renegadeRICEcracker

:)

i took my mom to the acupuncturist today, and afterward we went to real food daily on la cienega. she has been having a lot of trouble eating lately -- really eats hardly anything, and her stomach hurts when she does -- and i thought some different flavors might be good. RFD is an organic, vegan restaurant, and we are sometimes skeptical of american vegetarian places -- lots of bland or raw food sometimes, but it was great. as we were trying to decide what to get the waitress walked by with a slice of chocolate cake, so my mom ordered that for her lunch (about half a slice is the quantity she usually eats for a meal, anyway, so it's better to get some calories in anyway). then i got a spinach fettucini with herb tomato sauce and tempeh meatballs, and my mom loved it. she ate almost a quarter of my meal on top of the half-slice of chocolate cake she had, and kept remarking how delicious the food was. she thought the tomato sauce was great, and would be good on rice, and was very surprised by how moist and fresh the chocolate cake was (it's hard to find good eggless cake a lot of the time).

after we had lunch her stomach hurt a bit because she ate so much, but she was in a really good mood and called her brother right away to tell him about the restaurant. she got an order of the pasta and another slice of cake to take home, too. :) it made me feel really good to take her somewhere she liked so much. i love my mom.

soooo tiiiiired

i am so tired. i am not sure why, but i am exhausted, and really achey -- my joints are cracking, my shoulders are tight, and my lower back is aching. *yawn* so tired. i need coffee. i feel old.

i am at my sister's waiting to take my mom to a doctor's appointment, and then i'm going to try to get a little work done. i'm still staying at my sister's most of the time. i've been feeling really... i don't know, unsettled? i am glad to be here to spend time with my mom, but it is hard never being home -- i can never do laundry, am never at my place, i never get to go to the store, i can't do any of the 8 million shopping chores i need to get done, and, i don't know, i'm just not at my home ever. it makes me feel restless, i guess. though also i think the problem is that i generally feel shitty because of everything going on, and nothing can really change that -- because when i go home or go to work, then i have that yucky anxious feeling in my stomach. ugh.

things are okay, though. last week on some of the nights my mom came down from her room and we watched movies and she ate ice cream, which was good. and sometimes we try to go for a walk (she can't walk too far these days, but we got a wheelchair for her, and i think it is nice for her to get outside). last night she taught us how to play mahjong. my brother-in-law was talking smack, but of the three games we played, i won the first, my mom won the second, and my sister won the third. :) (though really, he is better at games than me, and i get the feeling that he'll be winning a lot of them soon.)

anyway. so that was nice, and i am happy to have had some nice time with my mom -- in the last couple weeks i was feeling frustrated because i would spend 5-6 nights here but then always feel left out at whatever happened the one night i went home or something.

okay, i have to go wake my mom up. bye!

stuff

i'm at my sister's. i have that yucky anxious feeling in my stomach again. i have been here 6 nights this week, but also went in to the office 4 days this week. between going to work and driving all around the city to pick stuff up for my mom (from her place or the pharmacy), i feel like most of the time i see her is at night when she's really tired. (though, she pretty much is always kind of tired now.) so i was sort of looking forward to the weekend because i woud be here in the daytimes, and could spend more time with her when she is more awake. but she's busy taking care of some things, and wants a little time to herself. she said she hopes i don't mind. of course i don't, but i have been getting more anxious about spending time with her.

i am a big mess inside. things keep setting in more -- i'll be in my car and suddenly will think to myself, god, this really happening, it's really happening... and it's strange how surreal that still feels. so part of me is in a panic to spend time with her because she might (it is still so hard for me to talk in absolute terms) be gone soon. but part of me is also grappling with the transitions that my sister and i will be facing in the nearer future. my mom is already tired all the time, and her belly is really distended -- after 9 1/2 hours in the ER on thursday, they got an ultrasound and tapped 1.2 liters from her belly, though there was still quite a bit left and fluid reaccumulated pretty much by the next day. she doesn't feel well so she's not in very high spirits, and she's hardly eating or drinking anything. i am afraid to see her become even more weak, and go through all these changes that one of the hospice workers was telling me to expect. i can't imagine what this is like for my mom. i am just... so sad.

i have been partially distracting myself by becoming obsessed with my health. i have become an avid label-reader, and spent the last month or so vigilently adding as much fiber to my diet as possible, and watching what vitamins i am getting from the fruit and vegetables i eat. then last week i decided i wasn't getting enough calcium (i wasn't really getting any), so i bought some viactiv calcium chews. (part of this is because i have made many trips to the pharmacy and while waiting around for prescriptions to be filled, will study all the products available.) and, i have been going to the y whenever i go in to the office. the classes (spinning with one particular instructor is my favorite) push me a lot harder than i would ever push myself alone, and when you are drenched in sweat and exhausted and hurting... you can't really think about anything else. so that's been a useful crutch. better than drinking 6 nights a week, anyway. and it's good to have something that makes me feel a little better here and there because i feel like i am barely keeping it together the rest of the time.

anyway, that's all. my sister just came in and i'm going to go help her take care of some stuff. bye.

a sad entry

i felt like i should blog because it's been a really long time. i went to chicago, as i'd been anticipating in previous posts, and had a really fun time bbq'ing and playing wii and all that. then i came back to LA and had a really fun great birthday/housewarming party. my family came in the daytime, and we had a great time. i think this is going to be one of my favorite pictures for a very long time:

then it was pride weekend, and i had a really fun time. and i kept meaning to blog about all this stuff, because i had a really fun and busy end of may/beginning of june. but then i didn't get around to it and then things started to get more sad and then i didn't feel like blogging anymore.

my mom has gotten a lot more sick. she has lost a lot of weight -- like, a LOT of weight, but her belly is retaining fluid, so while she's really skinny, her stomach is really distended and full, like she is pregnant. my sister said it is ascites. she is very uncomfortable. last weekend we moved her down to my sister's, and i've been spending most of my nights here, too (5/7 nights last week). i have gone back on intermittent family leave at work, and my sister and i are just really, really scared and sad. we all still speak optimistically (what else can you do?) but my mom has started laying out for us the different things we'll have to take care of, telling us which bills to pay, and giving us her passwords to things. i've started writing out recipes for things i've always wanted to learn from my mom how to make. it scares me to think how many things i feel like you are supposed to learn from your mom that i just don't know yet.

i have a nasty anxious feeling that covers my entire midsection, and i don't know how to make it go away. last night i went by my mom's place to pick up some things for her, and walking into it and having it feel so empty... i ended up hunched over the wet bar sobbing for a while before i could collect myself and start gathering her things.

i don't really know what to do. i am spending a lot of time with my family and trying to keep my hours decent at work in the meantime by working when my mom is resting. and i've been working out -- i have gotten really into spinning, i think because when you are drenched in sweat and in pain as you try to push through a song, there is not a whole lot else you can think about. the anxious feeling in my stomach usually goes away a little bit after i work out, also. other than that, i think i need to spend 1-2 nights away from my sister's each week, or i will go crazy. and that's it. i'm just trying to maintain some kind of healthy balance while also reminding myself that i am just going to be in a really shitty mood a lot of the time, and that that is normal, and that there isn't always something i can do about it.

i am so tired, and scared, and sad. i am overwhelmed by what the rest of this year is probably going to look like. i am exhausted.

and that's it. i felt like i should post something because it had been so long, but i'm not in much of a cheery mood. anyway. take care everyone.