Jody Can't Get a Break
Aug. 2nd, 2008 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perzephone
Jody was sent for a CT scan for her chest last week - she's got arthritis in her breastbone & rib cage & she's been having muscle spasms. In the process of examining her chest, the technician discovered a mass on her kidney, which may be a tumor. She's going for a more in-depth CT scan on her kidneys next week. She's been going to the VA for her doctor stuff, and they have a service that picks her up & drops her off at all her appointments, which is probably the most help she's gotten from any agency over all these years.
Jamie's taking things rather well, but Jamie's very laid-back and easy going. Terry and Miranda, on the other hand, are basket cases. Cancer has always been Miranda's number one fear. She used to cry when the public service announcements about smoking & lung cancer would come on t.v. & she'd beg Jody to stop smoking so she wouldn't die of cancer.
I'm kind of in that wait-and-see mode because well, if it is a tumor which is in an operable place and they've caught it while it's small. I asked her if she'd be opting for surgery or chemo & she said she still hasn't decided. Jody, Terry and I are all kind of scarred when anyone mentions chemo/radiation because our mother did die a horrible death as a result of the chemo she endured. I was the only one who saw her at the end, but Jody & Terry had to listen to her ask them to bring her cigarettes over the phone & have her call them by her sisters' names...
I was just talking with Rob about cancer the other day - Rob's been having some ratio/spatial problems, nausea, dizziness & vertigo, and it's been recurring ever since he fired that shotgun in the air when we were robbed. I keep telling him whenever he's ready I'll make the doctor's appointment so he can get his ear examined & maybe they'll send him for a skull x-ray or CT scan to see if any of those cilia in his inner ear are broken off & floating around in there. So of course, he's been visualizing a brain tumor being discovered. I know for a fact that if I was ever diagnosed w/cancer & it was inoperable and the only treatment recommended was chemo/radiation, I would put up w/the pain & misery and just die a natural cancer-related death. I don't care about the success stories, I don't care about the advances in technology that have been made over the last 24 years... all I care about is that thing that my mother became, bloated and yellow, hairless and delirious, smelling like a toxic spill, calling her daughters by strange names & asking people in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to bring her cigarettes.
Jamie's taking things rather well, but Jamie's very laid-back and easy going. Terry and Miranda, on the other hand, are basket cases. Cancer has always been Miranda's number one fear. She used to cry when the public service announcements about smoking & lung cancer would come on t.v. & she'd beg Jody to stop smoking so she wouldn't die of cancer.
I'm kind of in that wait-and-see mode because well, if it is a tumor which is in an operable place and they've caught it while it's small. I asked her if she'd be opting for surgery or chemo & she said she still hasn't decided. Jody, Terry and I are all kind of scarred when anyone mentions chemo/radiation because our mother did die a horrible death as a result of the chemo she endured. I was the only one who saw her at the end, but Jody & Terry had to listen to her ask them to bring her cigarettes over the phone & have her call them by her sisters' names...
I was just talking with Rob about cancer the other day - Rob's been having some ratio/spatial problems, nausea, dizziness & vertigo, and it's been recurring ever since he fired that shotgun in the air when we were robbed. I keep telling him whenever he's ready I'll make the doctor's appointment so he can get his ear examined & maybe they'll send him for a skull x-ray or CT scan to see if any of those cilia in his inner ear are broken off & floating around in there. So of course, he's been visualizing a brain tumor being discovered. I know for a fact that if I was ever diagnosed w/cancer & it was inoperable and the only treatment recommended was chemo/radiation, I would put up w/the pain & misery and just die a natural cancer-related death. I don't care about the success stories, I don't care about the advances in technology that have been made over the last 24 years... all I care about is that thing that my mother became, bloated and yellow, hairless and delirious, smelling like a toxic spill, calling her daughters by strange names & asking people in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to bring her cigarettes.
