So Close

Pops update

Just a very brief update as I have officially run out of today (about 4 hours ago). 

It has been a hell of an emotional week.  My dad loves to say that all his grey hairs are from his kids, but let me tell you - between him and my mother, they have more than made up for it this year. My hair is just about snow white!

Last Sunday was a shocking day, hearing that my Dad was in hospital because of chest pains. Then finding out on Monday that he had a heart attack the day before. Then feeling so much better on Tuesday and Wednesday as he seemed to be doing ok. Then finding out on Thursday that he had another heart attack the day before. Visiting him on Saturday and seeing him looking so good and in high spirits.  An extremely anxious Sunday morning while the operation took place. Good news on Sunday afternoon.

On Monday morning we heard he didn't have a good night. There was some bleeding.  Apparently the next 24-48 hours were critical.  They had to delay taking him off life support.  I felt ill, I couldn't update my blog. I could hardly talk. I was sick with worry. I eventually got hold of the doctor to hear that yes, he had bled, but it was not very very bad, and they seemed to control it with medication.  Monday afternoon went a bit better.  They took him off the ventilator and although he was drowsy and in a lot of pain, he was ok.  This morning we hear his platelets are low and he needs a blood transfusion.  But by this afternoon he was sitting up and talking.  In much better spirits.  Saying that he wants to be home by Friday (I don't think so, dear father!)  But he does seem a lot better.

It has been a very emotional week, (it has been a very emotional year!), one that I dont want to relive again in a hurry. 

It went well

Just a quick note to say that my father's surgery went well today.  The operation was 6.5 hours long!  Which was 1.5 hours longer than I thought it would be.  That 1.5 hours felt like forever.

Apparently the operation went well, they ended up doing another triple bypass, but that is as much as I know for now.  I am hoping to find out more from the heart surgeon tomorrow.  Who, coincidentally has twins from a surrogate mother AND has read my book. Small world huh.  I met her a year or so ago at a function. 

Thanks for all the good thoughts and wishes, now for the recovery. 

Too scared to Google

I am a big Googler. I Googled my way all through my infertility. In fact, I obtained my Doctorate in Infertility through the University of Google.  There isn't an ailment or affliction I haven't Googled.  My whole family knows that if they need to know the answer to any medical question, just ask me - because I will have Googled the answer before they have even asked the question.

Until now.

My brother asked me what the risks are for my father's bypass surgery and I told him I am too scared to look it up. I don't want to know.  That's how scared I am.

And now I am even more afraid.

As I mentioned yesterday or the day before, my dad had a heart attack on Sunday. Which we found out on Monday.  He had a triple bypass 20 years ago and apparently it is all blocked again.  His heart muscle is also damaged.  On Tuesday night he came home and was scheduled to go into hospital today, to prepare for the bypass surgery scheduled for tomorrow, Friday. Yesterday afternoon my two sisters and all our kids went to my parent's house for a braai.  Dad was walking around, doing his thing.  We laughed, bonded, ate and went home.  Off he went today to hospital to prepare for his operation (to have a balloon put into his heart or arteries to prepare it for the bypass?)  Well, the blood test reveal he had had another heart attack yesterday. While we were all sitting around having a braai.  The bypass has been rescheduled to Sunday and he has to lie completely still in hospital until then. He is not allowed to move anything, he can't even bend his knees. 

I am very afraid.

I feel sick with worry. Suddenly it all seems so much scarier than before. How could he have had a heart attack without him even knowing?  If we don't even know it is happening, how will we know when it might strike next?  I don't know what to think or to do. I feel completely impotent.  And absolutely terrified. 

May you live in interesting times

Well, it has been interesting times indeed.  First my mom's cancer diagnosis in December*, and then on Sunday my father suffered a heart attack.  Luckily for all of us, he is as tough as old leather (or tungsten as he likes to say), and he survived it but he now has to go for a bypass operation on Friday.  His second. He had a triple bypass 20 years ago.  For a more detailed account of what a stubborn old fartbag my teenage** dad is, go have a look at my sister's blog. 

Needless to say, my already over stretched and absent mind has been somewhat occupied of late. Hence the dearth of blog posts recently.

