Happy Mother's Day

Here's Mommy and Me...
Now:


And then:




Happy Mother's Day to my strong and beautiful mother, who has shown me by example how to overcome life's challenges with grace and good humour.

Easter Weekend Update... A Week Later

Hey, remember how last weekend was Easter weekend? Yeah, I had a fantastic weekend at home with the family. I had planned on sharing pictures with y'all, and even started uploading them last week... but then I fell asleep.

So, here they are, a sampling of my Easter weekend:

Here's Mom and Dad at Easter dinner. Doesn't Mommy look amazing!? Take THAT cancer!

The next day, we went to the Farm (remember? the "farm"?). It was the first time I'd actually been to it other than just viewing it from the road at Christmastime. We got to hike around and I got to play in the creeks/ponds - which I reveled in, of course, being approximately 5 years old on the inside.

This is me being a swamp creature!

This old tubing is left over from a maple sugar operation that was on the property a while back. The tubing was stuck under a bunch of mud in the creek, and Dad had just finished talking about how he tried and tried to get it out of the ground and couldn't. I walked into the creek and pulled it and got it right out... and then proceeded to heckle Dad about getting old. What an awesome daughter I am!

This is me and my littlest sis. Notice my classy classy outfit!

And here I am looking like a model in front of our biggest tree, appraising it for tree-house worthiness.

Overall, Easter weekend was one big awesome WIN, and the "farm" gets my seal of approval!

Same as it Ever Was

Do you ever stop where you are and wonder how the heck you ended up there?
As in, if somebody had told you a few years back that you would be in that scenario, you would have laughed at them?
I felt like that a lot during Mom's fight with cancer. Sitting in the hospital waiting room during surgery, driving Mom to chemo, dealing with Mom's tubes and wires in her hospital room... I looked at my surroundings and was overwhelmed by the fact that I never expected that I would be there in that situation, and I never expected I would be able to deal with it as well as I did.
I guess you don't know what you can handle until you're in that situation.
I find that a lot at work. When I was visiting Mom in the hospital, I was telling the nurse about my job, and Mom said that if you had told her two years ago I would be living in Toronto working with street youth, she never would have believed it. You know... if you had told me two years ago that this is what I'd be doing, I would have laughed in your face.
It happens a lot at work, especially when I am dealing with the mental health and the crises that develop... when a kid got stabbed, when fights break out, when a girl comes in completely naked and I have to spend at least 10 minutes talking her into getting re-dressed, when I have to deal with bed bugs, and disgusting rooms and various bodily fluids, when I get sworn at, and yelled at, when I get told too much information about their sex lives... I find myself pausing and thinking "how did I get here?" At first, it was unnerving, being somewhere so out of my element, now I just laugh it off.
I'm a sheltered girl from a small town. J-walking scares me... I grew up on a gravel road. Whenever we would go to Toronto on family trips, Dad would lock the car doors before we got into city limits, likely afraid that a man with a squeegee would jump inside and mug as at gunpoint or we'd get shot up in the middle of a gang war. That's what happens in big cities, right? I was discussing how I grew up with one of my co-workers after work the other day, and she turned to look at me, and asked "Erin, how did you end up here?" Now, she knows the story of how I ended up here, my botched plans for teacher's college after university, and we went to our Child and Youth Work program together, so she knows about all of that... That's not what she meant. I told her truthfully that some days I don't even know.
Luck? Chance? Divine intervention? I don't know. Was it meant to be, or did I just luck out by ending up somewhere I like? Maybe it was completely random. If one little factor of my life had gone a different way, I could be living somewhere completely different, doing something completely different.
That scares me a little. I don't like the idea that my life is arbitrarily decided by chance... I'd much rather think that I am here because it's where I'm supposed to be. I like the idea that I've been brought somewhere that frequently forces me to deal with difficult situations, but I wouldn't be there if I couldn't handle it.
What about you? Do you ever stop and wonder how you ended up where you are? Has your life taken a clear path to where you are today, or has it been a journey of twists and turns? Is it chance and luck, or is there some sort of plan behind the path your life takes?

