So, how I spent Monday...

Monday I spent the day at my Mom's house. We talked about dead relatives, what chores i needed to attend to at her house, (painting the railings and installing a new door,) more dead relative stories, and looking through photos of more dead relatives. Then, break time, which is Taster's Choice instant coffee and donuts. More dead photos. Oh, look at the time, I should go before my harpy of a sister calls. Shudder. I review with my Mom all of the vitamin supplements that she should take (because she doesn't eat) and figure out what else she wants. Vitamin C gummis? Sure. Liquid calcium and magnesium? Okies. On the list.

For the past year, my Mom has been in and out of the hospital. On the last trip, just like all the others, I hung out with her in the ER while my elder sister paced outside, smoked, and bitched on how this was fucking with her schedule and that calling in sick that day could cause her to lose her meager part time job at Trader Joe's. Her son (in his 30's) hasn't spoken to her for four years. I wonder why. Meanwhile, I sat in the ER with Mom. Undressed her, dressed her, took her to pee, orchestrated things so that they wouldn't give her a catheter and cause infections, took the urine sample for the docs, got her a nice lunch from the commissary, washed her feet, explained each and every test to her and asked her (not TOLD her) what the docs needed from her next. The Greycoat doc was great, his interns sucked. Doctor Greycoat thanked us for being "patient patients," and we shrugged, "Hey, you guys are busy!" I chimed. Finally, when they attended to my Mom, Doctor Greycoat took me aside and showed me her xrays- sorry, radiographs. There they were, two round marbled spots in her lungs.

Hmm.

Doctor Greycoat said that he had an oncology and hemotology guy for my Mom to see, and it turned out that it was the same guy that I found for her and had her switch to. Meanwhile, I left my sister to schtimmel outside. I explained to Doctor Greycoat that my Mom had nursed all of her brothers and sisters through illnesses and watched them die, (one of them in my bedroom, thanks for that one,) and had no interest walking the path that her sister did when she was battling lung cancer. I told him that my Mom should be asked as to what to do, not to bleed out the Medicare, and that SHE was in charge. Doctor Greycoat was cool, and got was I was trying to say. He is pals with Doctor Mark, the doc that he was sending her to.

Later in the month we try to do a CAT scan. Disaster. My Mom is really really prone to panic attacks, but has gone her whole life self managing them. Not this time. We scrub the mission. Later, she goes to Doctor Mark for a blood test. Mom comes back and tells us "My blood is perfect now!" It was hella bad a year ago. She's put on weight since then. (She's 5'7" at 110 now. She was 105.) She's getting iron transfusions because the ulcer surgery that she had destroyed her ability to break iron into usable components. So, yeah, I guess her blood is perfect now compared to then.

My Mom may or may not be sick. Maybe she doesn't want to know. Maybe she does know. If she is, she's not saying. If she's not, I'm not saying. Especially to my sister.