As you know, along with my BFF Mel, I run South Africa's premier Egg Donor and Surrogacy agency (we rock!), Nurture and it is always so interesting to see the decision process recipient couples go through to choose a donor.  People base their decision on many different factors, but one of the big things is the donor's family medical history.  And naturally, most recipient couples would like a donor with a 'clean slate' so to speak, but quite honestly - which person out there does NOT have some form of disease or issue in their family history (we go as far back as mother, father, siblings and both sets of grandparents).  However, having said that, I am pretty damn sure that no one would ever want to pick me as a donor (even if my tired old good-for-nothing eggs were in perfect working order) as between my mother, father and both sets of grandparents, I have just about every bloody dread disease in my family history, including Completely Crazy!

In other news, there is no other news.  Well, there is other news, but I can't discuss it on this blog which is completely annoying. It's like someone saying "I know a secret but I can't tell you".  Why bother mentioning it then?  I don't know.  Suffice it to say, it has something to do with this rather tiresome recession thingy that is severely cramping my style. 

* My mom had her first check up recently (just a blood test) and that was all good.  Which was good news indeed.  Oh, while I am on the subject of my mom - she is suffering terribly from after-chemo pains. Shooting, sharp pains in her joints, especially her arms, hands and shoulders.  It is really bad, so bad that she sometimes can't drive or sleep at night.  Anyone have any experience with this? How long before it goes away?

** 'Teenage' as he is only a mere 19 years older than I am, which makes him a very youthful 60 years old.

PS remind me to tell you about two things I want to talk about:  (a) How much I dislike school holidays and (b) the hair saga.

I love living here!

I am the eldest child among my siblings, but I am by far the biggest baby. Always have been. While my little sisters were sleeping over at their friends houses as kids, I never did. I hated to be away from my parents. My two sisters and my little brother travelled and lived overseas extensively (my younger brother and sister still live overseas), I only lasted a week overseas before I came running home to mommy and daddy.  I need my parents, and I need to be close to them.  I’ve come to accept that this is just how I am and stopped trying to pretend otherwise. 

So, you can imagine how much I LOVE living down the road from them! It gives me great comfort to know they are close by and I LOVE LOVE LOVE that they pop in and get involved in my life. My mom takes the kids to school while I’ve been semi housebound and my dad pops in to prune a hedge here or plant a few seedlings there. Love it!

(And I am very, very fortunate that my husband knows this and accepts it too. In fact, it was his suggestion that we move closer to them.)

My poor parents, I don’t think they will ever be rid of me.  Wherever they go, I shall stalk them follow.  And anyway, my mom and I are going to share an apartment at the retirement village when she is 90 and I am 70.  She will probably be holding me up while I walk, not the other way around.

I love my mommy and daddy, and I love living to close to them.

PS someone posted on my blog that my dad must have been a teenager when he had me – he was! He was 18 when he got married and 19 when I was born.  He was very thrilled with the comment and said to tell the commenter that he is STILL a teenager ;-)

My mother

I haven’t written about my mother for a while and many of you have been asking me for updates, so I thought I better put keyboard to screen.

I am not sure why I haven’t written about her.  Maybe because I haven’t had the time to do an update justice, and maybe because I wasn’t sure what to write.

My mom has just finished her sixth and hopefully last chemo session.  I am the type of person who is good in a crisis. I jump into action, I get involved, I organize, arrange, sort out.  I am able to put my emotions aside and deal with the reality of the situation. Which is what I have been doing. Head up, shoulders back, one foot in front of the other while we go through the terrible, horrible, absolutely dreadful chemo sessions.  And now that we have come through the other side, I am starting to feel the emotions creeping in.  And I find it hard to deal with.

I am both incredibly angry and incredibly afraid at what has just happened to my mom. I can’t believe that this evil disease crept up on us like that.  That while we weren’t looking, it crept and crawled and slimed its way into my mother’s body. How dare it!  How dare it do that?  HOW DARE IT!  I am very angry.  And afraid.  And to be honest, I am not sure I am ready or able to deal with the emotions about what we just went through.

Writing these few words is merely scratching on the surface of it all, and even these few words are deeply upsetting to me. 

The enormity of what just happened, and how we were so incredibly lucky to have caught it so early, and survived through it, is almost too much for me to bare.  My mother could have died.  The thought of that just blows my mind. I need my mother, as much now as when I was a child.  The thought that this evil thing almost stole her from us blows my mind.  And then there’s the thought of going for the first check up in three months time, and then the next and the next….well…. you can imagine how that makes us feel.  So, this is why I haven’t said much.  Because I am too scared to open this box and deal with that stuff that lies within. 