Recap

So life has been busy lately, thus I've been MIA from the blogging world. Here's what's new with me:

• Mom's surgery went really well. She had it on Monday and was okay to go home on Thursday! Her nurses were fantastic and everything went really smoothly. I am unbelievably relieved that this is finally over.
• I've been working overnights. I expect it will be a while before I have a normal sleep schedule again. We have been short staffed the past 2 nights, so I have been stationed by myself at the main desk of the shelter, which I love. When there are no new intakes and all of my work is done, I get to chill with a snack, listen to some Dave Matthews, and read or play around on the internet while everyone else sleeps.
  
• I bought the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, it's the book that True Blood is based on. I am almost through it already and I loved it! I went to Chapters tonight and bought the next 3 in the series.
• Maurice the turtle is living at my apartment now! The cat hasn't tried to kill him yet, so all is well! He likes staring at me while I do stuff around the apartment, he's funny! I will introduce you properly soon.
  
• My littlest sister is on a March Break school trip to Spain and Italy right now. The middle sister is still in Australia. I am stuck in Toronto... and slowly going stir crazy.
• BUT, I got a ticket to see the Dave Matthews Band in June! I'm crazy excited, especially because their new CD comes out only days before. However, the crappy part is that I'm going with 2 other friends, and Ticketmaster wouldn't allow us to puchase more than 2 tickets together for inside the pavilion, so I am sitting one section over from my two friends... here's hoping we can sweet talk the people around us to let us all sit together...
  
• I started a Tumblr, because I clearly need to spend more time on the internet. It's Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole, go follow me!
• Oh! How Lovely! Shops is giving away a set of bodhicitta Recycled Glasses, very cool! Go enter!
  

Update

This is Mom and me. I love this photo.

The surgery went without a hitch today, and Mom seems to be doing well. The doctor seemed very optimistic that she could be out by the weekend as long as things are moving well, he wants her up and walking around tomorrow. She was really doped up tonight, which was likely a good thing. Mom grew up with the woman who is the head of pain management for the hospital and went to nursing school with her, so she's being taken care of. I will likely be going up to visit tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday - mostly to give her and Dad a break from each other and to make sure Dad is taking care of himself.

Thanks to all of you for your support and positive thoughts and good wishes, it means so much to me!

Cancer-schmancer

Mom's surgery is on Monday.
This will be it. The end of the battle (hopefully).
The doctor will take away Oscar Ostomy (that's right, she named her Ostomy) and hook everything back up and once the muscles are working properly again, my mommy will be back to normal.
It's been a long year. Cancer... shit. I did not ever expect to have to deal with that. Other people got cancer, I knew that, but certainly not anyone in my family, especially my mom.
After the diagnosis, I didn't know what to do with myself... Mom is supposed to take care of ME, not the other way around.
Dad having a slight heart condition I could handle, that I was used to, that was under control. But Mom having cancer!? No way. Can't happen. Cancer is a dirty word. It's a being that comes in and destroys everything it touches and takes away the people it inhabits.
Little did I know...
We were lucky that it was caught relatively early.
We were lucky that Grandpa is a well respected doctor and has connections.
We were lucky that the chemo/radiation shrunk that tumour away to nothing.
We were lucky to have an amazing surgeon.
We were lucky to have tremendous support, from our family, from our town, from our church.
We were lucky.
Cancer isn't an all-devouring beast. It comes in many forms. For some people, cancer will take them away from their loved ones. But for others, there is hope. That is something I wish I knew at the beginning. There is hope.
And you know what? No matter what the outcome, cancer brings people together. Our family became closer than ever. People that Mom had grown apart from came out of the woodwork, bringing cards and flowers and meals and gifts, and most importantly, their presence, letting her know they cared.
As a family we cried, we laughed, we fought, we encouraged, we pitched in. Mom learned that it's okay to take a step back, to ask for help - things she would never do before. The middle sis and I became more present, in spite of not living at home, we made more of an effort to be there. For me, it taught me that if I can get through this crisis, I can get through most anything. The littlest sis, the only child living at home, grew up, a lot. She gracefully dealt with situations that I could have never dealt with at 16. She took care of the house, she accompanied on doctor's visits, she dealt with the outside world when Mom couldn't, she put her own needs aside and became a better person. Dad learned to leave work behind, that business could wait. Never, in my life growing up, had I seen Dad leave the store behind and trust others with his business. Dad also, I think, realized that life is short... not long after this ordeal, he decided to follow his dream of having his own forest and so bought the new property (his new love).
Yeah, cancer sucks ass, but I like to think that there is always a bright side to the crap that happens. Cancer may have ravaged Mom's body, but it also changed all of our lives in a positive way.

