Changes and Processes

As most of you are aware, my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer last June, she underwent surgery, did the radiation and chemo bit, continued chemo throughout the year, had a healthy MRI.  Then, about  two or three weeks ago, her next MRI revealed that the "used to be small" tumor had tripled in size.  Her doctors decided to take a systemic approach and now she is receiving intravenous chemo treatments about every two weeks.  We will evaluate with MRIs along the way and decide what to do next when we get those results.  This is the medical side of it all.  Then there is the emotional side that I have not been willing to face head on, rather I have been analyzing it.  Perhaps this morning's phone call, or finally taking a minute to catch up on my aunt's blog inspired me to try to analyze it in writing.

My mom is sick.  This comes after losing my dad and both of my grandmas (Nonnie and Grandma, for distinction).  After helping with Grandma's care as Power of Attorney, I was ready to start law school and grow up like a normal 23 year old.  I wanted to take a step back.  That, however, was not God's plan for me, nor for my family.

Fast forward to now with the regrowing tumor.  My mom gets more confused than she used to.  She gets frustrated because she can't do the work she used to define herself by.  She was an accountant and defining herself through anything else has never been something she had to think about.  She has turned into a woman with brain cancer.  I don't mean this in the way that she just can't do accounting anymore.  I mean that she is redefining herself as a woman with brain cancer, because she can't be the accountant anymore.  I struggle to encourage her from 1700 miles away that she is so much more than an accountant and that brain cancer can't define her.

My grandpa and his wife have been taking her to her doctor's appointments, trying to get her finances sorted out, trying to keep her insurance from getting cancelled all-together.  There are resources for these things, but apparently they were resources that they were not willing to use and it has all become too much for them to handle.  Understandable for two elderly individuals.  Fortunately, to some extent I anticipated this and have been exploring other options.  Unfortunately, they apparently see this is passing the baton rather than making sure my mom gets the opportunity to adjust to a new situation, whatever that new situation may be.  My mom may be more confused and repeat herself, but that doesn't mean she isn't still a 53 year old woman who has been independent her entire life.

This morning I received a call from my grandpa's wife, with whom my relationship has always been tenuous.  She explained everything that I knew was going on with my mom, then told me that I need to go, get my mom, and bring her 1700 miles away from what she knows, and I need to do this right away.  I told her that I was in school, I can come when school is out, about a month from now, but something needs to happen on that end in the meantime.  Someone needs to talk to my mom about this situation and prepare her to make decisions on her home that she has there, the animals she has there, the life that she has spent the past 20 years building.  I was told that this was my responsibility now, not theirs.  They weren't going to tell her about their decision and want me to make a decision for my mom, without giving her any option.

Putting aside my anger and hostility and frustration for "family" dynamics and why my grandpa couldn't talk to me about this or at least make this a process that we work on together, the main concern is that I can tell my mom to do a million things or one thing and I still can't be there to make sure it gets done.  Not right now.  I can't be there to support her in this huge transition that she didn't ask for.  She doesn't deserve to have to hear this over the phone.  And regardless of even all that, I am her daughter and she is my mom.  We have 23 years of that relationship and, although I know my mom respects my opinion and trusts me, it's nearly impossible, not to mention wrong of me, to demand that she see me as an adult who is going to be making decisions for her.  My mom never even rearranged the furniture in our house when I was growing up, this change of relationship certainly can't happen over the phone.  How am I supposed to take a baton with no baggage when human nature and relationships are involved?  My mom is a human with feelings and a past and a future and deserves to be treated that way.  She isn't just a body with brain cancer that is hard to be patient with.

I'm not sure what my mom's next step will be, besides finishing this round of chemo treatments.  The medical side is easy to make decisions on, it's the human side that seems to have created the struggle.  I don't know what will happen to our home or the animals, I don't know if my mom will make the trek to the West Coast or tootle on over to her best friend's house, four blocks away.  Regardless of any of this, she is a person who needs to know and be involved in decisions that involve her.  She is a very long way away from having decisions made about her, without her.  And I am a very long way from telling my mom what to do when I am 1700 miles away from the aftermath.

This needs to be a process, as everything needs to be.  And people need to re-learn that my mom is a person, not a ball of brain cancer.