My life changed drastically on the 12th of February. That morning I got a call from my brother in Florida that my mother was in the hospital. He was vague, but mentioned a brain tumor. I packed for me and my daughter and left San Francisco that evening. I didn't sleep except a few hours on the plane, and here and there in the chair in the hospital, until she got out on Thursday, the 17th of February. She has a Glioblastoma and the bulk was removed on the 14th. Most people die of this within a couple years and it ain't pretty for the person or the care givers. We are going to do the radiation and chemo as this will give her a better quality of life and the down hill journey will be short, otherwise it's a long, drawn out decline. Then again, some people go into remission and some have lived 3-10 years. However, life for the sake of breathing is stupid and painful, so we will not be doing extraordinary means to extend a shitty life. It's been difficult to say the least. My husband has shipped nearly all my stuff and my car is being shipped tomorrow on a truck. He's coming over by mid April after he unloads the rest of our stuff and his.
She's on a modified diet that consists of my vegan cooking but she eats her fish and dairy (not much though) and she likes her sugar. I can't force a strict diet, she's just humoring me. This cancer diet "http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/budwig_protocol.html" has some promise, but I can't make Mom follow it strictly. So I do what I can hoping that quality will be more enhanced. On the days she's on the flax organic cottage cheese she seams sharper. I gave her flax in the hospital and within a half hour she said she was thinking better. Also probiotics, after a week of using a walker and not thinking well, I gave her a huge salad, 1/2 cup of prune juice, a super green smoothie, and 4 times the dose of probiotics and she had a big bowel movement, right after she was not needing the walker and wanted to go back to work. One of the main problems is not so much the tumor, it's the pharmaceuticals. The side effects are fucking horrible, especially the steroid to keep the edema down. This stuff increases cortisol and her muscles have really deteriorated. Plus the Kepra and the Dexamethasone combo has made her weak and she can only sleep 4 hours a day with the aid of Atavin. Honestly if this is the life, then fuck this. She is fairing better because she had a lot of muscle to start and I'm giving her lots of Plant Fusion, super green food, and soon I'm starting her on L-Glutamine, probably 10g a day or more to counter the effects of the cortisol and muscle break down.
We all have an unknown quality and quantity of life left in us.
The red tape is another story, it's fucking evil the Cobra plan and all the paperwork. Plus there will be legal battles because the company she worked for didn't put her on a medical leave of absence, they "quit her". They didn't fire her and she didn't tender a resignation, so she lost her group plan. Really fishy. The Chemo alone is 6,000 per month, every month. This is supposed to be picked up by her Cobra, but we are having authorization issues. It should be approved on Monday. I have never been more stressed in my life, except when my baby was in the hospital for 5 weeks, but that was 5 weeks, this may go on for years.