Here's the ladies of our family, only weeks before Mom was diagnosed, celebrating middle sis's birthday. From the left we have littlest sis, middle sis, Mom, and myself. If we only knew what was coming...


And here's my beautiful Mom this past Christmas. Here she has gone through a month straight of chemo and radiation, a surgery to remove the affected part of the bowel and insert an ostemy, and she was currently in the middle of 4 months of chemo (1 week a month). Just look at her! She looks incredible! She amazes me with how strong she is.

And so, on Monday, she goes in for more surgery. Minor surgery, just to hook everything back up.
It's minor, I tell myself, it's a happy surgery to fix everything back up. After this, it will be over. Right?
But I still get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about it. Not as big as the one I got before her first surgery... but it's still there.
Maybe it's because I don't deal with hospitals well. The waiting while she's being operated on, how sterile everything is, how scary the patients look, Mom... hooked up to tubes and monitors. I'm not looking forward to going through that again. I feel like I already know my way around that hospital way too well. I'm not a person who deal with medical things well... or bodily fluids for that matter. Heck, I shy away from dealing with emotions. That feeling in the bottom of my stomach and the back of my throat is there the entire time I am, and it stays even when I go home at night. I use humour to get through it. I'm the one in the hospital room cracking jokes and goofing off. Voted most likely to get kicked out of the hospital room and be scowled at by nurses.
But, we'll get through it. And you know what, Mom's going to be fine. They'll continue to check on Mom for the next few years to make sure the cancer doesn't come back, but she responded so well to the treatment this time that I am not terribly concerned about that. Mom's a tough cookie. And no matter what, thanks to this fight with cancer, I have hope. You never know what life's going to throw at you, but even with the bad, you can find good.

What I've Been Up To

I've been MIA all week, it's been a busy week and I've been sick with a cold. Here's a bit of an update:

• Mom called on Monday to let me know that she just found out that her surgery (originally scheduled for Monday March 2nd) had been bumped back a week. I was disgruntled because I had booked time off of work to go home this weekend and spend the week with her to help out. Also, I think we were all a little bummed because we just want to get this over with. This surgery will take out her ostomy and hook her bowels back up properly, which means it's the end of our journey with cancer. I know, it hasn't even been a year yet and we're lucky it's gone as fast and as well as it has... but we're all just ready to get everything back to normal and move on with our lives. But we knew it would likely happen, and hopefully the fact that Mom's surgery was bumped means that someone else just starting their journey with cancer treatment can get theirs over with as fast as possible.
  
• My sister seems to be having a fantastic time in Australia, and I am super jealous. Since she left New Zealand and arrived in Australia, she's been snorkeling and scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef, in a rain forest, and surfing and kayaking on the ocean. In other news, I want to go on vacation SO badly.
• The Dave Matthews Band announced more tour dates - INCLUDING TORONTO! So on March 14th I will be buying tickets to go see them at the Molson Amphitheater on June 9th. SO exciting! Also, they announced the title of their new album: Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King - which is set to come out June 2nd!
• In other music news, I am going to see Craig Cardiff next weekend in Guelph! And tickets were only $10!! I've wanted to see this guy for years! Of course, going with the camp ladies should make it awesome!
• My friend signed up for a meat pie eating contest at a pub a few weeks ago, and the contest was last night. I went as her coach/cheering section and we were SO into it, complete with smack talking the other contestant we knew, pre-contest stretching, and, of course, costumes! There were 2 heats of 5 people, and the top two from each heat went into the finals, oh, yeah, and you couldn't use your hands (a nice bit of info we found out right before the contest). No one else had costumes. My friend actually got 3rd place, and most of her competetors were much larger guys! I was SO impressed! Here we are getting pumped up - check out the awesome shirts that she thought up and I made:

Alright, that's my update for now. I'll keep you posted! (haha I thought that was a funny pun!)

