Dear heart,
Have gradually shifted from teaching English to being my mum's carer. As her health, energy and mental function wane, the kind of support and care she needs is continually evolving, transforming. The one constant - her concern for me, she's a worrier first, warrior mum second:)
My HCL leukaemia is well in remission!
Have continued to get annual check-ups, but foregoing the routine abdominal ultrasound. It's been a tough year with my mum, plus dealing with a new inguinal hernia (having had 2 previous surgical repairs) and a seemingly permanent neck spasm/numb arm. But all the heaviness just melted away a few weeks ago. Finally went in for an ultrasound as I also wanted to confirm the hernia. My previous one (in 2013) had shown my spleen within normal limits, but a bit large. Imagining the worst, that it was probably larger, turns out it's actually a bit smaller now. I know there's a lot more to this leukaemia lark than Hgb (18.6 last month) and spleen size, but still... worthy of celebration, i'd say. With a margin for human error i'll settle for a spleen the same size as 6.5 years ago, YAY!
Things may be shifting with our living situation, location too. I (still) yearn to be in a village where everyone speaks Quechua, my mum yearns for Wales. Seven years of clashing dreams.
So hard to watch, and experience collaterally, faculties eroding. The inevitability of it, and the understandable angst and frustration. Like watching someone fall over a precipice, into the void, in suuuuper slow motion. Without ever really planning it, having gone through cancer and chemo, and thus becoming familiar with the void, feel i should be better at supporting my mother. At understanding her terror and helplessness, at knowing what she needs, but between intention and effective action there remains a gap. A world full of gaps.
As ancestors accumulate wisdom, weaving tapestries generation through generation, of lessons learned, lessons forgotten. Patterns that can be faintly discerned at close proximity, but our eyes, our vision limited by a narrow view. To slide forward and back through time and space, on an axis, outside of our physical plane. Isn’t that what being here and now really means?
But I digress:)
As i sense my mamachay’s life force waning, can almost see it being displaced by immeasurable fears, takes so much energy to bring her back into the light, and ultimately futile.
