Mom

On a different note, I wanted to mention that Mom is doing better today. As I suspected in Mexico, she was worse than my fam let on (they just love me and didn't want me to worry), and she was really really sick. If Danny and Renae hadn't gotten her to the hospital when they did, well... but by the time I came home, the worst was behind.

The chemo made her really sick. It kills fast growing cells, which cancer cells are, but other fast growing cells include your intestinal tract also. The chemo basically shredded her insides, and caused her to lose a lot of fluid and get way too dehydrated. She is healing now, but she is still hurting.

The good news is that at first her cancer count was 4200 and now it is 600, so the three treatments she received did a lot of good, along with the really bad. Her doctor said it boils down to chemo is toxic material, and we have to respect what it can do. I was afraid they would have to quit using it all together and find a different chemo. At least we know this one is working. But the doc said he plans on using a much lower dose from now on. That made ME feel better, but Mom is understandably a little gunshy now of any chemo.

There was talk of her going home on Monday if she continues to improve. So far it is looking okay for that. Until then, Danny has been and is staying with her and is taking very good care of her.

Injury and a Wedding on a Mexican Beach

We've been back from Mexico for a couple of days now. It feels nice to be home, although I wish all my family and friends and I could go back to Mexico and live there until winter is over.

I haven't been able to blog for awhile. I wanted to write about last Saturday before all the details leave my brain. It goes a little something like this:

It was the day of the wedding and most of the bride's family and the groom's family (but mostly the bride's) were either buzzing around the little hotel where we all had been staying (we filled almost all 12 rooms of it up) finishing up wedding preparations, or had already left to decorate for the wedding and reception. A few of us didn't have much to do in the way of wedding preparation, so we decided to go have breakfast at a beach not too far away, primarily because of the delicious fried plantains with cream we had eatten there the first day.

It was a hot, sunny day at the beach. For some reason this particular beach had been empty both times we had eatten there, but the waves looked particularily good to the guys (Dave, Justin and Derrick) for body surfing. So we headed down toward the water to play before our food came out.

I had gone body surfing the day before myself, and still a little sore from being pounded under the waves, so I was not as entralled by the idea. Also, the pullback of the water was stronger than any of the other beaches, even when just standing in it up to my knees, so I was really nervous about the kids getting too close to it. The guys of course jumped through the huge waves and started waiting excitedly for some good ones to ride.

About 15 minutes into this, Derrick got caught up into a particularily huge wave. He curled up into a ball like Dustin had told us to do the day before if caught in a wave. He had been caught up for awhile and decided that the wave must be over, so he straightened up. The thing is that all the waves were big, and sometimes they came in sets of three. As soon as he straightened out, another wave crashed down on him and jammed his elbow straight into the sand with all it's weight. He disappeared for a minute, and the second he was able to get out, we all knew that there was something wrong with his shoulder. It looked completely sucked in, like there was a hole where his shoulder should be.

He barely made it back to our van, falling to his knees a couple times to avoid passing out, his brother and dad on either side supporting him. We needed help, but we did NOT want to go to a mexican hospital either. Jasa's best friend was at the motel still, so we decided to go there first because she speaks fluent spanish, and we were definately going to need a translator. The owner's of the motel were friends, and their daughter knew where there was a doctor in town who would help. So Dave, David, Derrick, Shawna (Jasa's friend), and the Mexican friend (whose name I never learned), all took off into Zihwatanejo (Justin stayed behind with the kids). The friend gave directions to Shawna, Shawna translated to Dave, and Derrick groaned loudly as we went over the hundreds of speedbumps.

We made a lot of wrong turns, and our friend had to make a couple calls and search a couple roads to find the right place. Zihwa isn't the easiest town to navigate. The streets wind this way and that, some don't seem to really go anywhere, and a lot of houses are located in tiny backalleys that you would never find without help. By the time we finally found the right place, it had been over an hour since Derrick's shoulder had been dislocated.

Shawna and the friend ran in to find the doctor, and out came a man dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, waving us in. As we walked the way up the covered sidewalk into his office, I saw he had a very large family having a gathering, all watching us with smiles. I could tell this wasn't the first time an American had come for help after playing in dangerous waves.

