucked but that’s because we’ve been hit with news that no one wants to hear. It’s scared me to the point that I’m actually working on quitting smoking all together. I’ve been a pack-a-day smoker for at least 10 years and the time has come to put it down and walk away. I’ve got myself a pile if Mint Nicorette that I’ve been dabbing into whenever the urge is there, the training factor is whenever I’m in the car with Karen because we’re obviously not smoking anywhere near her. So the 3+ hour car rides are gradually helping me to increase my self-control. Since I’m technically on “Step 1”, I’m allowed one piece per hour. I’m actually content with one piece for the entire ride. Which is odd considering when we’re driving up (and smoking), I’m doing one every 20 minutes or so.
Sean’s taking things as best as he can… he’s not one to voice personal matters (even to me) very often so when he brings something up we discuss it and move on. He’d prefer to be inside of his own head for things and while that’s typically very damaging to ones psyche, he actually does well with it. He’s a special case with his mom though, she really was the primary while he was growing up (her and his Grandmother, who passed from the exact same Cancer and other issues that Karen’s experiencing – it’s scary to read her Autopsy report and compare it to Karen’s current charts, let me tell you). He loves his father, don’t get me wrong, but there’s that “Mommy’s baby boy” type of bond there – so I think if something were to happen to her in the near future it would hit him pretty hard. This is where we’re concerned for Chemo and the “5 year outlook” as the Oncologist described.
Either way, we’re back in Baltimore on November 6th for another follow-up appointment. This time is for the talk of which method of Chemo are we going towards, the one that can be administered down here where she’s going once a week for sixteen weeks, or the new trial treatments that they’re doing in Hopkins where we’d be going up to Baltimore once every three weeks for upwards of a year based on the treatments themselves AND all of the follow-ups there after. In the long run it would probably be cheaper to shut the house down in DE and rent an apartment in Baltimore for a year, honestly. But we’re not taking that route, for all we know (knock on wood), they pulled out all of the infected Lymph Nodes and we’ll be able to say “Cancer Free” in the near future. The reality of that is very slim, and obviously we’re not getting our hopes up. Unfortunately this string of cancer is a death sentence…the question really is just how long is she going to be around?
Sean and I have a lot of plans… the biggest one being children. Obviously I would love for her to be around to hopefully get a chance to help raise the little girl she always wanted. Her and Sean are both only children, she stopped at a boy and then got herself a dog when Sean was old enough to no longer need as much attention. I know she wanted a girl, she likes the hair/makeup/clothes thing – I don’t. You’re lucky I even brush my hair before I throw it up into a messy bun anyway lol. She’d be a good role model for that, and it would give her something to strive for.
I guess only time will tell.