Anna Phylaxis

On Sunday, my sister and I were chatting via text about some things that Mom was saying when she and my aunt were visiting her. Mom was talking about wanting to go home and, if you follow any end of life counselor, they say that wanting to go home is an indicator that they’re ready to go. My sister and I didn’t want to believe that because there have been many energetic conversations. Don’t get me wrong, I know that they can look that way. It’s part of the dying process. I woke up Monday morning feeling weird. My sister woke up Monday morning, practically paralyzed. She was so exhausted she couldn’t move. She called out of work and she texted me and I told her about my weird feelings. Later on that evening, I tried to call mom and she wasn’t available. She was probably sleeping because they had her on her full dose of morphine. I sent her a text to let her know that I loved her and wished her good night. As always, I sent several purple hearts to her. Purple is her favorite color. The next morning I woke up and got through my workday, but I still felt very strange. Usually when I feel some intense sadness or like I have absorbed way too many feelings from other people, all I have to do is turn on the news to find out that it was another school shooting. No joke, this has happened to me several times in the last year and I don’t like it. I called her as soon as I clocked out and got into my car. I was on my way to my daughter’s apartment because she needed to go to the store. Mom and I shared a couple of laughs during the conversation. She really did sound more tired than usual, though. I chalked it up to the morphine. My daughter got into the car and immediately started talking to her grandmother and asking her how she’s doing and all that stuff. As we rolled up to the grocery store, I told mom that I should probably let her go , because it would be a hard conversation in the grocery store because it’s noisy in there. She asked me to take her in because she hadn’t been in a grocery store for so long. She wanted to hear the sounds. Of course, I obliged. At some point in the grocery store, I told her I needed to get off the phone. She told us to have a good life. I asked her to repeat herself because that was such a strange thing for her to say. She repeated the exact same thing so I knew she meant it. I told her I loved her and that she was beautiful and that I was going to talk to her on the following day, which was my daughter’s 29th birthday. That felt weird. I texted my sister to let her know about the conversation and I talked to my daughter about her grandmother. I asked her what she would do if her grandmother died on her birthday. Would she want to know? She had plans so I just wanted to make sure that we were on the right page together. After I got home, I wrote a Facebook post. It was basically talking about how one of the end of life coaches that I follow said that sometimes, the loved one is waiting for permission or the blessing of a certain loved one. I had thought that I had blocked my mother from it, but I was wrong. The only sad face on that status was my mothers. And part of me feels like I fucked up. I know I didn’t fuck up, but I feel like I did. But my sister had already given her permission and I had not done that. so I’m thinking that maybe when she read it, she viewed it as finally you know I’ve got her blessing. I went to bed on Tuesday night, but I didn’t sleep. I basically laid in my room all night. Just nothing going through my head. I’ve just laid there. At 7 AM on the 31st, I clocked in. I was gung ho and trying to bang out some deals when my sister called me a little after 8 AM. She said the hospice called her and she was on her way there and would call me as soon as she knew it. What exactly was going on. that I could no longer function. Everything went numb. I was going to hang on the phone for I didn’t care how many hours if that’s what I needed to do to help mom cross over to wherever she was going. At 8:30 or so, my sister called back and all I heard were big, loud sobs. “She’s gone! She died before I could even get here!“ And everything just started to echo. It was like I was in a hole and I couldn’t hear anything straight and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I mean, I could because she was terminally ill. We knew it was going to happen eventually. But I’m going home next weekend and it was mainly to spend more time with her. And now it will be to mainly spend time with my sister. I will also see my aunt who really swore up and down she should’ve been the first to go. And now in her family of four she’s the last one standing. The nurses told my sister a couple of things that were just kind of surprising. When they checked on her in the morning, my mother looked at them and said “I’m done.” And they knew exactly what that meant. They called my sister. and they prepared Mom for a peaceful passage. One of the nurses told my sister that they had a conversation and Mom didn’t want to put either of us through this. We all watched my father die, and it was traumatizing. Mom didn’t want that for us. This is all incredibly surreal. I spent practically my entire day on the 31st floating around in my pool and crying. Just crying. I’m pretty damn sure that she was in my house on Wednesday night because one of my dogs absolutely refused to walk through my living room. I always have the bedroom door open and then I take them out one more time but she would not come through and go upstairs. She kept looking at the ceiling. So I looked at the ceiling. I didn’t see anything. No bug, nothing.. And I do think it was my mother. But I had to tell Barb that she wasn’t going to get hurt and that it was OK. she can haunt this house as often and for as long as she wants. But she hast to go haunt my sister too because it’s only fair. 💜