This May Verge on Ranting...

You know it must be Monday morning when you wake up and have to clean up cat puke from the kitchen floor. Poor guy. Apparently his attempts to destroy the mini Christmas tree I brought back from home with me had him all worked up.
Anyhow, my weekend of relaxing at my parents' house is over and I am back in the big city ready to take on the last 3 weeks of school. I'm trying not to think about all of the things I have to do, so instead I'll share a story from my weekend.
Yesterday, my family went to church to see my sister be part of the service. Mom has only been to church a few times since this whole cancer business began. It's not the religious aspect that has made her stop going, I think, but more the social aspect. I made sure to stick near her yesterday, to be support and a body guard if necessary. They mean well, all of her church friends and acquaintances, but they make it really really hard. One after another they come up to say hi, saying the exact same lines - "it's good to see you" "how are you feeling?" "you're looking well" "how are you doing?" "we've been thinking about you" "you've been in our prayers" - all accompanied by a sympathetic look and a hug or awkward back rub/pat. Mom gave them all back the same well rehearsed lines - "it's good to be seen" "I'm feeling well, it's one of my good weeks" "I'm doing alright" "well, thank you" - what else can she say? They mean well. Trying to give her support and love in the only way they can. But that's really not what she needs... we're trying to make things as normal as possible to get past this, so she doesn't really need a constant barrage of sympathetic looking people who are all "cancer, cancer, cancer" without ever actually saying that dirty word. We know you know she has cancer, it's nice that you want to be supportive, but let's move on please, we don't need to make Mom cry at church. But that's people, right? That's what people do. They mean well, and they're just doing the best they can.

Yup, It Will

Jessica Williams photograph via Black*Eiffel.

(Sold Out) Print by jessgonacha via etsy shop.

A Vlog!?

It's 20SB's Vlog Day! I've spent my day watching other people's beautiful vlogs, so it was finally time to make my own. Warning: I am awkward and there is no cameo by Thunder Kitty. Here goes! Note: Turn your volume up loud, apparently I talk quietly.

vlog #1 from Erin Walker on Vimeo.

Long Weekend Update

1) Toronto traffic is crazy - especially on the major highways at rush hour(s) on a Friday night of a long weekend. I miss living somewhere that I didn't need to plan my day around when I can drive.

2) Mom looked better than I thought she would. She just finished her first week of chemo. She has 4 weeks total, spread out over 4 months, so one week on, 3 weeks off. Considering that the last time I saw her, she was lying in her hospital bed, pretty much anything is an improvement. She is trying really hard to make things seem normal, but everything is more difficult for her now, even sitting in a chair can be uncomfortable. Everything hurts and she is just so tired. Poor Mom, she really is trying hard.

3) Why I love my Grandparents:
Grandpa: If you were in Turkey, you'd have to wear a "kimona."
Me: Umm... Kimona? I think it's Kimono, and those are Japanese. I think you mean a Hijab or a Burka?
Grandpa: Oh yeah that's right.
Me: I'd look pretty funny wearing a Kimono in Turkey!
Grandma: Well that's okay, they wouldn't know it was you because they could only see your eyes!
Me: Uhhh?

4) I had the most terrible start to my birthday ever. I woke up at 6:00am to use the washroom, and when I got back, my fitted sheet had come off of my bed. I went to put it back on properly and what did I see on my mattress.... MOUSE POOP. Oh my goodness. We live in an old house, so we have had mice in my room before, but we dealt with them a long time ago and thought we had all the holes patched up and therefore there were only mice now in the basement. Guess not. So clearly I was NOT going back to bed after that. And I came down full out with a cold. Gross.

5) When you're feeling crummy and on cold meds and you want to stay as far away from Mom and Grandparents as possible so they don't catch it, you don't really feel like being social at a family gathering. Therefore you feel kind of out of it the whole time, like you haven't really gotten to visit with anybody. Sucky.

