This Sunday seemed like any other normal Sunday before the 'dreaded event'. The usual family gathering and activities...it all seemed so normal aside from my mom taking the pain medication. It was easy to forget for a while that threat that looms over us.

For me though, the undercurrent of that threat runs through everything, marring the peacefulness and innocence that covered it. My mom though certainly seems 90% back to normal today, other than dealing with the pain in between medication. She had her spirit back and was more active than I've seen her since this started.

She told me the back pain was gone (aka the swollen kidney has apparently de-swelled) but she still had pain in the front of her abdomen...which means either the ureter is affected (maybe during the attempts to put in the stint it got scratched) or the colon has issues. The colonoscopy and meeting up with her doctor again is scheduled for Thursday and my sister gets to go to that one.

I don't want to leave her alone during the week. Monday I have to go to work...but I think I might try to do work from home on Tuesday and then get ready for possibly have to be off Friday depending on how well Thursday goes.

I hate not knowing, but I would rather not know if the news is bad. Denial, right? Pretend nothing is wrong as if it would go away?

Today was a good day after such a terrible morning. Today was my mom's surprise birthday party. She seemed so tired and dispirited lately, especially after that stint in the hospital with the kidney problems.

She was completely shocked to see the entire family, her parents, her brothers and sisters, their families...everyone was here to celebrate. She actually cried. It was wonderful and I felt so good. It was as if a light bulb turned on inside her and she began to be more like the mom I remember, laughing and talking. Joking and moving about. Totally enjoying that the attention was completely directed on her as it should be.

We took a crazy amount of pictures in all fashion imaginable. Grandparents and grandkids. Grandparents and their kids. Each family unit starting from oldest and working their way down. It was lots of fun and just wonderful to see everyone together again.

I hope this is an indication of things to come. Either way, I know I have to keep trying to get my mother's spirits up and high. There is hope and I want to keep it alive and kicking. Even if it is cancer, even if all they can do is chemotherapy...homeopathic remedies can work. Strengthen the immune system. Strengthen spirit. Help the body fight.

oh god, what a night.

It started off innocently enough with the usual adventure dream, but in the middle of pirates invading some Maui evacuation network caves drilled into a mountain and filled with the latest security tech (dont' ask)...thoughts of my mother came back and woke me up leaving me unable to return to sleep.

After a lengthy phone conversation I feel asleep again only to have a more benign dream of which I don't remember much other than it involved driving a convertible. But then I began to dream of my family in a house, talking about how to fix it. We were all so happy and together. I saw my mom put on a birthday present and then I slowly began to wake up.

Emotion pure and simple. How much I truly love my mom and how desparately I do not want her to die. I don't know how long I silently wailed to myself, to the world, to god...but it was powerful, pure, and heartwrenching. The tears and the stifled sobbing that I didn't want my sister to hear, and yet wondered if she did also by herself in her room at night...

I know we all die and I know that someday I will have to face my parents dying off, but not now. I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

Well, my day with my mom at the hospital was as bad as I thought. We were only there for half the day since she got discharged at noon. It was eerie sitting in the room with the silly Nicolodeon cartoon playing about some dancing penquins singing "hugs! hugs! hugs!"

Surreal as if this were all a bad dramatic movie with the hint of comedy of singing animals. And sometimes I wish it was so i could change the channel to something more upbeat.

It was strange to see her pushing the IV cart around as she did her walking with my long grey cashmere robe around her, shuffling until all I could see was the IV top over the nurses counters, and then back again shuffling along with that funny embarrassed smile of "yeah I know i look funny" on her face. When they brought the birthday cake...that was tough not to want to cry. I couldn't really finish singing with the thought that this might be the last birthday.

My own health isn't doing so good with the stress. I've never been able to handle emotional stress so well and this has got to be the biggest one of all. But not like you're given a choice.

I did have one moment today of real peace and relaxation after my mom and I got home. We were sleeping and I felt finally that inner calm. That lasted until the doorbell rang and I had to drag myself out of bed to entertain them. Concerned family, yes, but I was so tired and so needing that peaceful moment.

Too bad I can't tell all this cancer worry about my mother to go away. Leave me alone. And don't ever come back.

Well, this has been quite a long day! We got there around 1pm and finally left around 9pm. My dad's frantic worrying which freaked me out to get me all worrying didn't quite come to pass. Though we haven't gotten a get out of jail free card, we got a delay one.

Turns out they don't know exactly what it is that's blocking my mom's ureters. Could be cancer, could be fibroids, or radiation scarring...thought its location is suggestive of cancer being as its near that part of the colon that they were afraid of being affected. We'll know more after more tests...more more tests. I feel like I got temporary reprieve from not having to face any truths and a rather jolt of hope that perhaps it couldn't be cancer.

