Let's get real.

Tomorrow is the three week mark that my mom has been in Oakwood hospital. Let's get real now, this shit is out of hand. Quite frankly I am too angry to be sad, not angry at my mom, her doctors, surgeons, or nurses. No I am angry at this cancer and these complications. Her intestines are slow to react at this time, which is pretty normal considering two major surgeries in a month and she's been on morphine for three weeks which most of the time causes constipation. Thankfully the surgeon said today it doesn't appear to be a blockage of any form in her intestines, cancer or otherwise. Also there isn't a pinch or kink in her intestines which is fantastic.

Now comes the bad part. Due to the medications and other various factors she has extreme nausea. This image that I shrank on here intentionally for those with a weak stomach, is the bile being pumped from her stomach continually for the last three days. This is going to keep going on until the nausea subsides and she can handle the feeling on her own. This tube is going up her nose and down into her stomach. Now for the reasoning this bile is being pumped out exactly. You see your body produces this consistently throughout the day. Approximately a half gallon a day of this bile is produced. It's the digestive acids. Due to her intestines not currently working how they should there is nowhere for this acid/bile to go, so it is then backing up into her stomach causing extreme and excessive nausea. Therefore since her body cannot use the bile nor absorb it, they are forced to pump it out of her until the intestinal track starts functioning correctly.

To most this might seem like a shock that I can be so matter a fact and happy about this. I'm not happy, but today was a huge step forward in this journey. My mom visibly looked better, was more chipper, and she smiled and did the whole "happy dance" with her feet. Over what you might ask? Not of her kids, no. It was over sugar. Even though they say she has to be on an ice chip diet I brought her a container of iced tea mix. She started dipping the ice cubes in it for the ice tea taste and sugar. This is the first time she's had something like this in weeks. So after a few of those, a walk, and a few more of them she had small air bubbles in her colostomy bag along with a feeling in her stomach she hasn't had in weeks. A feeling like it was processing something and working. Then, top that with the fact that her main surgeon came in while I was there and explained possible future procedures, some current ones she needs to deal with (nothing serious), and the fact that he is almost certain this is not a blockage or a complication from the cancer lead to a good day.

It was a phenomenal thing to see my mother smile and be visibly happy after weeks of hell. I know it's not anywhere near the end of this, but it's those small things you have to love and cherish. Life is not comprised of large scale moments. It's those little intimate things that no one else experiences or notices that make it special. Seeing her happy for once in weeks and taking another walk down the hospital hallway was more than I could have asked for.