6) My littlest cousin is in grade 5, and she really likes to hang out with me and talk to me. She told me about her new love:
Maddy: Do you know who the Jonas Brothers are?
Me: Yup! You like them?
Maddy: Yeah! Nick is my favourite.
Me: Do you have a favourite song by them?
Maddy: No, I don't really like the songs.
Me: Oh, so you just like the boys!
Maddy: Yup, I like Nick best, Joe second, and Kevin last.
Me: Yeah, nobody really likes Kevin do they?
Maddy: No.
On top of her being HILARIOUS, I am glad that I am hip enough to know who the Jonas Brothers are! That's right, I am hip and with it!

Overall, good weekend, nice to be home and see everyone. Would have only been better if I had felt better. So good to be at my old home, but also good to be back at my own home, even though I have a lot to do now that I am back.

Now What?

What happens when you've spent months preparing for one event, and then, just like that, everything is over? It seems as though I've spent the last 6 months with one thought as a constant in the back of my head - mom, cancer, chemo/radiation, surgery. After this past incredibly long week, the surgery is over and Mom is doing well. She'll have to do more chemo, but that seems so minor compared to what we've been through now, and it's only preventative. So, the worst is over. Now what? Time to move on, I guess. Start really living instead of just going through the motions with thoughts elsewhere. Time to focus on me and what I need. It feels weird.

Fake Flowers, Pills, and Rose-Coloured Glasses

It's over.
The surgery took 6 hours, plus another 2 in the recovery room. The doctor was really optimistic, even though he looked completely exhausted. They took out the section of bowel where the cancer was, and he did not see any spreading. They were able to rearrange her bowels so that everything will work properly again eventually. Also, they took out her gallbladder, apparently it was bad. Dad spent the day pacing around the hospital and trying to read in the waiting room. He was so anxious, and didn't want to go far from the hospital no matter how much Grandpa tried to get him to go for a walk. He loves Mom so much - I always knew it, but I never really realized it.
The O.R. waiting room was trying really hard to be homey. A tv on each side, non-florescent lighting, magazines, books and puzzles. It made me pretty miserable, as the tv I was watching was showing something along the lines of World's Most Extreme Accident, Disaster and Criminal Videos, and there were ugly fake flowers all around. I hate fake flowers. All I could think about the entire time was the mental image of Mom being cut open and worked on in the Operating Room, like something out of the way too many doctor tv shows I watch. Luckily, there are pills to help me with my anxiety, so no panic attacks or crying.
We took a break and went on a walk around campus to the Western book store. It was nice to be back at my alma matter. I see university times through rose-coloured glasses now.
Finally we got to see Mom. She looked surprisingly good. She was really doped up and tired and out of it, but she was able to talk to us and seemed in good spirits.
So the worst is over now, right? She'll recover from this, do another round of chemo, get the bowels all properly connected up, and then we're good to go. I can't wait for things to be back to normal.

Courage

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Mom and Dad have already left for London, they'll be staying in a hotel there for the night because they have to be at University Hospital for either 5 or 6am. Mom's surgery starts at 8am, and it'll probably take about 5 hours. Gross.
I am home for the week, as in my parents home, not my Toronto apartment. A week of skipping school and placement so that I can stay here with my little sister (so she doesn't have to go stay at the grandparents' house) and driving back and forth to London to visit Mom and let Dad have a rest maybe.
It's apparently a pretty intense surgery. Not looking forward to this. First of all, I have always very strongly disliked hospitals. They make me nervous... I only have bad hospital memories. They smell bad and are full of sick people. And they're so sterilized. Ugh. I get anxious just thinking about going. Secondly, the thought of seeing my Mom post-op is not something I like. She won't be awake, she'll be pale and sickly looking, and she'll be hooked up to machines. Usually I do my very best to avoid going to visit family and friends in the hospital, it makes me unnecessarily nervous, so I make up an excuse and don't go. I don't have that option this time. I need to be responsible and helpful and most of all strong. My family needs that from me.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the knowledge that something is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon

After a Good Night's Sleep...

