#227 In which our hero is all out of sorts.

I'm feeling terribly ill at ease today; nothing specific, just out of sorts.

Quick background: the guy who sits next to me has a girlfriend who’s mother is sick. She (the mother) had a pain in her side, and when she went to the doctor she was told she had a cracked rib. Then, upon further testing, it come out that Hey! Y’know what? That’s not a cracked rib at all. It’s lung cancer. She was told that it was isolated to one lung. Not good, but treatable. But then, Hey! Y’know what? It’s not really isolated at all… it’s all through your body! And your brain!

Final diagnoses: she has maybe a year to live.

This only tangentially affects me, of course. I don’t know this woman, but I do know my neighbor’s girlfriend (she worked here briefly). I feel really bad for her, naturally. But I suspect that the out-of-sortsness I’ve been experiencing today is memories of what I went through when my own father was dying of cancer.

But, to make this situation all the more convoluted, I think contributing factors also include my mother and my wife’s horse.

My mother.

First, she’s doing fine. She seems to have recovered well from her last bout with pneumonia, and is back to her old self. But mom is 75, and even though she doesn’t want to slow down, her body is sending off clear signs that she must.

But most of all, what has me down is that my sister is riding my ass to contact mom’s doctors and ask a bunch of questions. She thinks we should be much more proactive about mom’s care. Which I agree with, in principal, but I hate having to go around mom’s back and speak to her doctors, just to make sure the rosy story mom is telling us isn’t utter bullshit. Which is could be, because mom doesn’t want to worry us.

And since I’m the one with medical power of attorney, they won’t talk to anyone else. Honestly, I’m not even sure they’ll talk to me. I have emergency medical power of attorney, so I can make decisions about mom’s care if she’s incapacitated… I don’t know if that extends to just talking to the doctor when mom’s fine.

But, like a good son and brother, I called the doctor. On Monday. Left a message. Never heard back. Called again on Wednesday. Never heard back. Now I’m just pissed. I’m forced to do something I don’t even want to deal with, and this jackass won’t even return my calls? I called again this morning, and the nurse assured me that she had pulled mom’s file and left it with the doctor, and she actually thought he had returned my call already, blah, blah, blah. Y’know, I only want 15 minutes of his time on the phone. You wouldn’t think that would be so hard to accommodate.

My wife’s horse.

Is lame again. Or something. Read all about it over at her site.

While I know that riding gives The Scientist a great amount of pleasure, frankly all I register is the pain. The pain of dealing with his injuries. The pain of her getting all excited about how well his training is going, just to have him crush those hopes and go lame again. The pain of having to AGAIN go through the tears and turmoil of the possibility that he may never show again. And, of course, the financial pain of stupidly high vet bills.

None of this is aided by what I learned last night: instead of being $100 in the hole every month, starting later this month we’ll be $200 in the hole every month.

So I’m feeling a little stress lately. And it’s about to start snowing. And we’re going to have to start shopping for Christmas. And as the weather turns really shitty, I’m worrying about mom getting sick again. And my fucking head is cold all the time.

I guess I just need to keep everything in perspective: no-one is sick right now, no-one is in the hospital. The girls are great, and a constant source of amusement. I love my wife.

And no-one has been given just a year to live.

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