Day 28

No time to breathe these days.

Mom is losing her hair.  Apparently the visible signs of the chemotherapy have brought the reality of her illness home.

My sister helped her buy a wig -- it really looks nice on her -- honestly.

Tomorrow starts the second series of chemo injections.  In the meantime, she seems to be holding up pretty well.

I wake up early almost every morning worrying about my mom.  No doubt it's a thousand times tougher on her.

Day 21

My mind is such a whirlwind these days that it's hard to stay on one train of thought for very long.  When a loved one is faced with their own mortality, it seems to cause everyone close to them to reconsider their own.

Mom's port went in Friday.  She ran a little fever Saturday, but it subsided before they forced her to go to the ER.  She spent much of Sunday with us.  We had a couple of visitors -- all in all, a pretty positive day.

I feel so helpless.

Day 16

There seems to be a lot of life happening these days.

We homeschool our kids, and usually we go into the school year well-prepared.  This year?  Not so much.

My wife had foot surgery and is still recovering.  My oldest went off to college -- lots of preparation there, too.

I'm very tired, but probably not as tired as mom.

She learned a new word this week -- nadir.  It's the couple of days during your chemo cycle where you feel your worst.  For her, maybe not too bad.  Very little energy, but otherwise no other side effects.  We can only hope and pray that it continues like this.

I'm looking outside right now at the flowers in the back yard.  The roses are just now ending another cycle of blooms.  It's strange how they are always in sync with each other.  Days to even a couple of weeks with nothing, then suddenly an explosion of color.

Proponents of the theory of evolution often use words that seem to ascribe to all living things some kind of will to live.  Evolution is so often described as "trying" to do this or that.  To my knowledge, the only creature with a real will to live is the human, and that will does little to nothing to make us more genetically fit to survive.

Consciousness, wherein our will resides, is perhaps science's greatest mystery.  My background is physics, and I've never seen among any of the fundamental physical laws anything that accounts for consciousness.  For that matter, I've never seen anything within physics that accounts for the existence of its fundamental laws.  Moreso, it's hard to even argue that the laws of physics even exist.  If so, in what sense?  What about the physical constants, like the speed of light?  We can measure what it is, but in what sense does it exist?  Not light, mind you, but the constant that dictates its speed.

Apparently, there are things that can have a reality but have no physical existence.  Like God, perhaps.

Day 14

Sorry for the gap with no posts -- my family was getting our oldest moved into his duplex.  He starts college this week.  Transitions in life are tough -- even the inevitable ones.

Mom seems to be doing well with the chemo.  She's been getting out some to do the things she usually does.

My mind is a tornado of thoughts right now -- too many things swirling way too fast.  There was one moment during the last few days where life slowed down just a bit.  Over the weekend, we stayed with some friends of my wife -- a wonderful elderly couple who live in a beautifully remodeled farm house just south of Auburn.

Saturday night, my three youngest and I took some blankets, laid out on the lawn, and watched the Perseid meteors for an hour.  We saw at least eight of them, some fast, some slow, some that left a glowing trail, some that burned bright white, others a reddish-orange.  All different and each one beautiful in its own way.  If you blink, you can miss one.  Kind of like how it is when our kids grow up -- blink and it seems like you miss it.  Or the times with our parents once we're out on our own.

Day 10

I recently asked myself why I'm doing this blog.  Honestly, I'm not sure.  I suppose I just need to get out what's inside.

My mom is proving herself to be a strong lady.  Gentle, sometimes seemingly fragile, but when times are tough, she always rises to the occasion.

I know that inside she feels she's about to crumble, but that doesn't change my conclusion.  Perhaps this was what was meant by...

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Day 9

Things continue to move very fast.  By this Friday, my mom will have had nine appointments in six business days.  I am very thankful to everyone at Clearview Cancer Institute for being so caring and for addressing the disease so aggressively.

The news yesterday was somewhat discouraging -- the cancer was determined to be "extensive stage," meaning that it was not confined to just the chest.  There was a spot on her liver and several in her bones.

Chemotherapy starts today.  We are still hopeful for a good outcome.  We have seen many patients at CCI defy the odds.

Over my mom's life, she never did anything that brought her recognition.  She never did anything that rocked the world.  But she is a great person by every meaningful standard.  Her occupation is the most honorable of jobs -- mom.  And she does her job as well as any ever has.

She has taught her kids about the important things in life -- love of God, love of man.  Seems I recall a highly regarded Teacher once saying that these are indeed the two most important things in life.  When I say this is what she taught and what she continues to teach, these are not empty words.  It's not like she taught us lots of other things and then sprinkled these in among them.  There are no other lessons, no other distractions.  The message is simple and focused.

Day 6

I'm a little late on yesterday's post -- a busy day like all my Saturdays and Sundays seem to be..  Even so, I still always look forward to my weekends.  Maximum family time.

It seems that it's always about this time of the week that I'm most tired.  At supper, mom also seemed tired.  She's been battling headaches for several weeks.  I guess we'll soon find out if they're a result of the cancer.

I think it's struck me more recently than ever before how the evil that can reside in our hearts and minds can be so much like a cancer.  It steals our time.  It saps our energy.  It damages our relationships.  It's hard to rid ourselves of it, and even when we do, it so often seems to come back.  It seems that when most hear the word "evil," they thing of something out of The Exorcist.  The kind that's so obvious that you can recognize it just looking at it.  The kind that is visibly ugly.  Not all evil is like that.  Often it's beautiful and appealing.  It tells you it's harmless.  But like cancer, it can be hard to tell what's benign and what's malignant until you look closely.

Day 4

Met with the oncologist.  The process is going to be an aggressive one.  One imaging today.  Two more Monday morning, followed by appointments with the oncologist and the radiation specialist Tuesday.  Mom seems to be holding up well, but I imagine the wee hours of the morning are far tougher for her than they have been for me.  It's a strangely lonely time of day.

Day 2

You know how this one starts -- early.  You wake up in the wee hours before dawn, your mind swirling.  The first meeting with the oncologist is Friday, thankfully not too many days away.

Day 1

Her name is mom.  Her occupation is mom.  It is a title she wears proudly.  It is the only job she ever wanted to do, and she is very good at it.

Yesterday she found out she has cancer.