Well...today wasn't the greatest of days around here. On top of the cold and drizzling rains, along with cold wind, we told my mom she's got cancer. She's had it rough since about the 29 or 30 of June when she woke up aphasic in the board and care where we had her for assisted care. She ended up in the Emergency Room at St. Joseph Hospital of Orange, where she was diagnosed with a severe undermined bed sore, and was immediately scheduled for surgery to debrade the wound. Then she had to be on an instill/vac to alternately pump antibiotics into and drain out pus from the wound, for 6 weeks, then back to the hospital for a graft once the wound closed. They transferred her to a nursing home for care. Well...the first graft didn't hold, and she was transferred back to StJH after a week or so, then it was back to the nursing home--for two days--until she spiked a fever, then it was back to the hospital, again. They had to re-do the skin graft; she was in the hospital 3 weeks this time--in trying to 'farm' her case out to nursing homes, she only had 28 days of medicare/skilled nursing left, so no one wanted to take her if it looked like there was going to be any overstay beyond that--so the hospital was 'stuck' caring for a patient (imagine that). Not to be too critical, but St.JH did a better job than any of the other places she was at. The third release from StJH was to Kindred Care, an acute care/injury care nursing hospital in Santa Ana which was the first place to do a CT Scan of her abdominal cavity. They found several masses on her liver and a large mass on her stomach--cancer. Just after the CT Scan mom told her mother, my soon-to-be-92-year-old grandma, that she was tired of all the test and didn't want any more poking or prodding tests. She also was able to refuse a feeding tube, so--in compliance with her wishes as best as we can understand them now, we changed her "Code" status to "DNR", allow comfort only, last night. She doesn't get enough blood oxygen unless she's on the cpap machine--which she hates--so I'm not expecting her to make it to the end of the month. Just yesterday I said, "Goodbye, Mom. I love you," while she slept there and while I don't want her to suffer, and our relationship wasn't 'great', I find myself not ready for any of this.