Tag: cancer

Vague News is No News

the Tall Girl # # #

Grandma got the results of her CT scan a few days ago. Basically, it just confirmed what the X-ray already showed: that she’s got a 3-inch mass in the center of one of her lungs. Foolishly, I thought the reason they were doing a second test was to give us new information. Guess not.

Apparently, we won’t know anything more unless Grandma agrees to do a biopsy. Originally, when the doctor asked her if she would consider that, she said no. She seemed a little more willing to consider it after the CT scan, but now she doesn’t even want to go to the lung doctor for an office visit. So a biopsy is probably not going to happen.

I don’t think we need a biopsy to tell us it’s cancer. She’s a lifetime smoker and has a huge lump of something in her lungs; we know it’s cancer. But as my dad said, there are different types of cancer, and some are more aggressive than others. So the biopsy would at least give us better information about what to expect and how soon to expect it.

Right now she’s about the same as she has been for the past few years: easily tired, with shortness of breath if she walks around for more than a couple of minutes. Her doctor said she’s going to get very, very sick and that lung will probably collapse, but we have no idea when to expect things to go all to hell. Will it be next week? Next month? Sooner seems more likely than later, but we just don’t know.

The lack of information is maddening. It’s like being in hurricane season in that respect — you know things are going to get ugly one of these days, but you don’t know when, so that anxiety just hovers in the back of your mind, wearing you down without accomplishing anything.

And that’s another thing I worry about: we are in hurricane season, and coming up on the time when our area is most likely to be threatened. My parents and I are the ones responsible for Grandma most of the time, particularly when a hurricane heads this way. What’s it going to be like if we have to evacuate her? Will she even be well enough to evacuate? What if she’s in a hospice or nursing facility and doesn’t want to be separated from us?

I know we need to plan ahead, but every time I try, it just keeps coming back to the same issue: we don’t have enough information. We only know enough to worry.

Sadness

the Tall Girl # #

No one, not even the doctor, has mentioned the actual word “cancer” to Grandma. He spoke to Mom privately about the ugly truth and only referenced it rather vaguely to Grandma, asking her if she would consider radiation treatment if it turned out that the “spot” on her lungs turned out to be “something worse than pneumonia.” We’ve been debating how much to tell her, because nothing they do will cure it — the mass is way too big to remove and, while radiation will theoretically stop it from growing more, I think that’s all it can do at this point. Mom doesn’t want to upset her with the hard facts and ruin what time she has left — particularly since she’s said before how afraid she is of dying. Sadly, though, she seems to be figuring out that what she has is very, very bad. And there’s nothing we can do to make it better.

It’s funny how all the rational arguments — she’s 92 and she’s had a full life and she can’t live forever, and she smoked all her life so it was inevitable — just seem meaningless when you’ve got to live with the reality of the situation: that she’s a sad, frightened, child-like old woman who doesn’t want to die.

I guess there are no easy comforts when you have to face the end of a life.

When it rains…

the Tall Girl # # # #

I feel like I’ve been really absent from my social network lately. I’m sure part of that feeling is because I’ve barely attended choir in the past month (which feels more like a year at this point). But even with my online outlets, I realize that I’ve been very quiet and reactive — mainly responding when people prod me or replying to others’ posts. Unfortunately, this behavior is part of who I am: when I’m stressed or having a bad time, I turn into a turtle, pull in, and get quiet. But I figured it was time to at least offer some explanation for my retreat into Full Turtle Mode.

First, I’m having a health issue — and those of you who were around for my first bout with this problem will remember just how far into Full Turtle Mode I can get. I inherited a tendency towards depression and anxiety (because why stop at one debilitating condition?) and both have reared their ugly heads again. I’d foolishly hoped that medicine would keep those problems at bay forever, but reality said no. I’m on a new medicine now, but still not back to normal yet. So I’m working as little as possible and spending too much time watching TV and playing computer games. (Here’s hoping the bad habits don’t stay with me.)
And the other problem is my grandmother. She had a chest x-ray done earlier this week and the doctor is 99% certain that she has lung cancer. And she doesn’t want treatment for it. And the doctor said she’s going to get very sick and will lose function on that side of her lungs. I’ve never expected my grandmother to live forever, but I always expected her to die in her sleep. I can still remember seeing Dad’s mom the day before she died, and it wasn’t pretty. She was in pain and unconscious and repeatedly stopped breathing, and then would gasp in huge breaths. It was awful. And I keep thinking that Grandma is facing something very similar by refusing treatment. Unfortunately, by the time she really starts to suffer, it’s going to be too late to do anything.
I do believe things happen for a reason. And they say that God won’t give you more than you can handle. I just hope He knows what He’s doing this time.