But, the good news is, my mother has finished her rounds of chemo. Six, hard, long, torturous and dreadful rounds of chemo. To see my strong, healthy, beautiful mother lying there, completely felled by the chemo was DREADFUL. Beyond description.

I am so glad she gets a chance to grow her strength back and reclaim her life.  By the time Max comes, she should be up to almost full strength again, and it will be a new chapter in our lives.  A new time of hope, new beginnings, new life.  My mother is determined to make something with her new strength and wants to help others who are not as fortunate as her to have access to help and support.  She is just amazing.

Through my mother’s incredible strength, perseverance and determination, and with the help of my father’s deep, deep love and support, we have made it through.   Many others don’t.  I am humbled by that thought.

Thanks for all your love and support for my family through this difficult time, and to those who prayed / lit candles / sent good wishes– please keep doing what you are doing, it looks like it works and we will take whatever we can get.

 

Have you heard the one about…………

As I am sure most people are, I am v v v busy.  I receive at least 200 emails a day, that’s a lot of emails.  And unfortunately I can’t just ‘delete all’ as about 99% of them are important emails – important in the sense that I need to read them for business or because someone is reaching out to me. 

But the 1% which start with “Have you heard the one about………” or “A MUST READ! WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!” get deleted straight away.  There is nothing that funny, or that motivational that I can afford to waste some of my precious time, so I delete them.  (Those powerpoint ones with all the cute pictures and naff words are my absolute WORST as they are not only a waste of my time, but they are a waste of my bandwidth!!!! Yes, I know, I am a cynical, miserable old hag)

There are a very small handful of people whose jokes and emails I always read because over time I have come to learn that they have exactly the same sense of humour as me.  Not that that is a compliment!!  My brother in law (Sister Mel’s husband) is one. I always read his emails.  And friend Sue H is another.  And I know if Sister Mel bothers to send me something, it is usually good because she also doesn’t do joking emails.  Marko wouldn’t send me any non-urgent stuff because WORK TIME IS FOR WORKING AND SENDING PERSONAL EMAILS IS AGAINST COMPANY POLICY.  (Marko has a real protestant work ethic – he is every bosses dream.  He works harder than anyone I know. He once uninstalled solitaire on all his staff’s PC’s because work time is for working!  I could NEVER work with him! I would either resign or kill him by the end of the first day)

But for the rest – if I have someone who continually sends me non-important (jokes / motivational stuff), then I very politely ask them to stop. But I hate doing that, because I am paranoid I will hurt the person’s feelings.  But it is waste of their time and mine to send me stuff I won’t ever read.

But sometimes I just click on delete and move on to the next email, thankful that person who sent it to me can’t see that I am not reading their stuff.  Except that I sometimes get caught out!

Last night my father asked me whether I got his email the previous day, and as he asked I realized I had, but had deleted it without reading it. I could see by the first line it was a non-serious one and although I usually do read his emails as he is my favourite father, but I am so snowed under at the moment, that I just did not have the time to read it. 

As he looked at me expectantly for my answer, I could feel time slow down to super slow mo, and my brain scrambled for an answer “should I lie and say I read it! Should I lie and say I never received it!” but I am a useless liar, so I stuck to the truth “yes, I did, but I didn’t read it, I deleted it”.  He looked horrified.  “I am sorry dad!”, I stammered, “but I am just so busy!”  He said it is the last time he is sending me anything personal like that.  Thank goodness I am his favourite child, so I know that he still loves me the most (Love you dad, mean it! And Melanie also deletes joking emails without reading them!!)

I just really, really don’t have time to read the non-urgent stuff.  I feel terrible about it, but it is the truth.  My poor sister gets all the Lordy motivational emails – “if you love the Lord, you will forward this email to 17,000 of your best friends”.  (Her response – the Lord knows I love him, he doesn’t need me to spam everyone in my address box to prove it)  Lucky no one even attempts that shit with me. 

How do you handle it?  What do you do if someone keeps sending you jokes / non urgent emails?  Do you ask them to please refrain from doing so? Do you read the emails?  Or do you just delete and hope they won’t ever find out? Or are you one of the culprits who forwards all those joking / motivation / lord loving emails!! Confession time ;-)

Doing what we can

My mom had her second round of chemo last week.  It went a little rougher than the first round.  Thank goodness many of you warned us, so we were prepared. (BTW, my mother and father both read my blog now and have been blown away by your messages of support for them)

The actual chemo was tough, my mom got an allergic reaction half way through (severe back pain apparently worse than labour, which my mom has done four times with no drugs – ouch!), so they had to stop one of the meds, then reinstate it slowly.  Which means it took the whole day to get through the chemo.

