The big C

Just when you think it's safe to take a breath, the big C comes into the picture. Yes, Cancer has reared it's ugly head in our home. Not for long though for tomorrow it will be removed from our son via a testicle. Yes as in Lance Armstrong. Let's hope our ultimate outcome is as remarkable as his. It seems that about 5 weeks ago our son found some lumps and after being strongly encouraged to go to the doctor - you can not tie them up and drag them in by a rope unless they are trying to kill somebody - he went to the doctor who said - yep you got a problem. It is either a cyst, a tumor or cancer, I think it is cancer, you need to have this test and come back in two days for discussion. There were "technical difficulties" with him getting his paperwork together but he eventually got the test done yesterday. He was then taken to see a doctor who said, we don't have anyone here who can talk to you about this. It is not a cyst, it is a tumor or cancer. You have an appointment tomorrow at LSU Shreveport Urology clinic at 8:30 am. Be there.

He and his father left this morning a little before 6 am and were there on time, thank you very much. His dad called me about 11:30 or so - yes I was a nervous wreck awaiting the call - and by that time they had seen a very nice young physician who had examined him, had the sonogram repeated,had a ton of blood drawn, explained the situation, scheduled surgery and laid it out. Yes it is cancer. Yes people are afraid of the C word, but you can get over this. The surgery is a small deal, the illness is not. This is serious, but the tumor appears to be contained to the testicle and if it proves to be so, you may be able to get by with just some radiation treatments. We won't know the whole story until we get the pathology reports back and all the cancer markers and the cat scan that will be done after surgery tomorrow. Yes tomorrow. We need to get this out. Relatively simple procedure, spend the night in the hospital, probably go home the next day after the cat scan. If he doesn't get the cat scan done while in the hospital, there is a 30 day wait for a cat scan - don't think I won't be calling the governor's office about funding tomorrow.

So I will stay here and keep the girl on her routine schedule as much as possible and the guys will go off on this hair raising and scary return to the adventure into Cancerville. I will wait anxiously with my cell phone in my pocket and appear to be working while in actually living and breathing in some other dimension of earth time and space continuum. More later.

a new school

The girl has been accepted into the academic magnet school at the kindergarten level. We are so pleased. This is where her Pawpaw wanter her to be as first choice. It is not far from our house too. Which will make evening events easier for us. The school requires parental involvement and requires the student and parent to sign a contract of participation. Gee, no pressure. I think she can do the work and will behave, but this probably is designed for the older child....
Any way we are happy that this has worked out. A big hurdle has been crossed.
Now to find a day care that drops off and picks up. I am told there are several, I have one in mind that her daddy went to many years ago. Funny how things come around.
THe girl will be "graduating" from pre K pretty soon. Yes, it will be cute, No it doesn't mean anything, Maybe increase her self esteem and feeling of accomplishment. Somedays she hates school, mostly because of interpersonal relationships. She loves her teacher. So we will see what happens at "big school".

Let it be

Let it be is my husband's new mantra. He tells it to me quite often. He is trying to keep me from going over the edge. I am working on not going over the edge. I am better now than I was on Monday. So that is good. But I'm not letting it all be. I am letting the other grandmother be. She made me mad and hurt my feelings by mail on Sautrday, but I don't think she could help it and in the long run she may not really have meant it like she said it. She may actually need me at some point. She is also going over the edge. So I should not do anything to make it worse, and I did just that although it was unintentional. AND anything she says or does can not hold a candle to the newest wrinkle in the sheet. I am not able to let be the fact that my son is digging yet a bigger hole for himself to be buried in. There is nothing I can do about it. That is part of my anxiety. We pressed charges against him last year for forgery and theft. He finally went to court over those and some other charges Monday. He was sentenced to not less than 10 years and not more than 70 years at hard labor in the state penitentary, sentence delayed while he is in two years of drug court. So he has two years to follow rules and be clean and work when he hasn't been able to do it for 10 years. One day at a time is not possible for me at this moment. I am trying, but I am way ahead of myself. and I am "what if" ing like crazy. Each day is a little better though. I am able to concentrate a little better at work and am able to talk about. My son is calmer than I have ever seen him. He seems to think he can do it. For his sake and his daughter's sake, and for his dad and me, I hope he can.

angry or hurt or both

I sent my grandbaby mama a letter outlining why I didn't want her to keep the child overnight by herself yet. She is in recovery and is living in a 3/4 house. She is doing well, but I have some concerns. I sent a copy of the letter to her parents. The point of the copy was to keep the open communication and good relation ship going that we have all around. Well call me a fool. I got a letter from the other grandmother who must have been angry when she wrote. She focused on my double standards and all the failure I have had with my son, the grandbaby daddy. She pointed out some positive things about her daughter that I had not mentioned in the letter. She ended the letter by telling me not to communicate with her unless it concerned the best interest of the grandbaby.

This has really caught me off guard. I thought we were both working toward the same goal of getting her daughter back on track and each of us taking care of a respective grandchild. I thought we got along well and were open and honest with each other. This is another area of stress that will now affect the child unless I am very careful. Another thing to manage.

I didn't talk to the other grandmother much about my son because the child was usually there and I have to be careful what is said. She thinks both her parents are at school to learn how to be better parents. She is only 4 years old and has seen plenty in those years.

Many times when I would bring up a problem to the grandbaby's mama she would lash out at me about my son. To me this is a way of saying, don't complain about me, look at your son. The two issues are separate. The two people are separate. They do affect the child, but they are separate. My son is no angel, we have had tremendous trouble with him, we have tried many solutions and currently have charges pressed against him. We have chosen to leave him incarcerated until his court date. We asked the judge to mandate drug and mental health treatment no matter what his sentence would be. It does cause extra problems because he lives here. Our latest plan was that he would not come back because he would go to treatment and a half way house. But it appears the judge wants him in drug court. To make that have a chance to work, He has no place to go but here and has made a commitment to us to try to work the program. We can only hope that he will. It is not the best situation, but we will have to make it work.

It's not like we have ignored the whole situation since we found out the baby was on the way. We have made plans from the beginning to be there in case there were problems. And there have been problems over and over. On both sides. That's why we have custody. Not my son and us, Just us. I want to say that it appears as though they have ignored the signs until it was too late, blamed our son, belived her, etc. It was only recently that they asked for his help in finding out some things and seemed to have a new view of him. And does she think we don't know we have failure here? Gee, thanks for pointing it out so plainly. I'll surely remember your concern.