On faith

When I mentioned that I was a cavalier catholic, I think it's necessary that one minds the lower case 'C's. Most times, being catholic for me is a descriptor like saying that I grew up in Los Angeles. These indications describe my current embattled and disenchanted condition. My mother, on the other hand, is a Catholic. Nay...CATHOLIC. I'd put spotlights on that word if possible. However, my current thoughts are less on the focus of faith and more on the act or state of faith itself. Catholicism merely serves as the structure or formality in which my mother believes. Lately, I've been thinking of faith increasingly because it contrasts so easily with my father's lack of it. There seems to be a chiaroscuro of faith and that which may be the opposite of it, say the Dodgers.
It's interesting to see my mother's decline and mordant stagnancy. She seems to linger on the fringe of life (or is it death). My father seeing this decline has started to pray, or that is, he has claimed to have prayed. He's promised to attend church with my mother when she recovers. He talks of miracles. "A word for miracles exist because they occur," he said one night in a moment of reflection and sadness. He has beleaguered a silent god. "Why would he harm one of his daughters," he asks. Save for the fist shake, the venom in his voice is how his cynicism kills. His god existed only for his questions and doubts. When my mother kept silent, I thought her faith fell too. And it shook me.
But I doubted her faith. See paragraph 1. She's one of those all caps Catholics. She's left it in His hands, by the grace of God.
There are values of faith that I often overlook because I recall too easily the jackasses who hide behind their god and ideologies and wield these structures as weapons. It's the glib one-liner that comes to mind - a knife can be a tool...or a weapon. (How about nukes? What are those? Anyway...)
My mother's faith has kept her calm in the face of the impending maw of death. Somewhere in her basic fiber, she knows that she'll return to the previous state of nonbeing (thanks Schopenhauer), and I hope that she finds the peace that she was unable to have on this plane.

Update

Chemo drips for two days in veins. 46 hours. Nothing much, steady.
The home health nurse has been kind enough to reschedule her visits and draw blood for us at home so that my mother is saved a trip to the hospital. I bring two vials of blood to the lab and in turn bags of TPN are delivered from the pharmacy.
The days in Los Angeles are hot, and I don't say this to be mean to those who are blue and numb by the weather in colder states. Maybe it's just for the record when I revisit these words in a haze of alcohol, regret, and pity. Maybe not in that order.
Conservation of cash remains a priority as there seems to be a recession or a giant sucking sound outside these walls, so I've pared my vices to chocolate milk, the NYTimes, and the gym. This may explain why these posts have a bit more lactose-based, worldly insights.
My mother remains the same, and even the anti-emetics seem to lose efficacy when confronted with the cancer and chemo. I wonder how long her decline will continue. What good can come of this?

Update

I'm still in Los Angeles, and the FMLA ends on February 6 though I'll extend my stay here at least another two weeks, which should be about the time when the oncologists will know whether the chemo will be effective. I'm not sure what effective chemo may mean to a terminal patient. I believe the doctors indicated that her symptoms would be diminished in some way. Perhaps this means less nausea and vomiting and a reduction of her intestinal constriction.
Currently, a mass may be forming in the left side of my mother's abdomen. When I press my hands to her side, there is a slight give and a hardness. I explained to my cousin that it was like as if one placed a towel on a table and pressed down - there's a half centimeter of softness before reaching the table. Think that, except skin and mass.
We maintain our visit to the hospital twice a week to have her blood drawn, but the nurse who visits to change the dressing for the PICC line has been timing her visits so that the blood is drawn at home while I whisk the tubes to LACUSC myself.
Momma goes with chemo on Monday.

Mindfulness II

As I read through my previous post on mindfulness, I can't help but feel that I did a shitty job of trying to explain what I mean and where I intended to go with the topic, so in the best interest of making sure that two shitty posts will somehow make up for one shitty post, I'll try to indicate where I was going the previous time.
I think in some way what I wanted to explain was how the difficult task of maintaining mindfulness towards another individual was mitigated when one knew that that person would die. But in some crass and glib way, we all die. It's true, I looked it up. Though the fact that my mother was given a projection of 11-14 months (I subtracted the month gone by) to live, somehow compounds the importance of every moment is not a given. This fact is an assumption that every forthcoming moment should, in some way, hold some greater importance because of the possibility that each new event may be the last. But why haven't I held and cherished each previous moment or hold each moment as as a sacred one as it occurs?
Simply, it is because when I assume that I should embrace the fleeting moment that I have with every individual, place, and event, I am overwhelmed and disinterested. This is a daunting and exhausting and Sisphyean exercise, and we know how he ended up.
Though Camus brings up this very point that we are all too focused on the end result while overlooking the beauty of the moment, as it were. In a way, the process is the purpose.
So, I still don't know where I'm going with this but I'm glad you followed along.

