cancer for the cure

when she was just a little girl my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. mind you, it was the early fifties at the time and medicine was nowhere near as advanced as it is now. but she had the tumor removed, lived a regular life and went on to meet and marry my dad.

then i came along and a couple years after my birth another tumor popped back up. once again it was in her brain and once again she pulled thru like a champ. i was too young then to understand what was going on but i knew that my mommy went away for a visit to the hospital. one of the earliest memories of my mom was seeing her plugged into a handful of machines reading her vital signs off. i knew she wasn't in great shape but my mind couldn't process that the doctors were making her better. all i knew is i wanted my mom to make me a grilled cheese and that i hated hospitals.

now if i'm not mistaken the doctors installed a shunt during the second surgery to drain excess fluid off her brain. lately the area around my mom's shunt has become infected and the doctor put her on some drugs that should have taken care of the infection. over the past week things haven't been looking better so our family doctor had her run to the hospital this evening for a quick scan.

i guess the infection was a lot worse than originally diagnosed because as of about eight tonight my mom was admitted into the hospital. they plan on doing surgery to purge the infection and change out her shunt. in fact she's under the knife as we speak. my dad is at the hospital and waiting to get word back from the doctor and i'm sitting here listening to my fans blow air thru the room and my fingers pound against the keyboard. my vision is blurry because ever since my dad got a hold of me i can't hold in the tears that come with being scared shitless that i might never get to see the woman who raised me again. that i might never get to tell her how much i love her and how much i appreciate everything she's done to make me who i am today.

of course the doctor says it's nothing to be too worried about but until i see her again that's all i can do. and after seeing some friends lose their parents as of late please feel free to take my pesimistic streak with a grain of salt. *shrug* so much for getting some rest before heading back to work after my run out to vegas this last weekend.

i love you mom, please get better.