...I think that perhaps this year has also taught me to see the bright side in everything. It always could be worse.
Yeah, we were in a giant bus crash, but the worst we came out of it with were some cuts and bruises and some post-traumatic stress. Besides, I got to ride shot-gun in the ambulance. It also showed me how genuinely caring people who don't even know you can be. Like the doctor who was driving down the highway and stopped to check and see that everyone was okay, even though that probably breached some sort of medical insurance thing. Or the paramedics who tried to cheer us up as we were couched in the mud under a cement overpass by joking around with us. Or the people who went out of their way to make sure that we made the flight on time. Or the nurse from Montreal and the guy who brought his dog around to the hospital patients.
And sure, Mom was diagnosed with cancer, but it was caught early and is one of the most treatable kinds. It taught me to rely on my new friends from class, because they were there to support me whenever I needed it, so I knew I was never alone. And it was amazing how our family, our extended family, and our network of friends could really pull together and support Mom through it.
And yup, my car was broken into, but it wasn't stolen and I got it mostly intact. And at least it happened where my Grandparents and Aunt could come rushing over and help me deal with it.
Most of all, this year has taught me how important my friends are, and how super supportive they can be.
So I guess I am pretty lucky after all.

What I've Learned

I was thinking today about 2008 and how much it has sucked. Yes, sucked is probably the best word I can use to describe it. Up until this year, though, life has been pretty good. Sure I've had my share of problems, but no real major life events like I've experienced this year. It's almost as though all of the unfortunate things have waited and piled up and spilled out onto my life all at once. Do things happen just because they happen, or is there some sort of plan behind it all? I think both options scare me a bit. The thought of everything being completely out of anyone's control is terrifying, but, yet, so is the thought that someone (God, perhaps) has planned it out that terrible things do happen to people.
Completely feeding into my anxiety disorder, this year has taught me more than anything to never assume that everything is going to be okay, which, in my mind at least, means always be prepared for the worst possible outcome. I planned my whole life that I would grow up and go to university so that I could go to teacher's college, so what happens when I don't get in? I got on the bus assuming that I would arrive in the Everglades and get to see alligators, so what happens when the bus crashes along the way? I always assumed that Mom and Dad would be healthy and be able to take care of things, so what happens if they aren't and therefore can't? I thought that my car would be okay overnight, so what if it's not?
I really like plans, I have discovered. I don't so much like winging it, figuring stuff out as it comes along - that makes me anxious. I feel most calm and confident when I know what I am doing and know what to do in every possible scenario. But it seems like lately life hasn't been following any plans...at least not my plans.
So then what? What do you do when life doesn't follow your plans - the ones you assume will work out exactly the way you expect them?
Albert Einstein once said: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” And Dorey in "Finding Nemo" at one point sang a song saying "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." And I think that's what you have to do. Or at least what I have to learn to do. Things might not go the way I had planned and expected them to go, but that doesn't mean life can stop. In fact, stopping is probably the worst possible option. The best bet is to keep moving forward. As the Dave Matthews Band sings, "And if nothing can be done, we'll make the best of what's around."
At this point, I think that's all I can do. That, and hope that everything will be alright.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times...

By "it" I mean today. Here's an overview of the events:

1) In the morning I went into placement to finish up business there and to present the Plan of Care Review I had to write for one of the clients. It was great to be back, and really great to see my camp team mates again. And to have one of the kids tell you over and over how pretty you look (aka, you look clean and like you've put at least minimal effort into your appearance). However, the client couldn't make it to the review, so I did not have to present it, which was both good and bad because I would have liked to have the experience of presenting but nice that I didn't have to do it. So I said my goodbyes and left placement for the last time. It was sad knowing that I'll likely never see or work with the kids there again, and I really liked the agency and the clients.

2) So I had time to waste in Toronto. But I also had a giant backpack and a big handbag - and I learned that those items are no fun to navigate through the Eaton Centre. I ended up giving up on shopping after a few purchases and heading to Union Station crazy early for my train. I spent the hours at Union reading and pretending not to people-watch. There was a super-cute family near me, with an adorable little girl who couldn't be more than 5. I watched as her Dad brushed her hair back into a neat pony tail (certainly better than I could do) and then she played cards with her older too-cool looking brother, who wowed her with card tricks. And then there was the playfully bickering well-dressed young couple. And the woman and her very young daughter who multiple times left their bags in my care as Mom needed to go outside for smokes, and who was hesitant to allow her daughter to read a story book in the station as she might lose it.

