Frank Has The Blues

Yesterday was a good day until I had a surprise visitor show up on my doorstep.

Mom O'Lovey came by.

As I have said before, I took her to the emergency room a couple of months ago and was with her when they told her she had Stage 4 Metastatic Lung Cancer -- the same exact type that killed my mother.

At that time, it was as if someone had hit me in the gut.  The air had been knocked out of me.

You see, since the divorce, she and I have become quite close -- in spite of the gay thing -- and the way Lovey told it, making her life hell!

Mom O'Lovey lives just three blocks away from me.  So, this has helped to cement our relationship in a very special way.  It also does not hurt to have her favorite granddaughter living with me.

I had just emptied a box of my parents belongings...and had found all of mom's statements from the medical center all during the time she was in chemo.  Seeing all that....and having Mom O'Lovey show up at my door, well it just really moved me.

Mom O'Lovey's daughters have advised her against taking chemo.  Basically they have scared her to death.  I've told them of the recent breakthroughs in cancer treatment by "souping up the patients white blood cells to target leukemia"...and then they want to test it on other cancers.   Mom has nothing to lose at this point...but they poo-pooed the idea.

They are in favor of sending her to Mexico to have coffee colonics.  Eating grass.  Drinking awful smoothies.  Or being scanned by a special machine that does things to you and has cured multitudes in the mid-west.  But they finally found this person up north who has a "cure" that will make it all better.  You see, in their minds, these "real" cures are not broadcast widely because of a vast conspiracy in the medical community.  They want people to die so that they can have these expensive treatments to line their pockets with money.  It's a conspiracy!

In the meantime, Mom has missed the window of time that chemo and radiation could actually help her.  Doctors have told her family she now has two months remaining.  A lot of this is because they did not allow her to choose chemo as an option two months ago.  Valuable time was wasted.  And now...I'm watching her deteriorate.  She is slowing down.  She is feeble.

She is going to spend thousands of dollars to these other "cures."

But watching her yesterday, I ached.  It really hurt me.  Can't tell you how difficult this all is to watch from afar.

All I know to do is to tell her everyday how much I love her.  I reach out and hold her hand.  I give her big hugs.

Then when I am home.  Alone.  I cry.