All of us walked into his "office". It was a dark cement room with a chair in the middle of is, a cement bed with a thin cushion at the side, and one single light bulb illuminating everything. He sat Derrick in the chair, and all of us gathered against the wall to watch. The doctor started by rubbing oil and Derrick shoulder to loosen the joint. It was easy to tell that the rubbing alone was making him see stars. Then the twisting the the yanking started. We all got dizzy watching, but Derrick didn't yell as much as I expected. The twisting and yanking wasn't working. The doctor had Derrick lay down on the cement slab. He placed his foot Derrick's armpit to have good leverage, and started the pulling and twisting. It didn't work. He left the room for a moment. When the doctor came back, he had his huge brother with him. Derrick was asking for tequila at this point, but they just had him sit back into the chair, and the big brother held Derrick tight to the chair. "You gonna be okay", he said reassuringly (although we think this may have been the one english phrase he knew), and the doctor started pulling Derrick's arm down and then he whipped it back up. Derrick's body relaxed perceptively. Our friendly doctor only charged twenty dollars, and it was the best money we ever spent.

When we got back to the motel, it was almost time to start getting ready for the wedding. We got dressed, and drove the hour to the Salidas. All I can say about the wedding is that is was beautiful. They had the ceremony at sunset, and between the golden light and the waves crashing on shore, it was the most romantic wedding I've ever been to. And with all of us being barefoot in the sand, it was the most comfortable one too. It was a great way to end the chapter of the wedding week.

Day 3 and a half from Mexico

I am sitting here at the internet cafe, on Wednesday at about 11:00 in the morning. I am waiting for Dustin and Jasa to finish their dash to the fax machine, where they are attempting to get a birth certificate expedited from Texas to Seattle to David and Tara´s address so that they can bring it with them on Thursday when they fly in. Turns out a birth certificate is necessary to be married here, and they didn´t know it. But it looks like everything is almost under control. So, come Saturday, hopefully all their ducks will be in a row, and we will have a wedding on the beach to attend in our bare feet before we all jump back into the ocean!

Everything down here has been beautiful, all playing in the ocean and good food. I am fighting the urge to have a nervous breakdown however, because my mom has an infection from the chemo, and is back in the hospital, and I haven´t even been able to get ahold of her yet because we have no cell phone access down here. We had access to a phone yesterday, and I was able to talk to Renae, Doug, and Dad for a little bit, but Mom was too sick to talk. Renae said that although Mom is pretty sick, that everything is under control and she should be fine soon.

Thank goodness for the internet because I can at least chat with Shannon and I know she will send an email if I need to know anything more. Renae, Danny, and Dad are all taking turns staying with Mom in the hospital. I know they have it taken care of and under control. There is nothing I can do except keep in touch as much as possible and know it will be okay.

Trusting that, I intend on letting go my need to be in control, and just continuing to play on the beach. And to all I promised I woud drink a corona for, it is done. And to you who I said I would drink a shot of tequila for, it will be done soon!

First Whole Day in Mexico!

I am sitting here in an internet cafe, drinking a michilaea (a lots of lime juice, corona and salt), and I wanted to remember the name of it (I am sure I won´t remember half of the words that I learn here) so, thus the blog.

Yesterday was a long, long day. We woke up at 4:10 in Seattle so we would have time to drop off the rental car, go through the line that check bags and your little baggie of liquid goods (as many little 3.4 ounce bottle that will fit into a quart baggie), and have a little bit of breakfast. By the time our plane left, I was already wanting to go back to sleep, but alas, due to our standby tickets, we were assigned 3 in one row, and 1 in a completely other row. This meant one parent would have two kids, and the other would get to sleep all by his/herself. I chose to be the parent with the kids for the three hour flight, only because I could tell that I was the least tired of the Derrick and myself (due to the fact that whenever we go to Seattle to stay with his brother, they all stay up until two in the morning visiting, and I am always the party pooper who goes to bed). Other than the usual kid antics however, I have to say I was very impressed with my kids and how they behaved. The only time we heard much at all out of either of them was when the planes were landing, because Kloe cried all three landings (her ears hurt).

