Listed!

After many months of therapy (which will continue) and several grueling days of testing, my mom has made the transplant list! I'm so glad, but nervous for her. Now it's just a waiting game.

38!

I have several traditions on my birthday, including taking the day off to:

1. Throw things away.
2. Think too much about the previous year.
3. Blog.

So, here's my blog. And this is what I was thinking (and, yes, I've torn through most of the paper in our house and thrown quite a bit away).

When I was younger, everything was black and white, good or bad. Nothing was grey. Now, nothing is black and white. I thought things would be more grey. But almost nothing is grey, either. More or less everything is in color. Bold reds, mellow golds, deep blues, sometimes in sepia and grainy videos in my head and yes, sometimes even darkest black. Sometimes life is tepid watercolors. Rich with emotion, with feeling. The taste of words and sounds sweet and sour on my tongue, the shape and image of sounds. All of it. I'm both proud of myself and ashamed sometimes. But things are rarely grey.

When you're younger, you wait for time to pass. You have to be X age to do Y. 16 to drive, 18 to vote, 21 to drink. Life will start when you go to college, right? There's so much to do, but only when you get older. You don't realize how much you're doing already. Then you get even older than that (and I'm hardly old) and you want everything to slow down so you can do more. Sometimes you miss being bored. It's amazing.

At this point, I'm in between. Sometimes I want time to just hurry the heck up. Then I want it to slow down.  Time goes too fast watching my babies grow. Time goes too fast trying to fit all the stuff into my life that I want to. Time goes too fast now that I know my mom is so very sick. Then, darn the luck, it always slows down while I wait for vacation to come and speeds right back up when it gets here.

I'm happy to welcome another year. More time. More opportunity. Even if this year sucks to high heaven, even though my life is as cluttered as my house (despite the stuff I chucked), it's mine. 

Gobsmacked

On Tuesday I turn 38. On Wednesday, my daughter will be 4. And Thursday is the one year anniversary of my very good friend Dana's death. 

When I remember that I'm going to be 40 soon, I kind of want to smack myself. It's sneaking up on me like no one's business. How could time pass so quickly? Wasn't I just graduating from college? It's unreal to me that I have children, that I'm a "real" grownup, responsible for someone else's life and happiness.

Then I think of all that's yet to come. So much opportunity and so much to do!

My mom is still alive and kicking - turns out she does have elevated cancer markers, but she doesn't have masses...yet. She's on the transplant list and coming to St. Louis for testing over Thanksgiving weekend. I'd like to get myself into better shape. You never know when she might need a kidney (and I wish I said that facetiously). Plus, it makes running after the kids easier and me more energetic.

Work is ridiculous. I love it and loathe it at the same time. But it's doable now, so I don't think I'll go there.

My kids are wonderful. I lost it with them today (again) - I never realized that there was anything worse than a kid whining. Now I know better. Worse than a kid whining is a kid arguing with another kid they're forced to live with. Luckily we'd all made nice again by bedtime. I'm never proud of myself in those moments. But no matter how much they'll argue, I will always love them like crazy. And will try not to giggle when Evelyn whispers, "Oooh, you're a ninja!" when I'm trying to set her straight. And I'll also try not to melt too outwardly when Rags tells me I'm the best mom ever before he looks at the ground and whispers that kissing is yucky unless it's me or dad.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my birthday. They frequently stink, but I'd found out I'm an optimist, albeit a realistic one. I know I'm not going to get a clean house or dinner on the table without me having to plan it. But I will get a night with my family and a day to myself ('cause I'm taking the day off) and a day with my daughter on her birthday. I'll get hugs and kisses and will hopefully keep my sanity - assuming it was ever there to begin with.

MRI

So, mom has at last finished her treatment and is now considered eligible for the liver transplant list. Honestly, I'm so proud of her. When we first learned that she had cirrhosis, we just knew that her pride prevent her from getting the help she needed and making it through therapy to the transplant list on the other side. But she tossed her pride aside and managed to plow through. She's told me at least five times that the whole experience has been an education and that she knows more about drugs from group therapy than she ever thought she would.

Anyway, her doctor told her that her numbers were fantastic last week. But it turns out that the lab forgot to do a blood test. They did the blood test and it wasn't great. So she's going in for an MRI tomorrow. It's possible that she has developed liver cancer.

I'm trying to keep an open mind. After all, we expected the worst when we first started this crazy journey and she shocked the hell out of us all. Maybe this is just a blip. Or something that will hasten her eligibility for a liver.