I did get to see her. We arrived on July 3 and left to come back here on July 7. My mother was a tall and statue woman, when she was younger. She still held herself up as a tall person, even after my father passed away. Little by little, she had begun to deteriorate. She had to have two knee replacements, the arches of her feet had fallen, she needed to use a cane, and then a walker. fast forward to just a couple of months ago. She fell in her apartment and wound up, going to the emergency room. They did x-rays and found shadows. That was followed by a biopsy, which confirmed that she had cancer. She wound up going into a nursing home. My first job ever was in a nursing home and I was really un-fucking happy that she was in a nursing home. Luckily, she wasn’t going to end up staying there for long. The treatment of her dramatically differed once she was moved from the second to the first floor. My sister was telling me things and I didn’t like it. That’s about the time when they found out that she was terminal and that they were cancerous cells all over her body. She has two large tumors. One is in her rib cage, which is destroying her rib cage. she also has one in her neck, and there’s no place to go but up with that one. Seeing her looks so small, fragile, and whiter than ever was hard. We hung for a couple of hours before going to grab dinner. She looked absolutely terrified when we were leaving. We assured her that we will be back the morning of the fourth, before we went to my cousin’s for a barbecue. She definitely seemed better than. We spent the majority of Friday going through her stuff and figuring out was what was trash, what was good to donate, and what we were going to hang onto for the open house on the following day. We found a ridiculous amount of pairs of scissors, a ridiculous amount of reading glasses, and for some bizarre reason, at least five or six copies of Shania Twain’s “hit album,” “Come On Over.” Not gonna lie, we laughed our asses off over that. Saturday was spent doing the open house. Not enough stuff was taken, but my sister had already set up with a company to come pick up the stuff to either donate to people or take to the dump. I bought her what is most likely her very last crabcake because I don’t know anyone else that is going to pay almost 30 bucks for a single crabcake with no sides. We also bought my sister one. I can’t have them anymore because I’m now allergic to iodine. That blows. She had a very hard time understanding that my one cousin and her husband (who we don’t speak to you anymore because we don’t speak to anyone on my father side of the family and haven’t for 16 years) was not at my cousin’s barbecue. My cousins all my mothers I don’t even know them. But she kept insisting that she was coming to the barbecue. I eventually just let it slide. She also kept calling me by my sister‘s name. I didn’t correct her. I didn’t want her to feel bad that she was losing more of her faculties. My sister has always had black hair. I have never stayed one color for any real length of time. But again, I wasn’t going to pick on her about that. Sunday was the hardest. We went to see her early, as we were on our way back to Detroit. I have never seen her in that much pain. She was literally riding in pain. Her neck was killing her and so was her bladder. She hit the button for the nurse, but I insisted on hovering over the nurses station to get somebody in there. She had to wait a little bit for her pain relief because she had only had it 3 1/2 hours prior. My mother then told us to leave. We didn’t, right away. I wasn’t sure if I should. That’s how bad this was. She told us to go again, and so we all gave her kisses and left. I barely made it out of her room when I started crying. My son started crying. It was a fucking awful feeling. We just stood outside of the hospice hugging each other and crying while Jeff went to get the car. she is sounding better at this point, but nothing has changed as far as her life expectancy. She thinks that she’s going to vote this year. I don’t think she’s going to make it for that. My sister doesn’t, either. But that’s the latest, it sucks so much ass, and I really unhappy about it. But I also feel so much better because I saw her and I touched her. Yes, I’m struggling. I am absolutely struggling. We will take the fact that she sounds really good right now as a major win.