Then, as it did last time, the side effects kicked in with a vengeance two days later.  This time my mom had such bad joint and limb pain, she couldn’t lift her head to drink soup through a straw.

And that’s the hard part.

We are a VERY close family, sometimes too close.  I know that the closeness can seem overwhelming, especially to the poor buggers who marry into this family, but the good part of this is if any of us is need, we rally around immediately.  

I am fortunate in that I live closest to my parents. I am the eldest, but the biggest baby in the family, by far.  I tell people I live close to my parents in case they need me.  The truth is, I need them. 

So, I live close by. I can help where ever I can. Shop (not cook, couldn't subject the poor old folks to that), tidy up, sit with my mom while she has her chemo etc.  My poor siblings, sister Nina who lives in Seoul and brother Paul who lives in London, have been ready to jump on that plane from the minute my mom got the diagnosis, but there is only so much any of us can do. 

Sister Mel lives close enough, but even she can only do so much. My dad has been absolutely amazing.  Honestly, that man is my hero.  He looks after her like gold.  I keep phoning and saying “can I help? Can I fold laundry? Wash dishes? Shop for you?” and he keeps telling me “don’t worry, we’ve got it under control”.

But even him, even all of us, can only help so far. There are some things she has to go through alone, one of which is the chemo side effects. That is the part I find hardest to bear.  To see her in pain and not be able to make it (physically) better for her. We all struggle with that. My mom is the strong one in the family, the rock.  To see her suffer is damn hard.  But she is a trooper and very strong. She has already turned the corner, and is feeling better each day. And the amazing thing is, I went to visit her on Saturday, in the midst of her worst time and there she was, greeting me at the door with lipstick on.  My mother believes lipstick cures all ills.  She might be bald, she might be suffering, but she has lipstick on and looks great.  Go mom!

As I said, it is hardest for Nina and Paul who are so far away, and who can’t be physically here for my mom, but they do what they can from afar, to show their love and support.  And I know each little word, each little gesture means the world to my mom.

I am so blessed to have such an amazing family, I love you all!

 

My brother Paul from London, with a message to my mom. He shaved his head in support.

Warrior woman

My brave mother. My dad shaved the last of her hair off last night.

I asked her if I could post this picture of her on my blog and her response was "absolutely! we are warrior women, we are strong!"  She is so right, and we get it all from her. So proud of you mom, and I love you so very very much.

Mother update

Well, my holiday ended rather abruptly. No easing back into things. Slam bang right back into it again.  Luckily I have no life and love being busy.

I thought I would give you a little update on my mom, for those who have been asking.

My mom has come through her chemo really well. I was really, really worried about it, because I’ve heard that it can be really bad. But if this is as bad as it gets for my mom, then I think she got off fairly lightly.

She got the terrible bone and limb aches, the extreme fatigue and weakness but only for a few days. No nausea.  And she was back to 'normal' relatively quickly. I know others have had it far worse, so I really hope for her sake that this is as bad as it gets. 

My mom has chemo every three weeks. The first week is terrible, the second week is a slow recovery (and lowered immunity), and then the third week is your ‘good’ week. And then it starts all over again.  She has to do six cycles of this.

We’ve (ok me) have done some research on the internet and have discovered some pretty scary statistics.

   * The overall five-year relative survival rate for all women with ovarian cancer is 46 percent. This means that compared to women in the general population, five years from the time of diagnosis only 46 percent of women with ovarian cancer are still alive.

   * However, the survival rate improves greatly to 93 percent if the cancer is diagnosed at an early stage before it has spread. Only 19 percent of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed at this local stage.

   * Approximately 75 percent of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage after the cancer has spread beyond the ovary.

It just reinforces how lucky we are to have caught it so early.  Only 19% of people catch it at the early stage my mother’s was. 

My mom has started to lose her hair.  This is a big deal for her, and for most cancer patients.  It’s a horrible feeling, because I know that is a big deal for her. I want her not to care, but of course she does care.  It is not a vanity thing; it is a big emotional, psychological thing.  You go from feeling and looking ok to looking like a cancer patient. There is no place to hide.

But my mother is an incredibly strong, beautiful woman, and she will weather this as she has everything else in her life. One day, with her permission, I will tell you more about her past. 

So, that is where we are at. One session of chemo down, five to go. The next one is next Tuesday.  Please keep her in your thoughts.