[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Gossamer]

My mom was in the ER all day Sunday. I took a day off work to be with her today. Its not life threatening. But it is a very painful torn rotator cup. She can't get up and down. She's in huge pain though we finally got her vicodin today. I'm pooped. I don't knows how long I'll be driving to her place after work. If you pm me bugging me to take a specific action... you'll be last on the list. If you bug me to get unbanned. ... I will add a day to the ban for every pm. At least one person has pmd me half a dozen times this weekend and counting. Stop it.

[Kreig Messer]

Hope she winds up feeling better, Goss.

[Ssezzkero]

Oh man, I hope she can get that taken care of soon. Joint injuries are the worst. Even though I'm a complete stranger, give her my wishes! I do hope she'll feel better soon. :/

[Aoren]

My thoughts, well wishes and support to you and your mother. No matter how big or small the issue it is always stressful to have a loved one in pain or distress. Here's to a speedy recovery.

[Gossamer]

Thanks folks. When your a tiny little old lady you cant do much in that much pain. Shes not even strong enough for example to stand up off the toliet after using it. Its heartbreaking. And I'm sorry to sound so grumpy but some players know absolutely no shame and are ridiculous in their pestering.

[Rosela]

I'm so, so sorry to hear that. Best of luck to your mom for a speedy recovery

[Caelum]

I'm keeping your mom in my thoughts! I understand the difficulty from both sides and it is basically the least fun ever. Tag me if you need anything.

[Thomas Cosa]

Wishing your mother a speedy recovery -- and sending you guys lots of positive thoughts from my side!

[Sal Mander]

All the best and hoping for a swift recovery

[Gossamer]

Update


I hope you never see one of these.

I wanted to give you folks an update on my personal situation. Some of you know, but most of you don't. The ones in the know, haven't heard the latest so I suppose I'll tell you all at once. It's bad... really bad.

The Saturday before last my mom was taken to the ER by my brother. They sent her home with a diagnosis of a torn rotator cup OR tendentious, You know? Pulled muscle? Torn shoulder muscle? Standard stuff you have happen when your active. Mom's 75 and something of a couch warrior. I didn't buy it. I got pissed. I dragged her to a kaiser permeneante (KP) doctor the next day, got her Xrays redone, and talked to the doctor. He agreed to schedule her for an MRI last Friday. He stared straight at me and demanded that I was serious this woman never complained. I told him ... absolutely not... something was very wrong. I even got her some good pain meds. He had the Xrays redone at Kaiser, and had some labs taken. We left feeling better... we left feeling at least KP was believing us.

Obviously the ER hadn't.

Before, the ER the day before, gave her tylenol. Fucktards. Stupid idiots at St. Johns Hospital in Longview, Wa. They are craptastic on the best days and huge pieces of shit on the worst ones. My brother took her home... I got Kaiser to help more. Opiates. More tests. Consults with home care. Check check check.

Only, it didn't stop there.

Friday she had a bad morning. My brother went out to get her up.... I live an hour and a half away so I was only coming at night to help her to bed. I work during the early mornings. Anyhow, I told him to take her to the ER. He didn't. We ended up getting to the MRI because by the time I was there, she'd calmed down, was rested, on more Vicodin in her. We survived the MRI.

Yet something was seriously wrong. My mom was whining in pain even through max dosage vicodin. She's like me... we're badass women. We'd probably stop to take pictures of a compound fracture of our own legs and poke at it and then drive ourselves to the ER.. ya know?

I didn't know what to do. They wouldn't tell us anything. Finally, in desperation, I remembered a very sympathetic advice nurse who was the advice nurse of my mom's primary physician. I called her. Again, she couldn't give me any info.. until.... she asked if she could just read off the Xray report that was taken on Tues and finally got back that that day (Friday). I thanked her and asked her too politely.

