Happy New Year

Can you believe that is the start of a New Year? Where has the time gone? It has been almost 2 months since my last post and so much has happened. It is time to begin anew, but before I do that here is what is going on.

During Thanksgiving the Bride and I hosted my mother and brother at a beach house out on the Delaware coast. My mother was a little slower than the last time I had seen her, but it had been almost a year and she is pushing 70. She slept a lot more than normal and was having a little trouble breathing. When I questioned her about this, she said that she had been cleaning some silver and the fumes had effected her. She had a doctors appointment to have it looked at on her return to Georgia.

On December 6th she called me and told me that she had lung cancer. The week of 8 December she underwent a series of tests to determine what kind of cancer she had and how bad it was. By the end of the week we knew it was small cell cancer in the lungs which had already spread to the liver and to the brain. I was shocked and changed my plans to drive home on 15 December.

I arrived at her house on the evening of her first chemo treatment and was saddened by her condition. I had prepared myself for the worse, so this did not shock me too much. She was asleep on the couch in the living room and was listless. In addition she was on oxygen. I carried to two more chemo treatments and did the other things trying to make her more comfortable. It was very difficult to see your mother in this shape--having to walk her to the bathroom, seeing that she could not walk from the bed to the couch without assistance. Luckily, I had a friend who is a nurse stop by and do the actual baths.

By Sunday she was a little stronger and my brother arrived from the Seattle area. Over the past two weeks she has gotten stronger and we have home health care organized for her. The bride and I arrived back to the DC area this past Tuesday. My brother is staying an extra week to carry her through her next chemo treatments. I will be flying back to Georgia on the 9 January and spend another week with her.

In case you did not read the informational link on small cell cancer, it is terminal and the chemo is merely to make her more comfortable. My brother and I were actually suprised she wanted to undergo another treatment, but as she said, "I am not ready to kick off yet."

Now the intent of this post is not to be a downer. From the moment we are born we are all terminal. The greatest thing about this entire situation is seeing how many people she has touched. The phone did not stop ringing and we had more food than we could possibly eat. Seeing all these people who she has touched has been nothing but awesome. I am so proud of her. I am nothing but motivated to true to do more in my life.

Lets all be thankful for our health and what all we can do. There is nothing to feel sorry about and lets all get out there do the most we can to be an inspiration to others. Happy New Year--Lets all get out there to take care of ourselves and be an inspiration.