3) On the train ride home, I got a text message from my little sister: "Mom's tumor is gone." I immediately called home. Mom had an appointment in London today, a pre-surgery check I think. Anyways, the doctor went to look at the tumor, and it wasn't there. The chemo and radiation was effective and got rid of it!! She is still going to go ahead with the surgery, as the doctor recommended it just to be sure, rather than going for checks every so often and being constantly worried about the cancer coming back, might as well just make sure it's all gone. BEST. NEWS. EVER. The tumor is gone!! Take THAT tumor!!

4) But... as soon as I arrived at the station and went to put my backpack in the back seat of the car, I came to the realization that while I left it for one night at the train station, someone had smashed the back driver's side window, gone through the entire contents of my car, and stolen anything that might be worth something. Here, I took pictures.

The sign that I parked in front of.

The front seat, note, those maps have been taken from the door pockets and left all over. Also, the garbage bag was taken down and gone through.

Through the glass-less window.

The glass-filled seat.

Items stolen: many many CDs, my ipod FM transmitter, the book with the insurance papers and car manual in it, and potentially other things. But it's not so much the things missing that I am upset about, after all, they are just things that I'm sure can be replaced. It's the act. It was just so invasive...they broke into my car and went through everything. Who does that?? How can you do that?? Even the thought of breaking something belonging to someone else on purpose is so completely foreign to me, and to do that and then steal things that don't belong to you? I just don't understand how anybody justifies that. I am trying to hard to be sympathetic, as they probably need the money more than I do, but ultimately I am just SO fucking pissed that anyone would do something like this to someone they don't even know.

But, on the bright side, the teddy bear that I call Teddy was inside my pillow case in the back of the car with my pillow and sleeping bag, and the thief left that. Thank goodness... I would have been devastated. They also didn't bother to take the change in the coin dish, and it doesn't look like they even attempted to take the CD player... they even left me the CD I was listening to inside the CD player. Got to stay positive. Got to get some sleep.

Cancer

So, my Mom has cancer.
That statement has only recently started to feel real.
She went for a colonoscopy back in April, and they found a polyp, which they biopsied. After the longest week of my life, she got the biopsy results back, and there it was, Mom has cancer.
Awesome timing - right in the middle of exams, just as I'm finishing up my first placement, oh, and I'm about a 4 hour drive away from home.
I think I went numb for a bit. Nobody close to me has ever had cancer before, or any potentially terminal illness for that matter. That sort of stuff happens in other people's families, not mine, right? But there was no denying it. This was real. Mom was always the one to come to my rescue, so what happens when she can't be the strong one anymore? Completely selfish, I know, but what happens to me if Mom can't be there? And how do you take care of someone who always takes care of you?
I cried a lot, but never in front of Mom, or any of the rest of my family. I felt like I had to be strong for them. So my wonderful CYW ladies helped me get by and I made it to the end of the semester.
Mom was supposed to have surgery right away to get rid of that tumor. After that she was supposed to have chemotherapy and radiation and then it would be over. But things don't seem to go according to plans any more.
The tumor had gone through the bowel wall, it was worse than they originally thought. So the surgery had to be postponed. Chemo and radiation had to come first to shrink down the tumor first. That tumor that was discovered and drastically changed our lives.
So I spent the majority of my summer driving to my parents' house to spend as much time with Mom as I could and to help out any way I could. Meanwhile, Mom had to make the hour-and-a-half each way trip to Windsor every day to get her treatments.
The treatments finished mid-summer, and now we wait.
Mom and Dad look more tired than I've ever seen them. It's interesting how priorities change though. For me, friends were put on the backburner in favour of going home whenever I got the chance, and I learned the art of separating home from work, not letting home issues affect my work with the kids. For Mom and Dad, the store used to be their life, and there was no way it could survive without them... and now the store is just fine without them there constantly.
Last week, Mom went to church for the first time since she was diagnosed. Good thing too, because I was so worried. She used to go every week, religiously (excuse the pun), and then to just stop going during a time like this didn't seem healthy for her.
The surgery is scheduled for September 8th in London. After that, she has a more intense bout of chemotherapy, which, thankfully, can be done close to home. Then, it's over.

Hopefully.