I don't remember what the whole report said. I just remember keywords.... "shattered scapula riddled with stress fractures".... I remember "displaced broken humorous bone due to potentially malignant mass growing from inside the bone out". I got really quiet. Then I started crying quietly. Then I asked Nicole in this strained little girl voice.... "Is there anything that grows from the bone outward that isn't cancer?" She said in a soft sympathetic voice 'No, Jen. Not that I have ever heard of." And that's when I got really quiet and fell apart on the phone. I've never sobbed over a telephone to anyone before, but I sobbed to this woman.

She gave me some instructions. She told me quietly that she was going to call me back in a half hour. She did. Then she gave me some really good advice on how to care for my mom in the mean time because she had some issues about her health besides the bigger picture.... instructions on how to hydrate her, keeping track of it, giving her walking goals every day, putting her in depends because she wasn't able to get up easily by herself and didn't need to be holding her urine until someone could be at her house to help her... important stuff. Nicole was amazing. But she was with me Friday.... not Saturday.

The next morning.... was really bad. This time she was having trouble breathing and the pain she said was a 20 on a scale of one to ten. She was screaming.

My brother called, and I told him to call 911 and get an ambulance. That way she'd be straight slotted to the ER and a bed near a crash cart and not out in the lobby if he drove her. I was working. He did so and they tried to release her after giving her oxygen. I called Kaiser again. I got mean, nasty, and fifty shades of terrible and even threatened them. Finally a KP doctor got there, and he called Pacific Imaging and then they got really really quiet when the imaging company sent the films right over.

He then asked us if she had preferences for hospitalizations. We said yes.. Sunnyside in Clackamas Oregon. That's where my father died. But its a great hospital with really good staff. He gave us the option of transporting her there or transporting her via ambulance. We asked him to give her good painkillers and we'd take her... we didnt' want to wait the four hours to get her transported by ambulance.

So my brother loaded her in her car and took her. They got her settled and then scheduled for a CT scan of her whole body.

And by the time that was done, read, and the info back, we had a meeting with her team leader. At Sunnyside they get teams of doctors, just not one ER jackass like happens at St. Johns. She had an oncologist, a radiologist, an orthipedic surgeon, etc. etc. etc. etc. She even had an oncologist surgeon consulting. And she had a palliative care physicain. That threw up warning flags. Then... Sunday... when we all could be there, they told us what was going on.

It was cancer. It had grown out of her shoulder, shattered her scapula, displaced and broke her humerus in the arm.... and ... it was in her lungs in huge masses. Its on her spine in huge masses. Her liver, spleen, stomach, and intestines have masses. Most likely its in her brain too.

Today they did a biopsy to take cells to see what it is for sure. But... they are almost 99% sure she has had a reoccurrence of the Melanoma that got removed last year. I scrapped about that a long time...

You see... melanoma presents as skin lesions. But if its left unchecked or metastasizes its this super aggressive tumor producing monster that eats people from the inside out. And if she's this far along on it now, then that means its all grown that much in the last year because she had ct scans or her previous melanoma removal and they found nothing.

So, my mom is going to die. It's going to be in a few weeks, a few months, or even within this year. It's not going to be a pretty death. She already can't feel her feet because of the tumors on her spine. And after we get the report back from the biopsy, we'll know for sure about how long. Cancer is fairly predictable. It's rate of motion is pretty predictable.

For now they can irradiate her arm, put some pins in the break, and make that pain go away. If the radiation shrinks or kills that tumor, it will make her quality of life better. How much longer we don't know. If she has weeks the arm surgery isn't worth it. If she has maybe a year, it definitely is. Chemo won't work. It's too far along. Radiation will make her hellishly sick and probably won't stop much else from growing.

I hope you never have anything like this happen in your family. I hope to hell you get moles checked and removed if there's even a remote chance they are something bad.

I never knew Melanoma did this. I know it now... if that's what this is. And if it is, she has weeks, not months. So now you know. I haven't abandoned you. It's just that some things are more important than others. This is important.

The picture above? It's a metastasized Melanoma.