Mirror Mirror

Thanks to everyone who posted about my mom. Quick update, she actually went into the hospital today because of fluid build up and some abdominal pain and her hemoglobin wasn't where it should be. As she was supposed to start chemo tomorrow they wanted to get it under control. However, apparently her protein levels need to come up before it's safe to do chemo so she's being released tomorrow and won't start till next week. Frustrating, but there's really nothing can be done except pray and wait.

On to the regularly scheduled program.

I love to write on my mirror. 

Seriously. With dry erase markers. And I know I'm not the only person who does this because I got it from a mission trip I went on back in 2006. You almost couldn't see your face in the girl's bathroom due to all the writing. Ever since then I've written on my mirror, everything from quotes to Bible verses to reminders. I figure that we as women tend to use our mirrors a lot so what better place? 

As I only put up my mirror a couple of weeks ago after much time without my own mirror (my mom would not take kindly to me writing on her good bathroom mirror) it took me until yesterday to write anything on it.

This was taken with my phone and isn't very clear. Just wait until I've lived here awhile, there'll be all kinds of things scrawled across there. In case you didn't watch the video I posted of Justin Bieber the other day, this is a line from the chorus of a song I just cannot get out of my head. "I close my eyes and I can see a better day." Sounds prosaic enough, but not if you've heard the Biebs sing it. I swear all of heaven sings along. 

What about all of you? Do you write on your mirror? Or is there somewhere else that works for you?

And one was beautiful.

Meet my mom.

My mom loves to sing and act but hates to slow dance because it makes her dizzy. She has three sisters, is blind-as-a-bat without her glasses, has dyed her hair for as long as I can remember, and is always concerned about her weight.

She has an identical twin, spent an entire semester of college in Wales, and got engaged to my dad four weeks after they started dating.

She's a teacher, loves to read and play games, and one of her favorite movies of all time is Somewhere in Time. So much so, in fact, that she and my dad spent a few days at The Grand Hotel early last summer. This May they will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.

She is also the most loving, caring, giving, kind, faithful, Godly, beautiful person I have ever known.

And she has cancer.

A really, really nasty cancer.

The week before Christmas mom went to the hospital to have fluid removed from her body, as it was creating pressure and causing her a lot of pain and discomfort. In order to do this they have to do an ultrasound to find where the water is. So the technician starts to do her thing and suddenly stops, goes to the nurse and whispers. The nurse found the doctor, who came back and looked at the screen. They then turned it and showed the screen to my mom.

Her entire abdomen is completely full of tumors. There is at least one that is the size of a football. So the ridiculously expensive drug they had her on did nothing at all to help, and she was given three choices: palliative (sp?) care, where she's just made comfortable and no treatments are given, some other drug that's similar to the expensive one that didn't work, or go to the hospital once every three weeks for six days for consistent sessions of chemo. The side effects for the last option are not pretty, and it'd be inpatient, which she hasn't done before.

She chose option number three, and goes into the hospital this Thursday for the first round.

I went home this weekend for New Year's, to spend it with Johnny and to see my family, and before I left for Canton on New Year's Eve Mom and Dad sat the three of us down and laid everything open and bare. They told us the option she chose.

They also told us that this option will not cure her. All it might do is buy her some time.

And according to the doctor, his best guess is that she won't make it to the summer.

She hopes she'll be able to be at Anne's wedding, which is on May 28th. But it's doubtful she'll make it to mine.

And all I can think is that this isn't fair. Why MY mom? Why NOW? Why not in a few years when we're all married and have grandchildren who get to meet their grandmother and get to know her? Why did this all have to happen after I moved, first to Connecticut and now to Cincinnati? I'm far away, and gas went up to $3.19/gallon and I have to work so I can't be home. I asked Johnny to please not be mad if I don't go up to Canton anytime soon.

But then I realize that I'm being selfish. That God has a reason for this, and just because I don't know what it is doesn't mean it's bad. And then I wonder what God wants to teach me through this, if He's doing this to prove a point, but then I realize that it's not all about me. God doesn't allow people to die to teach one single person a lesson. Through this illness He has strengthened my mother beyond all reckoning, He has tested my father, and He has given my sisters and me and every other person my mom comes in contact with a strong, faithful woman to lead us and comfort us and be an example of faith and peace and joy. I mean, when she told the extended family the bad news on Christmas she said she felt bad because she was ruining our Christmas!

Mom, it's not OUR Christmas we're concerned about right now. Not even close.

In some ways it's all so hard. Hard to comprehend, hard to grasp. I thought she'd always be there, and I don't want to let her go. Not this soon. But in other ways I'm glad it's happening the way it is because it means we can make the most of every single moment we are given, and that if by some miracle she pulls through and is with us for another thirty years we can look back and see how it altered us, changed us beyond all recognition. Remember when?

This is my mom, and I love her. Johnny told me once that out of all my sisters I'm most like my mom, but I can only pray that God will make me half the woman she is.