Today was glorious. I didn´t want to brag, or make make cold weathered friends sad, but it was simply the most awesome day ever. We woke up around nine, and took the kids out to the little swimming pool in front of our cute little Mexican motel. It is a little rustic, but the colors are bright and I feel like painting my house in various shades of orange, blue and pink now to capture their festive mood. After swimming for awhile, we got ready to go have breakfast. Dave had heard that there was a beach with restaurants closeby, so we drove for about ten minutes and found an old dirt road with a old shacklike buildings on either side (although most of them have crazy little swimming pools too). We stopped at one such place because there was a mexican girl holding a menu out to us. We were the only ones there, except for the family who ran the place. It was all open, overlooking the ocean, and to the kids utter joy and delight, the floor was made of sand. The food was so so good!!! We had fish tacos (that ranked best fish tacos EVER in my life, until we had more fish tacos for lunch that were just as good). But the BEST part of breakfast was the fried bananas with cream sauce. Oh yes. MMM. So very very very good.

We went to another beach for the rest of the day (one that was in the bay so the kids would have an easier time). We rented an umbrella for the day that came complete with people to watch our stuff while we were all frolicking in ocean. There was awesome food at the beach (more fish tacos) as well as the one ingrediant to complete one of my lifelong goals.... to sit on a beach in Mexico and drink a CORONA. Bliss. Joy. I feel a little more complete now.

The kids both were excited to get into the water. Derrin approached it bravely. He swallowed way too much salt water at first while he was learning how to jump the waves, but he learned the trick pretty quickly. Kloe decided she hated it immediately (this is often how she approached new situations), but by the end of the day she was begging to stay in the water. It was sooo warm.

There are people walking along the beach all day selling there creations. I saw alot of homemade jewlery, hats, woven purses. I love it. I love having the shopping come TO me. It is fun to see the diferent things pèople make here to make a living.

Well, this cafe looks like it is closing, so I have to wind it up. But so far, all is so fun, and if the rest of this week is as good as today was, I can´t wait!

1st Round, 3rd Week

Mom had her third chemo treatment today. Dr. Nichols stopped by to discuss her lab results and the news was good. The numbers (I can't remember specifically WHAT the numbers were called, only what they meant), showed that these initial treatments of the chemo are working. The numbers suggest that the tumor is starting to shrink a little:-) Also, her blood counts are not dropping at all. So far, so good.

She is still having side effects including the nausea and fatigue. But other than that, she is doing well.

I won't beable to go with her next week to chemo, because I'll be in Mexico:-) But Renae said she is planning on staying with Mom for that session. After that, Mom will get a two week break from the chemo before starting the 2nd round.

Mom 1st Round, 2nd Week

Today was Mom's second chemo treatment. It was better than the first one for a couple reasons.
The first reason was that the port didn't hurt as bad as it did last time when they had to poke it (it has had more time to heal). The second was that she didn't get the horrible metallic taste she had the last time (although it may still come later). Also, Dr. Nichols said we don't have to be overly concerned about a compromised immune system. She can be as active as she wants, and around the people she chooses. This is great, because Mom draws strength from people.

She did get a little sick to her stomach in the middle of it, but (of course) she wouldn't let me ask the nurse for anything to help it. I asked her why she has such a hard time asking for help when she doesn't feel good, and she said she just doesn't like to bother anyone about something that may not be that serious. I've about decided that I (or any one of her children or husband) get to be the decider of when it is serious.

Mom is a person, who when in the middle of a heart attack, wouldn't let my dad call 911, because she didnt think it was serious. She also couldn't ask for help when she was in the most intense pain of her life from a tumor(not that she knew that's what it was), because she didn't want to complain. She suffered in silence from this horrible sickness, because she didn't want us to worry for her or her health.

From now on, I think her family gets to make the call . I declare a dictatorship on Mom's health! Her family will see she gets the care she needs, fighting whatever it is that tells her she is not allowed to bother the universe with her discomfort!!! If not exactly a dictatorship, then a Familyship, a Pressureship, a Careship, a PickonYouUntilYouTakeCareofYourselfShip!