Sunday October 21, 2012

What a month I've had.  Things seem to have happened at warp speed and now that everything is said and done we are all left wondering "what the heck just happened!?"

As I told you in earlier posts,  my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer in the middle of August, after she exhibited stroke like symptoms in her right leg and arm.  The cancer had already metastasized into her brain and liver.  She immediately underwent 10 days of whole brain radiation, and then after a weeks break started her first round of chemo.  Three days after her first chemo she became jaundiced and was admitted to the hospital.  They were unable to perform a bile duct bypass, and they sent her home to see if the chemo would work well enough to reduce the tumor in her liver. Unfortunately that was not the case.   One and a half weeks later we brought mom back to the oncologist on the day of her supposed second chemo treatment (although we all knew by then she wasn't strong enough for a second treatment).  The doctor said there was nothing else he could do but did admit her into the hospital for some IV fluids to perk her up a little, and to give us a few days to prepare for hospice care.  That was on Monday, October 1.  We started making arrangements for hospice.  My older brother and I stayed with my dad that week to help him with everything.  My brother had to leave Wednesday night for a meeting at his work the next morning but was coming back by lunch time to help us with the move to hospice.  Thursday morning the hospital called to say they were not going to move mom after all  because she had taken a turn for the worse the night before.  I told my dad, and called both my brothers and then jumped in the car and zoomed to the hospital.  I made in time to hold her hand and tell her we all loved her...and then she took her last breath.   We buried her on October 8th - which just happened to be me and my husband's 24th wedding anniversary.  It was a beautiful Fall morning and the cemetery we found is almost directly across from my dad's property, in a quaint little church cemetery on a hill that overlooks the West Virginia mountains.   I think she would have liked it.

Now that things have settled down I can't help but think of how fast this all took place.  While it was going on we were all so busy running around, talking to doctors, making future plans, looking after my father, visiting in the hospital....etc.  Now we are all left wondering what the heck just happened, you know what I mean?   I've been down to see my dad a couple times and he seems to be doing fine.  With my mother being out of the house for the entire illness (she stayed with my brother, then me, then rehab, then the hospital), I think that gave dad some time to adjust to her being gone.  I recently went down to see him for an overnight visit and brought him some homemade meals, helped him pick out a new couch that he has always wanted (my mom only wanted love seats and chairs), and talked with about him getting a dog.  I think he'll be OK.  We are all planning on meeting back at dad's house for Thanksgiving this year and having a big family meal together, my dad, my two brothers and their families and me and my guys.   I think that gives him something to look forward to.

As for me I am surprisingly doing fine as well.  My husband thinks it hasn't hit me yet, but I think I've been adjusting to the inevitable ever since I took her to the ER when she was first diagnosed.  I have been thinking about how all my female role models are gone now, my mom, my aunts, and both my grandmothers.  I'm left with the men.

My husband and I are going up to Lancaster tomorrow for a little late anniversary overnight trip.  I'm looking forward to just doing some craft shopping, enjoying the Amish countryside, and spending some alone time with my husband, and taking my mind somewhere else for awhile.

My next blog I will begin thinking about the BFC again.  One thing we have all talked about during this trying time, is how we should all take care of ourselves, get ourselves healthy, get physicals, don't overlook symptoms and don't hold off until too late things you want to do and see.   I believe this lifestyle I have been on for about a year and a half now is one that will get me healthy!

Thanks for letting me share all of this with you guys.