Though a part of me knows its very likely is cancer, the rest will hope that's its something else entirely. As long as they don't know for certain, we can live in that fantasy, right? And why can't we be within that percentage, no matter how small, that makes it through this?

More hope today, but more fears tomorrow when I go see my mom and spend the day with her while she's draining the fluids from her kidneys. Lots of peeing and they need to keep her overnight just to make sure she stays hydrated.

Its tough being in the ward and watching all the other cancer patients who are worst off. You keep thinking...will that be me there? Standing around like their loved ones with those grim faces?

Its 6:48 A.M. on Thursday and I'm plagued by worries and terrible thoughts. The worst news that I could hear keeps playing over in my mind and I'm even afraid to utter them aloud here. I know that I should be positive, that I shouldn't worry yet until they actually tell us the news, but I can't help myself.

My heart hurts, but its the stomach that bears the brunt of the pain, twisting into knots and burning with worry. What if? What if? I understand how vulnerable families are at these moments and yet mine is not yet reached! Am I worrying myself needlessly? Maybe my mother will be part of that percentage that survive this? And numbers...what do they mean?

I meet up with my parents at noon and we go to MD Anderson. First the cancer doc and then the kidney doc and perhaps tests after tests. My father is sure we won't get out of there until 5 or 6. A long short day certainly.

It's pretty certain that there's something there so mistaking it for something else is a hope I won't entertain (other than in my wildest fantasies). So we hope that something can be done. Anything. Clinical trials. The crazy fate of my mom's immune system kicking in to get rid of those errant cells.

My darkest moments have me entertaining fantasies of everything being ok. That it was all a terrible mistake. Its just an infection and a zap of antibiotics will cure that. Or maybe chemo reacts perfectly and its all better. Anything to think of the other possibility that could happen.

I've tried to eat but my stomach won't let me. Not in the mornings when my worst thoughts appear. Its a little easier than at night because at night I'm too exhausted to think and I sleep immediately.

Maybe I'll run into Phred at MD Anderson. I want to see him, too. Oh yeah? Did I mention that one of my best buddies is back at the "health spa" again? I worry about him too although I know he doesn't want me to. Tough nuggies. I'll have to call him later this morning.

Well here I go to begin my day though I certainly don't want to. It's amazing how insanely fast and how incredibly slow Thursday has come. But its here. And its time to face the truth.

Today was the first day back at work after finding out and it was a disaster of sorts. Yet it comforted me to know that people cared and also to not worry about what to do about work as the family goes through this. Every time I had to explain why I needed a meeting changed, or someone else to cover, or asking about time out...to have to explain why had me bawling all over again. As if the world would end.

And it would if something terrible happened.

I listened to everyone's cancer stories. How they lost their wife, their mother, their brother or sister. How they themselves have cancer. It was as if cancer was all around me and I couldn't escape it. But one story stood out in particular. A friend told me of his brush with his own rare cancer, how when he first found out, the first fifteen minutes were filled with shock and grief, but how he finally came to the realization that it was all in God's hands. And he believed God wanted him to live. And so he lived now past the magical five year mark for "cure" in cancer.

As I sit here though I realize that a diagnosis isn't a death sentance. It should be a challenge and a chance to open your eyes to appreciate what you have and what you need to fight for. I know we need to surround my mom with positive energy that will help her in fighting the cancer, in coping with chemo and in finding a peacefulness that will help her body's immune system cope.

So my new task is to make sure my mother has that same peacefulness, that strong fight to live that will keep her body fighting long past any diagnosis. And to bring that peacefulness to my family who seems so ready to fall into dispair. I too am frightened, but when you begin to see what's really important it helps to diminish that fear.

Its Monday and the countdown to the truth continues...

There's no deep philosophical reason for this blog, only the desperate need to find a way to unleash the emotions that are eating away inside of me. And since I've always been a writer, a blog seemed the best therapy for everything my family is going through.

Now to clarify, its not me who has the cancer, but my mom. And she's someone who's the heart and soul, the very link that holds this family together. I don't know how we'd survive without her there, but I know that she gave us the strength to do so if we were forced to.

Well I suppose even more of a clarification is needed here. She had gastric cancer about three years ago and they took out her stomach and lymph nodes in which they hadn't found anything. So she went through the chemo pretty well considering, not losing her hair or anything particularly devastating. And so the prognosis was remission...and the magical number of "Five Years" was introduced to us. And so it became that long wait...five years and we would be home free...five years and the nagging nightmares would go away.

Its now three years and we're faced with the strong possiblity that it has returned but this time as something even worse. CT scan shows that it might have spread to the mesentary which leaves the only option as chemotherapy with a very very poor prognosis.

But we don't know that until her doctor returns from his vacation on thursday...and thursday is the day of reckoning. The day where we have to face all truths.