moving day

Things are (as usual) pretty crazy around here. I'm getting ready to move into my own place (squee!) in three days, so right now I'm surrounded by boxes, newspapers, and a year's worth of Wegman's receipts. I've really got to learn to throw things away instead of stockpiling them in my desk until it's time to move again. I did this every year in college... Hopefully next time I'll be better about that.

Speaking of "next time," I'm hoping this will be my last move for a while. I think that they place I'm moving into will probably be my last, until I'm ready to buy a house.

It's odd... I feel like I'm pretending to be a grownup. Admittedly, I'm anxious about having to work out a new routine, but that's not something that's going to happen overnight.

This will probably be my last post from the current location, and once I'm all settled into the new place, I may even post some pictures.

A silver lining sometimes isn't enough

I don't remember where I left off with the story of my mother's latest cancer diagnosis and treatment. Frankly, I can't be bothered to dig through my archives to figure that out.

Long story short: Fourteen of the fifteen brain tumors have sufficiently shrunk to begin chemo. Unfortunately, that's not good enough.

There was another treatment that could be done to shrink that one last tumor. Initially, my mother refused to have that particular (last-ditch) treatment due to its name, which admittedly is kind of intimidating, especially to someone without much of an education.

She was coming up with any and every excuse she could to avoid having to go for the treatment. There wouldn't be anyone there on treatment days to make sure my 5 and 12 year old siblings would get to and from school. She couldn't take any more time off work without risking losing her job. So on and so forth.

Finally she changed her mind, at the last minute.

When she got to the appointment, she was told they couldn't continue with the treatment because the tumor was too big, and too close to her brain stem. The treatment would cause the tumor to swell, possibly severing her spinal chord.

That's it. No more treatments. No more false hope. No more wrong prognoses. Now we just wait.

It's over.