4.20.11

AYNSLEY:

What a glorious Seattle day! I passed a gorgeous view of Seattle with snow capped mountains and cheery trees in full, fragrant bloom on my morning run. Spring is officially here, and seeing the blossoms and green things is inspiring; knowing that all of these beautiful delicate little life forces fought to break through frozen ground to sprout and flourish. As I was running, I was going through stories I'll tell in the future in my head: the year that Mom was sick, and how she stunned all of the doctors by thriving when they doubted her surviving. The little fantasies that keep me going.

During Mom's dinner tonight, it was just Dad, Ross and me and Mom seemingly out of the blue asked if we wanted to talk about funeral arrangements. Without missing a beat, Ross said, "no." I played the active listener and answered by asking another question: did she want to talk about it. Um, yeah, of course she did. She wouldn't have brought it up if she didn't want to discuss with the four of us there.

Needless to say, it was a weird day. My morning was all about springtime and light in my head and then we come crashing back to reality and what's been worrying Mom.

Mom started her second round of chemo today. As usual, her appetite was awesome beforehand and she ate 3/4 of a ham sandwich. We picked up Chinese food for lunch and she enjoyed that, too. So far, she's feeling fine after chemo and I'm hoping for a good night tonight: it's girl's night again. We're only doing the intrathecal every 3 weeks, which we did today. Next week she'll get Taxol and a IV bone boosting drug. The week after that, no chemo, and we'll do another CT scan. I'm very interested to see the results of that: we haven't had one in almost two months.

Right now my parents are spooning on Mom's hospital bed, watching/listening to American Idol. Seriously, how cute are they? This Friday is their 32nd wedding anniversary.