Quick Check in

Hi everyone,   just a quick check in since I was reading the blogs this morning.  I have been back and forth to my Dad's house  in West Virginia at what seems like a million times in the last weeks.  My mother had a complication last week because of the cancer in her liver - she got jaundice and has been in the hospital ther for the past week.  Back and forth I go.  Today they are letting her out but she is going to go into a rehab facility for a week or two to get a little therapy help in getting herself up out of bed and moving again.  I'm leaving this morning to help her check out from the hospital and move over to rehab.  I have to stay a few extra days to take my Dad for his cataract operation tomorrow and then my brothers and I are supposed to meet on Saturday with my Dad to figure out our plans for Mom.  It's hard being away from husband and boys so much - but they've been so great and supportive for me.  My dad is SO stressed out and all of us are getting stressed too.  The doctors say my mom has six months IF things go well.   
-I can't believe how hard it is to eat at my Dad's house during all this.  He eats the old unhealthy way, especially if you have to grab something and go!  I brought protein bites with me and almonds for a quick bite.  My weight seems to fluctuate from 159 to 161 but I'm happy with that during all this craziness. Trying to stay as healthy as I can during all this so I don't get myself sick.   I think the healthy foods I eat are helping.  I have been popping some Tylenol PM's at night off and on because I'm having trouble stopping my thoughts enough at night to be able to sleep well.  Hope that doesn't do me too much harm.
-I'm glad everyone seems to be getting back on track on the blogs.  It's been a weird couple of months for everyone it seems.  My thoughts and prayers are still going out to Rosalie for all she's had to endure lately.
I hope everyone has a good week!

Good Morning!

I am happy to report this morning that I am back down to 159lbs.  I had been up about two pounds off and on over the last week and was worried that the weight might start creeping back up again, so it feels good to see the 159 back on the scale.  Eventually I would like to see 150!   With all that's going on that is so uncontrollable right now with my mom, I think I like keeping up with the BFC and having some control over my weight - does that make sense?
I went down to see my mother on Tuesday.  She is finishing her brain radiation this week.  It seems to have helped with her mobility and balance but has caused her to have some forgetfulness (like beginning dementia).  Apparently she isn't sleeping well and my poor sister-in-law doesn't get her to bed until midnight, has to get up with her in the middle of the night for a bathroom trip, and then my mom is waking up around 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning.  Since mom doesn't have any treatments this week and doesn't need to be back in to see her doctor until Thursday,  I'm going to bring her here this Saturday and keep her at my house until next Thursday when we all have to meet in Virginia for the big oncologist meeting.  I'm glad I could give my sister-in-law this break and I'm looking forward to having my mom here, but also a little anxious about what the week will bring. Have a feeling this will be the week her hair starts to go. She seems oblivious to it all right now, she told someone this week that she doesn't have cancer, only a brain tumor that is getting better. Maybe it's better for her right now to think that.  I don't know.  One thing I'm finding out is that having only brothers to deal with is a little hard in a case like this.  Guys do not talk like girls talk, I guess they do not get into emotional talking that much like us girls do.  Normally I would call my mom when I really needed an emotional talk, which makes this all a little harder.  But the guys are trying their hardest that's for sure.
So today I have to get my house a little more handicapped ready, plus I want to get a load of groceries to keep me on the staight and narrow plus get the kind of fruit and stuff that my mom likes to eat.  I won't be able to leave her at all for the next five days, because I'm the only one that can help her in the bathroom.
Since I'll be home so much next week, I will probably be making a bunch of BFC goodies for everyone to grab and eat.  I loaded up on some more Jay Robb protein powder from the Vitamin shop yesterday.  I've been using it in my pancakes, protein bites, and cookies I make my son.  It is expensive though, and I wish I could find a similar brand, that is made with stevia and has no growth hormones and all that stuff, that was a little less pricey.  Why is it that all the food that is good for us is so darn expensive and all the crap we shouldn't eat is so cheap!  This is what is making our country have an obesity and health problems in my opinion.  But this is probably a rant best left for a different blog post.
So that's about it for now, thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Little update

Hi everyone!  First I wanted to thank everyone for all their warm comments, thoughts, prayers and encouragement on my previous post.  Even though I've never met any of you in person we are such friends in this blogging community and it feels good to know I can "talk" to you all here.

