Bad News

Hi everyone!  This one's not so much about the BFC and is a bit of a downer so proceed with caution.

I got back from West Virginia on Friday afternoon.  I had been to see my mother in West Virginia to see what was going on with her, health-wise.  When I got to the house she was on her couch with her right arm sort of curled up on her lap.  It turns out that her right arm and hand will not respond to much of her brain signals and her right leg was getting ready to follow suit and that is why she is falling so much.  Well, I loaded her up in the car and drove her to a top notch medical facility over the border into Virginia, about thirty minutes away.   I took her into the emergency room and told them I suspected she may have had some kind of a stroke.  They took us back right away.  After many exams, IV's, blood pressure readings, a chest scan and two CAT scans (one with dye and one without) the emergency room doctor came in looking very grim.  My mother, he said, appeared to have a spot on her lung, liver and a few spots in her brain.   He said a biopsy would have to be done but they were 80% sure it was cancer.   This is the first cancer ever in our family as far as I know. 
I was able to take her home that night and bring her in for her biopsy the very next day, so she didn't have to spend the night in the hospital.  The next day they did a very easy biopsy of her liver because it was the easiest to get to.  The day after that we met with the oncologist, who my mother really seemed to take to, and got the news that she has a stage four lung cancer that has moved to the liver and brain.  Not good.  They want to start radiation treatments on her brain starting Monday and see if they can shrink the tumors enough to get her leg and arm to work again.  Apparently the swelling in the brain is causing the problems with her motor skills as well as the irritability she was experiencing at the beach.  After two weeks of daily radiation we will all meet again to see if there is any point in going further.  It's not curable but we want to get as good of a quality of life as we can for her for as long as we can.
  
As you can imagine it's been pretty emotional for me.  I took care of her until Friday and it was very difficult because they live in a two story house and her room and shower are upstairs.  I had to come home on the weekend for my boys and my dad said he did not feel comfortable trying to maneuver her up the stairs by himself and rightly so.(he is 77 and is going through cataract surgery right now, one eye done, one not done)   The brother I hardly ever talk to (a tale for another time) said he and his wife would let her stay at his house for the two weeks of radiation treatments.They live about twenty minutes away from my parents if you take a rather treacherous mountain road and then travel into the middle of nowhere.   They have a first floor room in their house with a bathroom that she can use.  Having really no choice on such short notice we moved her over Thursday night.  My poor Mom did not want to go but everything was so rushed that we really had no other options that quickly.   On Friday morning I called from Dad's and checked on her, made my Dad breakfast and then drove the two hours home.  When I got home my brother's wife emailed me with her schedule and asked if I could watch my mother at the end of October as they have plans.   I was so mad!  She is only supposed to be there for two weeks until we can come up with the best options for her and my sister in law and brother are already planning her end of life details at their house around their schedule.   I had a mini breakdown and then pulled myself together and called my brother and told him he and his wife can not make decisions without consulting the rest of us (my dad, my other brother and me) and also his wife, though I really appreciate her help right now, needs to let us kids and my dad decide my moms options without her.  I think I got it straightened out without too much resentment on either side.(well mine is pushed down inside me). 
I'm hoping we can convert my mom's dining room into a makeshift bedroom and I can come up and get her from my brother's house and let her stay in her own house for maybe three days a week and then take her back over to my brother's before I have to go home again.  That way she will be where she wants (her own home!) at least some times, and my Dad will be with her and not be alone.   Really though, its too early to make plans since it all depends I guess on how the radiation treatments go.   I'm heading back down to my dad's house after my older son's 21 birthday tomorrow.  I will be picking up my Dad and taking him with me to meet my mother at the hospital for her first radiation treatment.  I want to give her as much support as I can.  My 17 year old is going with me and we'll stay for a few days before we have to come back home and get ready for the first day of school next week.
 
So that's it.  I hope you guys don't mind that I put this all on here and it is so not diet related.  However, speaking of diets,  I'm not looking forward to what my weight will do with all this stress, but it's obviously not a priority right now.  Writing this down has been oddly therapeutic.  I will probably be on the blogs sporadically, and will write when I can.  It actually feels good right now to go through the blogs and start to take my mind off everything else.  My mother smoked for about 45 years before she quit 5 years ago.  The doctor says it's a myth the the lungs clear up after so many years of not smoking.  So I will leave you with a warning:  Please don't smoke and if you do, please try to quit so no further damage is done.