If I know nothing else, I do know that we're lucky. I do consider it a gift that, for the first time I can remember, my mom has stayed lucid and so very, very normal. I haven't spent most of my time gently reminding her that we've had the same conversation before or calming her down. I haven't felt compelled to ask her if she's really drinking water. I haven't gone home over a weekend and spent time mentally tallying how many drinks she may have had by finishing half of a Sam's Club-sized bottle of gin in one day.

We are lucky. The kids weren't afraid of her embraces the last time we visited, she didn't pick a fight with my husband. And if this does turn out to be something more sinister than an anomaly, there may be time to fix it, fight it and/or get ready to say goodbye. You can't know what the future holds, I guess. But you can appreciate the good stuff while you've got it.

About that stingray...

Yes, the dratted thing did get infected. And it has taken nearly a month for the bloody thing to completely heal. And if the knob on the side of my foot is any indication, I think the barb broke a bone in my foot. But, hey - I was able to wear regular shoes today for the first time since August.

Stung!

Yes, it's been a while since I last wrote. And yes, I say that every dratted time I write. Consider it a tradition. A hobby I engage in every once in a while, if you will (though I guess if I had cause to say it more often I'd be lying). Anyway, my husband tells me I'm an improbability wrapped in an unlikelihood served up on a weird sandwich. Translated to mean that if an oddball injury is going to happen to someone, it will happen to me. Because that's how I roll.

This time it was getting stung in the foot by a stingray while on vacation with my family. I've had a 33 1/2 hour birth (unmedicated for 28 hours), a five hour birth and shingles. In my eye. The stingray sting hurt more. It was excruciating.

But at least it was me and NOT one of the kids. Small favors and all. What's interesting about stingray lancings is that if you do them "right" and aren't left with a barb broken off in your foot, the pain may go away entirely after you've kept your foot in hot water for three hours. Of course, there's the possibility for infection and necrosis and all that jazz, which must be horrifically delightful.

Anyway, it's one week later and so far so good. Here's to a continuing trend. Of so far so good (no more stingray venom, please).

Karma, you're a stanky skank

Today proves that karma is a biatch. Why, you ask Well... A few months ago, I left a soul-sucking job primarily due to my boss, who was fired shortly after for somewhat related reasons, but mostly because he was a liability and a half. He applied to be on my team at my new job. He didn't make it (thank goodness), but he did get hired by a different team. On the same floor. In the same wing. As me. Damn you, karma.

Exposure

I was thinking the other day of how much personal information I post online. Not personal as in identity theft; personal as in what's going on, family issues, etc. You know, things you probably wouldn't say in person because they're too embarrassing or because talking about them "just isn't done."

I've written posts countless times only to delete them, thinking, "Crap! This isn't something I'd have a hard time sharing with a friend." I expose a lot of myself online for some reason. It's easy. It's anonymous (more or less - if you know me it's not). Even if someone judges me to be a horrible person, I can delete their comments and not think about them. Something that's harder to do if someone dislikes you enough they'll tell you how much they hate you to your face.

In fact, I might well delete this post, whether I publish it or not. The issue is that we're slowly (or not so slowly anymore) losing my mom to alcoholism. A few weeks ago, while I was out of town on business, veins burst in her esophagus because her liver was so hardened blood couldn't circulate properly, making her vomit blood. She went to the hospital and had banding surgery to support the veins and stop the bleeding. She didn't tell us because she was too embarrassed. My sister and I finally got her to agree to let us talk to her doctor after her follow up appointment.

She has end-stage liver disease and needs a liver transplant. If she doesn't have one, she dies. To get one, she has to go to AA and be under the care of a psychiatrist to who will order random urine tests to ensure she's clean for at least six months. The problem is that she doesn't want to go to AA. It's in a part of town she doesn't like, she says. Besides, she's busy! Don't you know she has to get ready for bridge on Tuesday?

Both my sister and I call every day to make sure she answers. Because her doctor said her liver can fail at any time and she'll be gone. She doesn't sound sick, but it doesn't fool us - we've known that this was coming for years. My grandmother died of the same thing.

So how is it that you can grieve for someone as though they're gone even when they're alive and seemingly normal? How can I get my kids ready for this? And how can I force someone to take care of themselves when they deny, deny, deny?

I thought about asking her if she wants to die. She sometimes has moments when she's truthful. But they always say that you shouldn't ask a question if you're not certain you want to know the answer.