Well a little over a week has gone by since my mom's diagnosis and I feel much calmer now.  That first weekend after coming home was hard because my thoughts were wild, and I really couldn't concentrate on anything else.  Even found myself getting irritated when my husband or kids were asking me about day to day things.  Now I'm more my old self.  My youngest son and I went back down to West Virginia on Monday to be with my mother for her first radiation treatment.  I haven't heard a word from my brother after are little incident but my sister-in-law was all "here's your mom,do what ever you want while your here" so maybe it was good I let them know my feelings in the beginning.  For mom's second radiation I went over the mountain and got her for the day which gave me time with her and gave my sister-in-law a day off.  After the treatment my dad, son and I took her back to her own house for the day.  During that time I also took her to her hairdresser to get her hair cut super short since she will lose it.  After I cooked dinner for them all (some of her favorites fresh from her garden) we loaded her back up and took her back up the mountain to my brother's house.  All in all I put 150 miles on the car just in that one day - that's how far in the middle of no where my brother lives.   So this week school will start on Monday for my high school senior and my college guys that are commuting.  Tuesday I'm going back to see mom and will only stay one night this time.  I've talked to my dad on the phone everyday and he says she is looking good and starting to get her balance back (I noticed that on Tues. as well).  The radiation or tumor is starting to give her a bit of forgetfulness though.  The big oncologist meeting is still set for Sept. 6 and we will see how well she is responding to treatment, and what the future holds for her.

-So I've been trying not to let my eating habits slip during all this.  I think the worst that I've done is started snacking too much (protein bites, almonds, pieces of cheese) between meals.  I also had a meatball sandwich on flat bread at a Subway at the hospital after mom's treatment.  My dad, and son were starved and I was just kind of grateful mom could sit at the hopital's Subway with us.  I should have just gotten the meatballs in a cup, but I was hungry and got the flatbread.
At home I'm doing pretty well except for the darn snacking.  Got a little tired of eggs so found a good recipe for grain free pancakes over at Maria Emmerich's blog.  Her recipe calls for cottage cheese but I didn't have any so I used cream cheese instead.  They came out really good and I have left over batter for today.  Her recipe is located here:  http://mariahealth.blogspot.com/2011/06/pancakes-and-why-aluminum-free-baking.html

Here are my pancakes with some blueberries thrown in

So that's all I've got this post.  I haven't weighed myself this week, but a lot of my size 12's are getting a little loose and my size 10 pants and shorts are fitting good.  I do think different brands of clothes make a difference in the sizes so sometimes a 12 is good on me and sometimes a 10 is good depending on the brand.  I'm seriously just happy I'm out of the size 16's that I started at.  Before when I tried on clothes I just took whatever fit the best and covered me up the best.  Now everything fits that I bring in  the dressing room and I can actually decide on things that just look the best!  Way more choices, which is nice.

This weekend before school starts always feels like the last weekend of summer! Boo!  Hope it's a good one for all of you!

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. 

Stressed

Hi everyone,  I have no new weight loss news unfortunately, in fact I believe the last time I weighed in I was up a pound - 160.  Boo!  This upcoming weeks looks to be a little stressful.  Two of my sons have birthdays this week.  My youngest will be 17 on Friday and my second oldest will be 21 on Sunday (legal at last!).  I'm not sure what we are doing for the birthdays yet because their schedules are crazier than mine.  Tomorrow my husband and three of my sons are traveling up to Lehigh University to where the Philadelphia Eagles have their training camp - it's fan appreciation day and they are hoping for great pictures and autographs!  I have dog duty while they are gone.  Unfortunately, today I got a call from my brother (the one I never hear from) who told me he talked to our mother this morning and she sounds like she is doing worse.  So now I am packing the dogs in my son's Subaru (they are taking my van) and heading to West Virginia tomorrow morning to see what is going on with my mother.  I emailed my father and finally got him to admit that something is seriously wrong and she has fallen down twice in the house.  He said he was glad I was coming to help him decided what to do.  What?!  This is my take charge Dad, who has always been in control and never felt the need to ask anyone what to do.  I believe I will be taking my mother to the hospital tomorrow.    Hopefully the dogs will be OK at her house.  So much to think about.  I packed up a few BFC friendly things to get me through a few days and think I'm ready to go.  Wish me luck, and hopefully this will all turn out to be something simple. 

