In the Dark

Things have changed a bit over the past few days. While my mom has been up and around, carrying on conversations, etc. for the past several weeks - just this weekend, she has gotten a lot less steady and less able to carry on conversations. I thought about telling you all to give her a call now while she's still able to talk to you, but I'm not so sure she'd be up to it.

On Saturday, we went for a drive up Provo canyon to see the beautiful snow. Just as we got up to Sundance, the sun came out and lit up the slopes and all the snowboarders. It was beautiful.

I popped in a CD of piano music I happened to have in my car and the first track on there was Claire de Lune by Debussy. My mom listened for a while with her eyes shut and then said, "My father used to play this." Same thing with several other tracks on the CD. We just listened for a while and then she told me some stories about her dad, with whom she was not close. She said, "I guess Daddy doesn't want to be forgotten."

Sunday morning Mom was thinking of going to church but was too tired by the time she got showered and dressed. That's a bit different from the last three weeks where she'd get all ready and then be able to go shopping, for a ride in the car, etc. She seems to be much more tired and sleeping lots of the time. I wish we knew what was caused by medicine and what was caused by the cancer. We're in the dark so much here.

Why did she have a few days where her appetite came back and she could keep everything down? Why did she start throwing up again today? Why does she have lots of pain one day and nothing the next? It's a puzzle that I don't think we'll ever understand.

The last few nights, she's been jumbling things up while talking to me. I know other people have experienced it with her too. I think she sort of knows she's confused because often, she'll just nod and say, "MmmHmm." She has even been saying some things in German.

She seems a lot more frail in just the last 2-3 days. I am quite often talking to her rather than talking with her. It makes me feel like we're losing her more than just when she sleeps a lot. Does that make sense? It's hard to ask her a question and get a blank look or a random answer. I think both our family and my mom are in the dark right now - not understanding, not comprehending what's going on, just knowing it's cancer.

She said to me randomly Monday night, "I won. I won, didn't I?" All I could say was yes.