Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer …
Romans 12:12

The euphoria that maybe, just maybe, we had dodged a bullet came to a screeching end the Friday night of Aug. 22, appropriately while we were watching Monk. We were both in our chairs when Mom started to twitch. In fact, it was her hand movements that caught my attention. I jumped up to see what was wrong. The left side of her face was contorted. She couldn’t talk. Her left hand was twitching. I immediately called the doctor who told me to get her to the hospital.

I got her up, put on her coat and headed for Clifton Springs. I just held her hand all the way, telling her everything was okay. She couldn’t talk, just make grunting noises. Ironically, as we approached Geneva Hospital, which I was considering stopping at, she seemed to come out of whatever happened. She started to talk, but didn’t particularly remember what had happened or why we were in the car.

By the time we got to the hospital, she appeared to be almost back to normal. The ER doctor said he thought she may have had a mini stroke and ordered blood work and a CT scan. Everything came back normal, but he admitted her for observation. Saturday she seemed fine, but Sunday, her motor skills started to deteriorate. By Monday she started slipping back and by Tuesday, she was completely out of it. She had to be heavily sedated in order to get the high contrast CT scan done. Dr. Ignaczak waited for the results and gave us the news. The cancer had spread to her brain, like a shotgun scatter. He recommended radiation, which was started less than 24 hours later … the first of 10 full brain treatments.

She looked so helpless just lying there, bruised and restless. She wasn’t eating – actually hadn’t eaten anything of substance since Sunday (Aug. 24) – and was real weak. I forced her to eat some sherbet Thursday night (Aug. 28) and Friday morning she started to perk up. By Sunday (Aug. 31) – our 40th anniversary – she was alert enough to enjoy your presence at our celebration. I know it was a surprise for Mom, but when she got into the dining room and saw all you guys, she simply said, “Surprise!”

It isn’t exactly the way we planned to celebrate our anniversary, but it was a blessing to get to it at all. Having you guys there made it ever so much special for both of us.

To be continued …

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: STOP thinking too much. It’s alright to NOT know ALL the answers. Sometimes there is no answer, there is not going to be an answer or there never was an answer. THAT is the answer! Just accept it, move on, NEXT!