Standing upon the earth of the past, remembering things I never knew. I have heard many wonderful things about you two. How I wish I could have known the both of you. Gil, you had gone before I arrived and although we never met I feel a special connection to you. I had a dream about you a couple years ago. I had only seen you in pictures and only knew of your character from the things mom said, but I am pretty sure what I had dreamt was an accurate portrayal of you. Grandma, I am glad that you had the chance to hold me and spoil me. Damn my two year old brain for not being able to store you in the memory bank.
My dear aunt Dorthy and Uncle Cliff. I do have memories of you, thank goodness. My go to memory of Dorthy is her smile, slightly crooked but infectious. I cannot help but smile myself thinking about you. I am blessed that my memory of you is jovial and fun loving. There is another strong memory I have of you, that is the smell of your house. I am not quite sure what my sniffer’s memory is telling me, but I like it. Uncle Cliff, my memory of you is that of a great big man. I don’t mean fat. I mean big. I have no idea how tall you were and maybe it was the cane that skewed my sense of size or the peculiar walk of a hip replacement. I also have a very distinct memory of your voice, a grumbly sort of voice that didn’t sound menacing or mean to a kid like me, but was different.
Mom and I took a trip today to Rose Hills Cemetery to visit my grandparents, aunt and uncle’s grave sites. We had a bit of trouble finding the graves, partly because of some inaccurate directions and also because the headstones where covered with pine needles. Mom and I took the directions we were given and each went different directions. We both kept thinking that we knew my grandparents graves were the first row from the street so we shouldn’t be having this much trouble finding them. Finally I found Gil and Julia’s and called mom over. I cleared away the markers so that mom could see them better and then I set out to find Dorthy and Cliff’s, which didn’t take too long as we knew they were just a couple rows back. I uncovered those as well and then let mom have a few moments by herself to reflect.
We didn’t stay more than a couple of minutes, which was just fine for mom. The point of the trip was for mom to see them with her own eyes one last time. We then talked a bit about them one the drive back out of the cemetery. The look on mom’s face was that of contentment. She accomplished what she set out to do and was happy she decided to make that trip. I was glad that the traffic was not bad at all, as that made the trip that much more enjoyable.
While we were there I took a picture that I later realized was pretty interesting. I love the way the light seems to shine directly on mom, as though her parents and sister were there as well to say thanks for stopping by. Maybe I am just reading into it, but the shine on her head and her feet almost looks like a flash from the camera, only the camera did not have flash on and was coming from a different angle. Anyway, it was a real special trip and I am so glad that we made that trip.
After we left Whittier, we headed to Irvine to meet up with the financial planner at Morgan Stanley to turn in the paperwork needed to create mom’s accounts and move dad’s assets into them. There were a couple questions we need the help of a tax adviser to answer and then we will be done with that part of the aftermath. It’s funny, for all the agonizing mom had about how many copies of the death certificate we needed to get, so far we have only had one leave our possession. Everything else so far has been handled by a person making a copy and giving the original back to us. With only a couple more uses for them left, she is now wishing she had known and ordered fewer copies. Those dang little pieces of paper cost an awful lot each.
I have not posted anything for a couple days now. That is primarily because I was too tired from working this weekend. Occasionally I will get called to work at the fairgrounds, directing traffic. When I say I park cars, people get the impression that I am like a valet, which I am not. So I will say I direct traffic which is sort of true, in that I direct cars into parking spots. It is boring work, especially when it is slow and requires that you stand for pretty much the entire shift, which is normally 10 hours, but this past weekend was only 6.5 hours each day. My assignment this past weekend was not actually for the fairground, but was a contract with the fairgrounds parking department for parking services from the golf park across the street from the fairgrounds. The golf park was having a parking lot tent sale on golf equipment and had expected a big turnout, unfortunately it didn’t go as planned so I stood in the dirt lot kicking rocks around most of the time. Saturday wasn’t too bad, I parked around 100 cars. Sunday, however, was pretty awful as I only parked 40 cars which when you average it out of the 6.5 hours is about one car every 10 minutes. The problem was that I’d say 30 of those cars came in the first couple hours so for the last three hours I didn’t see a new car come in. I just waited around for the few cars in the lot to leave. The picture to the left shows the dirt lot I was parking cars in.
Monday was an important day for mom. It was the day of her appointment with the oncologist to discuss how things are progressing and if she will be getting more treatments. As you can see by the clock on the wall to the right, the time of the picture was 12:20 pm. The appointment was for 11:45 am and mom had been worrying all weekend about this appointment. She was working herself into a frenzy sitting there waiting and waiting for the oncologist to come in the room. He finally made it in almost an hour after the appointment was scheduled and apologized profusely for making us wait. He is such a nice guy that it’s almost impossible to be mad at him, so he was quickly forgiven, but only if he had good news. Which he did. Sort of. He had good news in that he is very pleased with how things were going with mom’s treatment. He said there was marked improvement in the tumor reduction both on the scans done and by manual palpation. He then asked a series of questions to see how mom was feeling about her place in the disease right now. Mom explained that she has been working very hard to remain positive and active. That despite her weight loss, she had a good appetite and had been eating a lot. She was surprised that she had lost another 2 pounds, putting her weight currently at 111 pounds. She figured with all that she has been eating she would have gained weight, not lost it.
She asked what the bad news was and the doctor explained that it wasn’t really bad news, but that there are some numbers in her blood work that were puzzling. That the questions he had been asking her moments ago were to try to help answer why the numbers were off. The bottom line is that her Alkaline Phosphatase, which should be less than 140 for a healthy her, had jumped from 300 to 900. Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP) is an enzyme made primarily by the liver and bones, but also made by the intestines, kidneys and the placenta of pregnant women. It is responsible for removing phosphates from cells in our body. An elevated ALP is usually indicative of liver or bone problems as the enzyme is primarily found in those parts of our body, however many other factors including medications can alter the amount of ALP in our blood. In mom’s case, after hearing answer to questions and looking over her charts, the doctor felt the elevated ALP was symptomatic of tumor necrosis. In laymen’s terms, a by product of her liver tumors dying. If that is the case, then that is absolutely a good thing. He is going to monitor that and associated numbers to see how they respond to further treatment.
Sorry for the long winded explanation. The cliff note: things are looking good for mom and she is going to continue treatments.
I could not be happier for her and she is simply over the moon with this news. I wonder if they have many patients who are looking forward to hearing they get to have more treatments. In mom’s case, she can’t wait to kill off some more cancer cells! The good news keeps on coming as well… tomorrow we get to go back to the gym. The brand new gym. I will be glad to get back in they gym and work off some stress. Someday, hopefully sooner than later, I will look at a picture of myself and not think, “Man am I huge.” I want to look good in pictures again. Of course I never thought I looked good in pictures, but compared to now, my younger pictures were pretty darn good looking.
Well, I think that sums up the day. We shall see what fun stuff tomorrow brings!