Story Time With Keith

09.29.10

Mom’s Surgery

This post brought to you via squid cache. Squid is a free open source proxy application I have running on my home computer. Thanks to an SSH tunnel I am able to use it to get to my blog which is blocked at the hospital because it has porn in the name.

So anyhow.

My mom has lung cancer. Ain’t that a bitch?

Found out about a month and a half ago. They caught it kind of early and scheduled her for surgery ASAP. So here we are.

12:35

A couple hours ago I arrived at mom’s house and waited for my sister. Mom was still finishing up packing her suitcase. They had the bed for her set up in the living room. I don’t know how she’s supposed to get in and out of a water bed but I’m sure she’ll figure it out.

Jess tells me that last night she wrote out a short will. It just split up her life insurance and specified that her ashes be spread out on her favorite cove at Big Creek. Pretty depressing to think about.

An hour ago we arrived at the hospital after a short detour to pick up supplies at Quicktrip. We waited in the main waiting room for my mom to be called for check-in. We found out that they had activated that pre-paid cell phone we got mom for christmas a few years ago (my mom and stepdad paul are quite technophobic) and have been stashing it in the van. He poked around with it while mom fidgeted.

A short trip back to the surgery prep area brought mom to the staging room where a rude nurse complained to mom about something the girl at the front desk screwed up. Since only 2 visitors can be in the staging room at a time my sister and I found the surgery waiting area while paul stayed with mom.

This is pretty swanky. We quickly found a table near a power outlet and set up an outpost. Jess is doing homework while I tap away at my netbook’s tiny keyboard. I’m pretending to understand when she mutters about how stupid the assignment she’s doing, and she’s pretending to understand when I mutter about websense and proxies.

So now we play the waiting game. I prefer Dominion.

Sept 29th 1:07pm

Jess and I took turns going in to the staging room since she’s going in to surgery soon. Mom told me to get along with my sister and to be good. Also that she didn’t want any of this to end up on the facebook. Oh mom, how little she knows. We said our I love you’s and she made the required hospital gown joke. To say we’re all relaxed would be the exact opposite of the truth.

1:56pm

Paul just got out here so that means they’ve wheeled mom in to surgery. Can’t think of anything to add.

3:43pm

I had to run out for some errands and just got back. My sister said a nurse just came out a few minutes ago and said there’s no news, which is good news. Maybe a couple hours to go.

4:33pm

Nurse stopped by, said as of 4:10 she was in recovery and doing fine. Such a relief. She’ll of course be in the ICU overnight and stay at the hospital until the weekend.

5:41pm

Still waiting to hear when we can go see her. In the meantime I’ve made a facebook account for my other dog and set up a halloween party. You should all go to that party.

6:15pm

Nurse finally came by again, seemed like forever. She’s been moved to SI, which stands for Surgical Intensive Care Unit in a hospital instead of Sports Illustrated. We can’t go see her just yet but when they give the green light we can all go together the first time, and then in shifts thereafter.

7:16pm

Just got to go see her. Mom’s pretty out of it but in good spirits. She’s doing better than they thought and should be in a regular room by morning. Jess and I are going out for some needed dinner.

Sept 30th 8:52am

Mom is still in SI (ooh look at me, using medical terms n such) but she’s doing ok. Had a little hiccup with the pain medication so she barfed shortly before I arrived. They let her have some liquids and liquid-like food such as bouillon and green jello. The nurses are all super duper nice and super helpful. Right now they’re helping her change her gown and then they’re going to move her into a regular room. I’m camped out in one of the lobbies next to an unguarded power outlet.

9:24am

Paul just got here and went in to see mom. She’s still waiting to be moved. I’m glad he got here so early; she was asking for him when I went in to see her.

9:55am

We’re snug up in mom’s new room. The nurses got her put into bed and took her vitals. After an explanation of the room service menu and that mom’s on a general diet (can eat anything on it) we’ve been left to chat amongst ourselves.

We haven’t talked to a doctor yet, but mom’s understanding is they took one of her lung lobes. Let’s hope that’s all that needed done.

10:34am

Mom’s resting now. I’m just chilling in her room in case she needs anything. Well that’s not honest. I’m chilling in her room because I need to be here.

Some earphones would be nice so I could listen to podcasts instead of the crap on TNT. Mom is so selfish. Just because she’s the one who had surgery and just because this is her hospital room, she thinks she gets to decide what’s on the TV! The nerve!

1:49pm

After turning her nose up at the crappy turkey and crappy stuffing they tried feeding her, we ordered a tunafish sandwich and some potato soup. I found lots of salt and pepper in the galley and mom declared she can probably live off of the soup. I’m glad to see her eating.

Aunt Linda called and mom talked to her briefly despite not being able to exert more than a rasp of a whisper.

Oct 1st 3:43pm

Gave mom a call. She answered quickly and sounded great. She went for a couple walks up and down the hallway earlier but admitted it still hurts. She said Paul is coming to visit later. I don’t think she remembers that my cousin Kim and aunt Paula are coming too, so that’ll be a good surprise for her. Frankly, the best indication of her improving condition was shooing me off the phone because Millionaire was on.

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03.15.10

Back To Ames

Went up to Ames for the weekend. It was pretty good despite some bad news.

Though I make a habit of getting back up there to play games and hang out with friends, it’s been a few weeks since I’d been. That, and I think the flutterings of spring, made it feel somehow more vibrant than normal. Oh, and I’m moving back up there too.

Aside: It’s interesting how people use words like up and down to describe travel on a map. It’s not up, it’s north. But we all say it and we all understand what it means.

So as most of you know I’ve had some issues with my current roommates in Des Moines. For the few of you who don’t I’m sorry; I’ll have to fill the bloud (that’s a new word for blog crowd. Okay, whatever, I tried) in later once the move is complete. I packed up a carload and brought it with me. In this first installment went my gaming supplies (natch) and some excess kitchen stuff that I never really unpacked.

I met Pete, Rezza, and Steve at Tas’s/my former/future place. Tas wasn’t there because of the bad news: The night prior he had lost his grandmother. They were close. He’ll be out of town for a while and I wish him well. I lost my maternal grandmother when I was a teenager. We were also close, and it was tough to deal with.

After dinner the four of us played Dungeon Lords. I think the consensus is that we all like the game but need more practice. We’ve given it a provisional nickname of “I am such a retard” due to several exclamations during play.

Scan me with your Android Phone

We finished the night off with three games of Dominion. Though I only won one of them, it was the finale and a landslide, so I felt a bit redeemed. Man Dominion is all kinds of fun. Especially when it’s easy to come up with kingdom card layouts.

I’d been dying to try out Dominion Shuffle, an Android app to generate kingdom card layouts. It did not disappoint. Point your Android Phone to the sneeze on the right to try the App out yourself.

Sunday I lunched with Pete at Thai Kitchen then played D&D with Pete, Jed, Chris, and Steve. I’ll spare you the gory details for now but we had a few hours of fun before I had to go.

Back to Des Moines, for a little while.