Mindfulness

I've been practicing mindfulness to a degree that I thought impossible. Each day when I wake up to administer the anti-emetic to my mother (now 4 mg Zofran and 2 mg Reglan), each dose must be given over the span of 3-4 minutes. During the initial shots I counted to 180 until my mind started to wander and I lost count. Before long, I realized that each shot was taking 5 minutes. So I began praying the Our Father and Hail Mary. As a Catholic who doesn't practice, I'm kind of like an Intramural team that shows up to play but doesn't really care who wins or loses. These two prayers are sort of embedded into my psyche I can recite them slowly without losing my place. Each of these prayers have a line in them that sort of kills me inside, which may be why I recite them. From the Our Father, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" and from the Hail Mary "pray for us sinners, now at the hour of our death."
Every time I hold my mother's hand or stroke her hair, I think perhaps it may be the last time. When she first was afflicted with this disease, I would become frustrated when her nascent pain would make her grumble with displeasure at every simple gesture that one may provide in the hopes of alleviating her discomfort. Now when she scolds me for doing something improperly or half-assed, I smile and say that I will try harder. And over time, she too has softened.
I wonder whether I can try to be like this with others. I cannot conceive of how this may be possible...to act with such love and effort and consideration. It's ineffably tiring. I may post more on this later. I gotta run.

The Usual

I have time, so let me tell you a little about the past two hours...

Now, don't get me wrong. LACUSC nurses are wonderful, the facilities that opened in November 2008 are splendid, and some of the doctors are keen. If there's one thing I'd love to fix about this place is their systems.

For example, our next chemo appointment is at 8 a.m., but we need to have her blood drawn and labs done before then. Unfortunately, our appointment for her chemo and blood draw is on the same day at the same time, then we have an appointment with the colorectal department at 10 a.m. on the same day, except one treatment of chemo runs 2 hours. I think our day will be just as confusing and ugly and exhausting as the previous sentence.

Another case to demonstrate the heinous system at LACUSC is our attempt to drop off her prescription before we leave. One of them is for a Fentanyl patch at 37.5 mg. Except the pharmacy doesn't have a 37.5 mg patch. So after waiting in line for 40 minutes, I'm told to go back across the campus to get another prescription. But I don't have to wait says the lady. I can cut to the front once everything is squared away. I return, the doctor writes another prescription (one 25 mg patch and one 12.5 mg patch). Take the elevator down. Walk across the campus. Remove belt and objects with metal to go through the metal detector. Down a flight of stairs. Go to the pharmacy drop-off counter, where I no longer see the lady who had told me to cut to the front once everything was squared away because she has probably left for the day. I wait again for 40 minutes. The pharmacist looks at me like I'm a deranged marsupial and says the pharmacy doesn't carry a 12.5 mg patch for Fentanyl. I'm told to return and get another prescription. I do and I return whereupon I realize the doctor rewrote the prescription without any changes. You know, everyone knows a new sheet of paper with the same words means it's a different prescription. I'm confused, and this place makes my head hurt.

I think every place of this size and complexity has a number of issues, but I can't fathom why steps haven't been taken to streamline the process and avoid all the rigmarole. LACUSC has done so much to provide a new facility that gives the workers a better work place and hence an improved attitude simply because they're not working in a wreck of a building (it's the very same building that one sees at the opening of General Hospital). Couldn't they work on improving processes as well? Mind you, the two instances above happened only today in the past couple of hours. It's constantly like this at this place. And we, like so many others, have no where else to go.

New Math

three ergonomic chairs < one bed

Rundown

Ascites has been building in my mother for quite some time again. The fluid is the initial reason why I flew home on November 6, 2008; the damn thing occurs out of nowhere, and the top two causes are tuberculosis and cancer. My mother got the latter.

