Right. Here it is, my birthday today. Very different than last year, but in some ways better.
I woke up sick yesterday, so wound up cancelling my party. Got some much needed rest and fluids.
Today, the day of my actual birthday, my friend Jackie kindly suggested I should leave the house and came to pick me up. She gave me a massage appointment for my birthday, which was fabulous. And then we met our friend Andrew and all went for a drive. They have been so incredibly supportive and so much fun. It really did make my day.
I am making a goal for this next year to write more on this blog and to share my true feelings, not gloss over things when they are really hard. You get to do that with good friends and they don't judge you or criticise you for who you are, as I have just been reminded over the last few days.
So much has happened this last year. The biggest thing is that my mother has been sick almost all year. And while she is doing very well all things considered, she is due in hospital for another major surgery next week.
Just before Christmas last year, she accidentally slipped while moving a potted plant outside. She fell backwards and the pot landed on her ribcage. She went to bed and when my sister got home from her night shift at 4:30 in the morning, heard my mother's laboured breathing. My sister convinced her to go the emergency. Luckily, nothing seemed too broken. For a woman with osteoperosis, that was a miracle. Except, it turns out there probably was at least a hairline fracture and Mum was in so much pain. It was the first time I have ever heard her ask for a pain killer. Getting over that took months. Her muscles would go into spasm. The worst pain happened when she leaned backwards getting into bed.
Just as she was healing from that, she was diagnosed with her third instance of bowel cancer. Because she has had two surgeries before, the first in 2005 and the next in 2009, the surgeon proposed a radical operation - to remove the entire remaining large bowel and to have an ileostomy bag. Mum had been saying this is what she didn't want. But the alternative surgery would have had her in the toilet 15 times a day. She didn't ask for a second opinion or do any research - that is not my mother's style. She trusted her surgeon.
The surgery was April 27th - will have to check that exact date. Mum has been in and out of hospital ever since. And will be back in surgery next week to repair her ureter which was cut during the first surgery.
