Quick Update

The results of my skin biopsies are in and there is no melanoma (yay!). My nose has a basal cell cancer tumor, which is not a big deal. I will be contacted by the surgeon next week, we'll make an appointment for a consultation, then he'll remove it and make my nose look normal instead of having a divot in it.

I tried to not worry, but subconsciously I guess I did. I didn't sleep great the past couple of days. But I will sleep better tonight knowing there's nothing threatening on my skin.

I do have to see the dermatologist every 3 months for the next year because in that first year after you've found one basal cell cancer you can find another skin cancer, but I am not going to worry. There isn't a history of it in my family, even with my fair-skinned mother and grandmother. So we're good.

As for my back wounds, I saw my regular doctor for my physical today. She looked at both back wounds and said that the one that was hardest to get to looks healed; she didn't even rebandage it. And she says it looks like I'm doing well with the other one, that it's healing well. So more yay!

And there you go, for those of you who were concerned.

The definition of family, part I

"Of all of these things, the greatest is love."

As everyone knows by now, my natal family is gone. I lost my dad in 1978, my little brother in 1983, and my mom last summer 2010. Yes, there are relatives, but none of them is as close to me as the most distant and lurk-ful of the Betties.

And therein lies the rub. My family believed in blood family but not in non-blood family (I think there were only two exceptions over the years). So I have no roadmap to follow. Simply learning to think "I still have a family" is no easy feat for me.

I have a friend I've known since I was 11, and we still communicate, but she has strong family bonds and her bonds to other friends are stronger than mine. Yet, when we are in contact it's like the intervening time — which might be years — didn't happen. Leah lives in Wisconsin.

My best friend is a man I've known since my junior year in college. We've been involved. We've been best friends. We've been furious with each other and said things that in most relationships would be unforgivable. And we've sat with each other thru death and grief. We've shared a house with another friend and an apartment between the two of us and for most of that time everyone thought we were an item, even tho' we had separate bedrooms. I didn't know that he was still in love with me until years later when he broke down after seeing me with the man I'd moved in with. (Stupidest decision ever, but that's another story.) Steve lives in Seattle.

Fear of Sleeping and a Taste of Pain

I had intended to write regularly this summer. After all, my tasks were light. All I had to do was take my mom to treatments and help her out. But cancer consumed my summer, and then it consumed my mom.

I don't want to go to sleep at night. I don't want to get up in the morning. Tonight I fell into a rampage of sobbing, with my best friend patting me and holding my hand. Then he got me kleenex for my nose and a cool washcloth for my face.

I don't usually cry when someone dies, not much. I'm usually the strong one. When my dad died, I felt I had to be strong for my mom --- who was destroyed --- and my brother --- who was young. When my brother died at 18, I had to be strong for a host of people who were leaking tears and acting distraught; no one asked me if I needed any comfort.

There is no one to be strong for now but me. No one who depends on me for comfort.

No one who will be my anchor when I wander in the void. I feel as if gravity has given way and I don't know how to find my way home, or if I have a home to find a way to.

Meep

As some of you know, my grandma died last September after a long period of becoming progressively weaker. She ate less and less and drank less and less. After she died, although Mom and I missed her a great deal (she lived with my mom for several years), Mom wanted very much to travel, and to travel with me when possible. She wanted to go to Europe and to Hawaii with me.

Mom finished radiation on August 13th, just over 3 weeks ago. She has gotten progressively tired and weaker since a couple of weeks into radiation. We've been told that the effects continue after the treatments. She is now so weak that she can barely stand without help. i have to haul her up to get her from a sitting position; so far I haven't hurt myself or dislocated her arm (we aren't doing this correctly but haven't made any other route work yet). I am going to contact Home Health: I cannot do this by myself anymore.