Whew!

The past couple of weeks have been a roller coaster.  Full of ups and downs.  Some bad, but others good.  Quite the learning experience.  I've realized that a lot of my thinking has been skewed all these years.  My "belief window" has totally been fogged over.  I may not get everything out in this post, but I'll at least give you the gist of the past several days.

On March 19, my mother had a liver biopsy.  (Quick reminder: the woman I refer to as my mother is actually my aunt.  She's my birth mother's oldest sister and took me to raise when I was two.)  Mama had been having issues with itching under her skin for about a month and the doctors had been unable to find a cause.  So the biopsy.  She came through the procedure fine and was sent home--where she went into shock.  An ambulance was called, she was taken to the ER.  X rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, etc.  Sunday the 21st, the doctor tells us that my mother has pancreatic cancer and it may have spread to her liver.  If she chooses not to have treatment, the doctors give her 6 months--9 to 12 if she has treatment.  Being 92 years old, she says she's not going to go through all that medication and resulting side effects.  I don't blame her.

Late Monday evening, doc comes back in and basically says "oops, never mind".  It's not cancer at all, but some sort of stone and jaundice.  We had Mama's name on several prayer rolls and countless people praying for her.  Was this the miracle we were praying for?  Or ineptness on the part of the hospital?  I was choosing the latter until a dear friend reminded me of all the prayers going up.  Now I choose to believe that Heavenly Father blessed us with the miracle we were hoping for.

After several days and more procedures, it was determined that my mother had gall stones--even though her gall bladder had been removed ten years ago.  Be aware--even if you don't have a gall bladder, you still have the bile ducts and they still produce bile; therefore, you can still have gall stones.  Since they can't settle in the gall bladder, they attach to other places.  My mother's had formed a mass on her pancreas and thus looked like cancer on the tests.  After a scope to remove the stones, she was finally able to go home last Wednesday.  And while her recovery may be slow, at least it's not cancer.

Okay, when we were told she only had a few months to live, I called my birth mother and invited her to come down to pretty much say goodbye.  Out of the seven children, there's only three still alive: my mother, my birth mother, and another aunt who has Alzheimer's and doesn't know us anymore.  So my birth mother and oldest half sister came and stayed with us from Thursday to Sunday.  I haven't seen Ann (my birth mother) in almost four years (the time before that was 1994 and the time before that was 1972).  I hadn't seen Connie (my half sister) since 1968 or so.  I think we were all nervous at first.  I'd never had them in my home.  It was a good healing visit.  More about that in a future post.

On Saturday the 27th, Darrell drove to Georgia to meet our daughter and pick up her children.  They were on Spring Break last week and  stayed with us.  My birth mother got to meet three of my grandchildren.  It was quite an experience.  I had the best time with Melody, Elias, and Alexander last week.  They are such sweet kids--everybody says so, not just me!

I wish for so much more for them than they have right now.  I lay awake at night worrying about them and pleading with the Lord to take care of them.  Their emotional and physical well being weigh heavily on my heart and mind.  I try to remember the Serenity Prayer, but it doesn't always help.

Well, this has gone on long enough and I need to get busy.  More later.