Next stop: Hospice

My mom is being moved to hospice tomorrow after a bed opened up for her. My brother and I went to see it last week, and it's quite nice. They converted an old villa for it, the rooms are quite big, a big terrace, in a quiet street. They have their own cooks, so no hospital food (not that she's eating right now). The dogs can come visit too. It's also way closer to where we and all her friends live.

I love the people in the palliative care unit where she is now, esp the psychologist. Finally someone is taking responsibility for making things happen in her care, and I don't feel like I have to spend every minute with her just to make sure she gets what she needs. Unfortunately, she can't stay there indefinitely.

The metastases have been messing with her brain quite a bit since the beginning of the week (she was doing quite well before that), with language problems, disorientation and agitation, so another course of chemo is out of the question. I guess that means this is the beginning of the end.

It's difficult to see her like this, though thankfully the palliative people have not been afraid to pull all the stops with pain meds and sedatives to keep her calmer. Nobody knows what's really going on -until this most recent episode, she was able to move back and forth from her altered mental state quite quickly, as if a switch was being thrown in her brain. They can't tell if she'll regain clarity from this episode. All I want is for her not to be too aware of what's going on with her -it's like my mom isn't really there anymore, anyway.

Tam was right when she said back in January when they found the first two brain mets that this was going to be the hardest year of my life.

Swimming in lakes with dogs

As mandated by my therapist, I've been trying to take a daily mini-vacation from hospitals, paperwork and driving around like a maniac. It's been real hot here for a place without A/C, so usually I head to one of the many lakes for a swim with the dogs. Hopefully this will also help tide me over when I return to the island of perpetual 60-degree-weather.

Here's what one of the lakes looks like (and if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all)



Here's Atze, who loves to swim, but only when he can stay ahead of me -if he falls behind, he frantically tries to catch up:



[the line of water drops behind him is from his tail, which likes to use as a rudder]

Ede prefers to stay on shore and guard my clothes -also an important job!

Land under

My mom took a sudden turn for the worse over the weekend. She's got issues with language, temporal orientation, and balance/coordination. The doctors say it's due to the cancer's spread all over her nervous system.

We're making arrangements to move her into palliative care to get her stabilized and sorted, and then to hospice at home or in the hospital.

If you believe in prayer, now would be the time, though it's hard to tell what to pray for.

Thanks.