In my mother's case, she starts to feel bloated and one starts to see her stomach distend, which makes her look like one of those poor starving children one sees in the World Vision commercials. The fluid builds in the peritoneal cavity - the sac that houses the internal organs (yeah, I didn't know we had an organ holder either...good thinking evolution...or God...or whatever likes to take credit). The fluid buildup is symptomatic of the stress the cancer causes, and though the ascites returns my mother feels relief from the removal. The first time the doctors withdrew 1 liter. This time they removed 1.4 liters, which may not seem like much, but my mother weighs approximately 100 lbs and is about 5' 2". The fluid looks like apple cider as it sits in glass 1 liter containers.

--

We've been watching a fuck ton of Korean soap operas, but these 30 minute or hourlong dramas utilize the hackneyed and prosaic devices that have propelled all soap operas forward. In turn, this means that we've encountered the (wait for it) medical emergency stage in the series. Unfortunately both dramas prominently feature matrons who are facing a terminal disease, except in each case a mystery donor will emerge, and once again deus ex machina becomes the plot device of choice. We don't have any of that...neither mystery donor nor plot devices, though if you were to ask my father he'd say we're lacking the deus part.

I watch as she loses interest. The characters, she knows, will end with the show. And we'll be left here alone.

--

I think we go home tonite.

Go

After a series of false starts, miscommunications, damnations, frustrations, aggravations, cuss words, muss words, fuss words, blasphemies, absolutions, misgivings, doubts, pouts, screams, and bewilderments, we've finally begun chemotherapy. That is to say, we've finally secured a room, where I type these words, but have yet to begin the actual treatment. Doctors appointments to secure appointments with other doctors to meet with doctors to secure appointments, we've crossed the bureaucratic and nuanced river of hell to get to this point, whereupon we peer at the banks of progress. Maybe I know how Charon may have felt.
You see, at LACUSC, one must call for an available bed in the oncology/hematology ward before coming in. There are 16 beds available. I'm going to avoid guessing at the number of cancer patients who are trying to secure a spot, as my bewilderment will grow proportionally. We need to make a call to see a bed is available every 3 weeks or so.
Having called Thursday night, a nurse had mentioned that a bed was available for my mother (bed 144) and that we were to call early the following morning to make sure the bed was still available because beds may fill up to make room for emergency cases.
I awoke at 4 a.m. the following day to remove the TPN from mom, give an IV push of Zofran, flush out her lines, and prepare her items for the day. I called again to make sure there was a bed still available..."Sung, S-U-N-G, yes, she's my mother. Is a bed still available?" "Sung? Yes, yes, but you need to come early." My aunt skipped work that day and was on our doorstep at 6:30 a.m. We gathered mom's items - underwear, maternity pads, a change of clothing, plastic cups (so she can vomit in them), bottled water, facial tissues, and an orange (they mask the smell of bile) - and placed her in the wheelchair. Dad wheeled her outside and waited for me to bring the car around. My aunt and I placed mom's items and wheelchair in the car while dad told mom to keep faith, strength, and love in her heart. Once in the car, I changed the radio to the local NPR station, and we headed for the hospital.
I dropped my aunt and mom near the clinic tower while I parked the car. We arrived at the admission's desk and handed over her appointment papers and patient identifcation card. The woman at the front desk called up to make sure the bed was available. "Yes...Sooong. S-U-N. No. N. N as in no. S-U-N-G. G-G-G. No, one G. S-U-N-G. Sooong. Her number is 823-38-50. What? No, it's a woman. Okay, hold on."
And, on and on, it went.
The nurse who I called the night had indeed secured a bed, but it was for another Sung. We were asked to try another day. Sorry. That's how cookies and mothers crumble...
This is how it's been for the past three months. Stutters of progress, where defeat and patience walk hand in hand. We are both thankful and frustrated to be where we are.

Mother's Index

8: The number of hours between Zofran (anti-emetic) via IV push
18: Average number of times mother has vomited per day since December 21, 2008
2: Number of times we visit the hospital to draw blood
5: Day in December when we found out about mother's cancer
6: The number of hours between each bag of Bactrim (antibiotic)
10: Units of insulin in each bag
3: Months allowed for the Family Medical Leave Act
16: The number of hours the total parenteral nutrition (TPN) bag runs
2050: The total ml of each TPN bag
1000: The ml of sodium chloride mother takes for dehydration
4: The stage of the cancer
6-8: Weeks before one knows whether the chemo is effective
12-15: The estimated number of months she has to live