Back to Normal and Pictures!

Hello everyone!  I'm back from the beach and have spent the last week trying to get back to normal.  Don't you hate coming back from vacation?  One of these years I'm just going to spend the whole summer at the beach, wouldn't that be nice?   So anyway, we had a great time but this years vacation was a little different because we decided to take my parents with us.  This meant taking three cars.  My husband drove my dad down in our pickup truck with most of our beach gear, coolers and bikes tied on the back - Beverly Hillbillys style(remember that show?) I drove my mother and three boys and the puppy in the van, and my oldest son drove his girlfriend down in his car and also had our older dog.  He and his girlfriend had to leave three days early so they needed their own car.
What I discovered this trip is that something is definitely wrong with my mother.  She has always had a bit of an irritable streak in her but this trip she seemed irritated at EVERYTHING, especially my father.  He couldn't even say good morning without her going off on him.  It made it a bit uncomfortable for the rest of us.  My dad seems to think it's the blood pressure pills the doctor put her on and thinks if she went off those and exercised she would be back to her old self.  I think there is something else going on.  Maybe her thyroid or may some kind of kidney problem or something.  Her other symptoms are:  always freezing, loss of most of her muscle mass, balance problems if she walked too far, and an over all sort of unhappiness.   The doctor she went to see back home only did blood work which pointed to high potassium and nothing else.  I think she needs to get a more thorough checkup but both her and my father have a distaste for doctors ("they don't know what they are doing" "they just run tests to run the bill up"" they want to put you on all sorts of pills that cause even more problems" etc.)   My dad is having a cataract procedure in the next couple of weeks, so after he is done with that I may try to go to thier house and talk my mom into seeing a different doctor.  Not looking forward to that.

 So anyway..... even though my mother put a bit of a damper on the trip we still had a wonderful time on the beach.  I'm putting up a few pictures of our time there even though I'm one of those people that doesn't really like my own photos!

So here is our setup up everyday. That's me waving, my husband is next to me, my brother and my sister-in-law that likes to make fun of our "no sugar" lifestyle

My dad and I down by the water

The boys and I took the dogs on an evening walk on the beach, trying to see if Mabel would like the water

 

Mabel was all "there is no way I'm getting in that water!"

I love my boys!

My parents and I walking thru the seaside town of Manteo on Roanoke Island.  My mom only made it a couple streets and then we sat. She is only 73 years old for goodness sake and my dad is 77.

This is Jockey's Ridge State Park.  The tallest natural sand dune system in the Eastern United States. The big thing everyone does here is to climb on the higher dunes and then run down.

Here is my youngest, Kyle, showing you how it's done! (at the top of the pic you can see everyone's legs that are waiting for their turn to run down!)

To give you an idea of how vast the dunes are at Jockey's Ridge.

From the dunes you can see the ocean.  The Outer Banks start as just a thin Peninsula and then turns into a series of Islands.

Sunset at Jockey's Ridge

When we got home I found this on the outer banks Facebook page.  This is not a tornado it's a water spout that formed right down the beach from where we were staying.  My middle son Nick who is studying Environmental Science was so disappointed to not be there to see it.  It happened the day after we left.  Cool!

So that was our vacation in a nutshell.

On the diet news.  I think I stayed pretty true to our way of eating. I did have a couple beers or a couple glasses of wine EVERYDAY when we got back from the beach and before dinner  (My mother remember?) .  I think I helped out with a bowl of chips and salsa one night, but other than those two things I stuck with my diet. I was up a pound when I got back, but two days later I was back to 159lbs.  I'm so used to eating this way now that there isn't much I crave, except those darn salsa and chips every now and then.  I'm going to push to get the last ten pounds off now that we're back.  I still have  some belly weight to get off.  Don't think I'll ever get it ALL off like the old days but hopefully I can still get down a little further.  I'll get back into the blogs this week and see how all of you are doing.  Hopefully everyone is doing great and having a wonderful summer!!