Wednesday night: drove the hour to my parents house, they were thrilled to see me. I went to bed and spent an hour or so fighting off stinkbugs in the room before finally going to sleep. Woke up at 5am and drove 45mins to the hospital, waited and finally saw Dad off into surgery around 8am. It was fine, we met all the people that would be working on him and they seemed nice, doc said he probably would go home that afternoon, I could tell Mom was worried.

We had breakfast at McDonalds. Mom decided not to use the wheelchair but to walk in and I help her as she explains to me that every time she puts any weight on her left hip she is in excruciating pain, that’s the hip that broke when she first found out about the myeloma.  We ate, scrapped the planned shopping because we had to drive back home and get her medications that she forgot to take in the morning. So we got home around 9:15 and I started cleaning while she worked on her puzzle.

I pick up a cardboard box from in front of her chair, filled with papers, she says, that’s my “box of filing” - I start to look through it, it’s bills, current and past due, unpaid, mixed in with reciepts and junk mail. I sort out all the bills she needs to pay and put them on her table and tell her i’m really worried that their bills aren’t getting paid. She assures me that they are, but i’m not sure.

We leave just before 11 to go back to the hospital because she wants to sit with my dad when he’s done. We get there, wait awhile then go up and see him in a room, he’s a lot more sore and uncomfortable than he thought he would be, but otherwise ok and we just sit and talk. They’re running liquid through him as much as they can and the urine/water coming out of his catheter is bright red. He can’t go home until it’s the right color.

At 3:30 my mom has asked every nurse, tech and candy striper that comes by when he’ll be able to go home, even though we told her only the doctor knows and we won’t see him until he’s done with surgery for the day. After the tech tells her, again, that she doesn’t know when he’ll go home she finally puts her head in her hands and starts sobbing and saying she’s sorry, she just can’t take it anymore.  The tech is a little freaked out but my dad assures her that everything is ok, so she leaves.  I can tell my mom feels bad that she’s not “strong” enough to just sit and wait with him and give him like moral support when he’s in the hospital. But I think he understands, she will always be the one who needs support, even when he’s vulnerable, she’s more vulnerable. We told her it was fine for me to just take her home and then i’d come back and pick up my dad when it’s time. On the way out i’m trying to make her feel better, “well, sitting in that hard chair for 4 hours is tough…” and she says the chair was comfortable, she just couldn’t sit there anymore, she was so tired.  I don’t really get what was bothering her, she didn’t sleep when we got home, she begged me to let her smoke in the car and when we got home she make an old fashioned, maybe two and smoked some more while she did her puzzle and I cleaned some more.  At 6 my dad was ready to come home so he asks me to make sure she has everything she needs right next to her so she won’t try to get up and walk around, apparently she’s fallen twice in the past week. She decided to go to bed, so I help her get her shirt off and jammies on and put her water, book, phone next to the bed. I call my dad to let him know i’m on my way and i’m thinking “I can’t believe I just put my mom to bed”.

I pick up my dad and everything goes smooth, he reminds me daily how strong his side of the family is, and how laid back and positive in the face of adversity. He is glad to have me there though, he’s more uncomfortable than he thought he would be. We go home and I stay the night Thursday too. My boyfriend is my savior, he graciously offers to take my son to scout meeting that night so I can help my parents.  I have gotten nothing of my school work or work work done since wednesday and have little hope of doing any friday either. I do all I can to make sure they won’t have to do much after I leave, then i come home around lunchtime on friday, go shopping, pack up for camping trip and take the boy to camp friday evening where we stay until sunday morning. Luckily boyfriend came to the rescue again and relieved me at camp saturday daytime so i could come home for a few hours and get some work done. It was a nice weekend to camp, I can’t complain.

But overall, stressful week. Now hoping upon hope that nothing really bad ever happens to my Dad, wondering if maybe one day I can convince them to move into a small house and have huge yard sale.