LauraJUnderwood
Silly Author Person
Back in August, it was learned that my mother had a squamous cell cancer that had grown out of a sore that would not heal. It was located in a rather...well...private part of her anatomy, and she was muchly embarrassed about it, and did not want it made public and did not even want other members of the family to know until she was ready to say something.
I, of course, am generally the person who takes care of my mother through all things medical. Her surgeon said there was nothing to worry about, as he did hundreds of these skin cancer removals a month, and she would be fine...
Well, I am here to tell you that was not the case. The cancer was not the issue. A common cold (or rather a super cold) was.
Mom had put surgery off until she returned from Disney World where she and I and my sister who has MS were going for a long vacation. While riding the buses, there were a lot of people who apparently did not know that it was polite to cover your mouth and nose when you coughed and sneezed. One fellow kept sneezing on my mother, and as a result, when we returned from Disney, she had a bad cold.
I had to call and delay her surgery again, and they thought 10 days was more than enough.
Mom went in for surgery the first week of October. And her surgery was a success, but the problem was she caught pneumonia while in the hospital. What should have been a few days dragged into nearly two weeks of hospital time (where I only got a couple of hours of sleep a night) and then, she had to go into a nursing home for rehabilitation to get her strength back. She has been there over three weeks.
This Friday, she will finally be coming home, and there will still be some adjustments to make. We have to have a health care individual come in and do her therapy, and a nurse to make certain she is getting her medication. We are getting her an oxygen machine and other necessities to keep her from climbing the steep stairs of our over 100 year old house.
It has been a trying time for me as well. Keeping up with work, looking after Mom, dealing with all the rest of the family, taking care of the household...
My writing suffered from all this, as I was unable to do much more than the occasional journal entry or blog.
I am hoping that now that Mom is home, I can get back to my regularly scheduled life.
But there are always changes to deal with, and that which does not kill us makes us stronger as Nietzsche said.
I just have to get my own balance back now. Get writing habits flowing again.
Because my brain will implode with ideas if I don't.
Laura J. Underwood
I, of course, am generally the person who takes care of my mother through all things medical. Her surgeon said there was nothing to worry about, as he did hundreds of these skin cancer removals a month, and she would be fine...
Well, I am here to tell you that was not the case. The cancer was not the issue. A common cold (or rather a super cold) was.
Mom had put surgery off until she returned from Disney World where she and I and my sister who has MS were going for a long vacation. While riding the buses, there were a lot of people who apparently did not know that it was polite to cover your mouth and nose when you coughed and sneezed. One fellow kept sneezing on my mother, and as a result, when we returned from Disney, she had a bad cold.
I had to call and delay her surgery again, and they thought 10 days was more than enough.
Mom went in for surgery the first week of October. And her surgery was a success, but the problem was she caught pneumonia while in the hospital. What should have been a few days dragged into nearly two weeks of hospital time (where I only got a couple of hours of sleep a night) and then, she had to go into a nursing home for rehabilitation to get her strength back. She has been there over three weeks.
This Friday, she will finally be coming home, and there will still be some adjustments to make. We have to have a health care individual come in and do her therapy, and a nurse to make certain she is getting her medication. We are getting her an oxygen machine and other necessities to keep her from climbing the steep stairs of our over 100 year old house.
It has been a trying time for me as well. Keeping up with work, looking after Mom, dealing with all the rest of the family, taking care of the household...
My writing suffered from all this, as I was unable to do much more than the occasional journal entry or blog.
I am hoping that now that Mom is home, I can get back to my regularly scheduled life.
But there are always changes to deal with, and that which does not kill us makes us stronger as Nietzsche said.
I just have to get my own balance back now. Get writing habits flowing again.
Because my brain will implode with ideas if I don't.
Laura J. Underwood