Blow drying my hair and crying. I talk to my mom every day. It’s not something that I always did, but life is fucking short. So, I’ve been calling her. My sister feels as though she’s getting weaker. I don’t know if she’s waiting for me to get there or what it is but I don’t want her to hang on just because I’m on my way in about 10 days. Do I want her to hang on? Sure I do. I wanna talk to her face-to-face and tell her how much I love her. But I also don’t want her to suffer. Being far away from home sucks when this kind of thing is happening. anyway, back to drying my hair and crying. Thanks for reading.

This past Monday, I found out that my mother is terminally ill. We thought she only had bone cancer, which radiation would help with. Sadly, that is not the only place she’s got cancer. She’s got cancerous cells everywhere, and can no longer take care of herself. I am going home to Baltimore on July 3 and coming home on the seventh. That is probably the last time I will see my mother alive. I’m devastated. My sister has been there for the whole thing. She’s handling the majority of it, despite the fact that I have offered to make phone calls. She feels like she’s got to do it all. I keep offering my help, anyway. She is going into her apartment this weekend to get rid of expired food and anything else that would be considered garbage. On the fifth and the sixth, she, Jeff, and I will be going in there to bag up donations for Goodwill, as well as anything else that needs to be donated. we are also taking what we want. I can’t get past that part. She still alive, but I’m supposed to go take her shit? I’m doing it because of the memories and the meanings behind them, but I hate it. I fucking hate it with a passion. The timing is so weird, too. in 2007, my dad found out he had lung cancer. He also found out that he had emphysema, but didn’t tell us that he was terminal. We didn’t find out that he was terminal until he fell and ruptured his spleen. Two days after I got back to Maryland with my daughter, he died. We watched it happen. And here we are. The same time as 16 years ago. This time it’s my mom. I hope that she’s going to be able to hold on until July 3. I just can’t believe this is happening. It hurts my soul. It hurts my heart. I go through crying jags, mixed with terrible jokes about death because that’s how I deal with it. Between my trip to the hospital last week and this new knowledge, I’m lost. I’m not worried about me. But I’m worried about my mom. I’m worried about my sister. She will be 81 on July 9. That’s the same day that the people who are taking her furniture donations will arrive to take her shit. I’m not ready. I’m just not ready.

It was crazy, for sure. Ascension sucks, though. I had a CT scan and two echocardiogram and nobody talked to me about any of it. It’s a good thing that I have already established an appointment with a Beaumont neurologist for the 24th of this month. I want a second opinion. So I’m keeping that appointment. I have no answers. And I wouldn’t recommend Ascension to anybody. Now I don’t feel bad for wearing my devil T-shirt. OK, I didn’t feel bad to begin with. I just feel less like I should feel bad.

Vegging out in a hospital room because I had some kind of attack or possible stroke this morning on the way to work. Thankfully, my daughter was in the passenger seat as we work together. I was able to get us off the highway, and she called 911. I am shocked at the amount of traffic that was on 696 at about 6:05 AM.

Oh my gosh! I am so sorry that you guys had to go through this. That’s just awful…

That is terrifying. I’m glad that you’re OK!

Sugar

I’m not even joking when I tell you this: I was poor, growing up. I wanted to be know everything. I wanted to know shit about other shit that I didn’t know anything about. One year, my parents bought the World Book Encylopedias. I went through each and every book from front to back, several times. I miss that encyclopedia set. It was literally my most favorite thing. It inspired me to write a book report in the second grade on tornadoes. I’ve been fascinated with tornadoes for the longest time. All natural disasters, really. But World Book was just the shit, for me.

😂

Jeff went there! He showed me around the town once and told me lots of really awesome stories.

Oh shit, I am so late on this! Happy way, way, way, super fucking way belated birthday!

I do a lot of resin work. Whenever I have excess, I make smaller things out of it. I have a whole bunch of Ouija planchettes that I think I’m gonna turn into earrings. Maybe a necklace, as well. I started making a really cool crystal point necklace. I’m really proud of it, even though it’s not really done. It is a blue Angel Aura Quartz point that’s probably about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long.