Adult Time

Blogging will likely be unpredictable for a while. I'm back in Michigan looking after my mother as she faces another medical bullet.

For the last couple of weeks, she has mentioned that there has been some debilitation and weakness on her left side. Foot and hand aren't doing what she thinks her brain is telling them to do. She's fallen a few times but has managed to avoid any serious injury. Because she lives alone, I was very concerned about these falls. Stairs are all over her house and 75 year-old women don't tolerate falling down the stairs very well. But she hasn't been able to play her beloved piano either, which is something that pains her far more than any crash to the floor.

So Thursday she went to the hospital for a CAT scan of the head and an MRI of the spine. Once the tests were complete she was to check herself into the hospital. Everyone was thinking stroke, and because strokes have a small window of time before damage becomes hard to reverse, her doctor thought physical therapy should be started and the hospital was the logical place to start. But things don't always go as planned.

A brain tumor seems to be causing the problems.

Is it malignant? We've been told it is. Is it operable? Probably but another MRI tomorrow will provide additional data. Surgery, if there is to be any, will likely take place sometime next week.

So here I am in Michigan lending support, feeding the dog, and wondering what life will be like in a week, a month, a year.

I think most people - no matter what their age - aren't consciously aware they are adults. We're just "grown-ups". A soon-to-be 50 year-old man believes he could still be part of college campus life just like his 18 year-old son, that 20-something women he finds attractive don't really think of him as old, and that he can rock on with the best of them even if he does think great night life is being in bed by 11.

But there are those times when we get to be adults. We stop short and are foced to put away childish ways. Some of the adult times are good: first house, new life, proud parent. But we must face illness, heartache, and mortality. If we're lucky we don't have to be adults until we're grown-ups.

I imagine I'll be in Michigan for a week or so. But there are a lot of unknowns.

I'll keep you posted.
K-