That’s the glory of love. That is sacrifice. That is the face of a family going through the most severe and sad of circumstances, gracefully. Laughing and crying. Yes, there are ups and downs, and a few turn arounds along the way. We had high hopes that we’d sit around laughing and singing as we have [...]
Craig has a palliative care nurse who visits every week to assess “quality of life concerns” such as chapped lips, split tongue, intractable hiccups, vomiting, relentless pain and the like. She visited Craig two weeks ago during the time when his speech and breath were still interrupted by unstoppable hiccups, and asked him what his goals were. [...]
We thought we knew hard but we had no idea. While having my parents and craig reunite is important and necessary, the actual management of them hit another stratosphere of complexity. A routine has not yet been established and, in so doing, there are always logistical challenges and general pitfalls of the respective diseases to [...]
Wowee wow wow. What a day, what a day! Whewww. The moment we’ve been planning, retracting, planning again, changing the course, and worrying about has arrived. The moment that would reunite parents and son, cancer patient with cancer patient has taken place at last.
Diane told the front end of the story, which began today on a sleepy Stillwater Airstrip but [...]
Mom and Dad just left Stillwater like a bunch o’pimps in their own private jet, which was generously provided by the Williams Energy Corporation (yeah, I just plugged them.) And they deserve it, too. The plane arrived in our rinky-dink little airport with three burly guys to help load her on. Her wheelchair was too [...]
Well, I’m not really leaving as of today. The original plan included me flying from Denver to escort the rents a la a commercial flight. Diane and Jill would take up the rear en coche con animales. (Bet that’s not even accurate Spanish…been a few years. Sounds a bit like someone had car with animals, [...]
May 8th marked the night of the Blues Music Awards. It would air at 8ish EST, 6pm Denver time or as we refer to here—antibiotic time. Noticing the time, I hooked up the antifungal and then went to work, registering for a free membership to XM so that we could stream the bluesville radio program through Craig’s [...]
As Erin mentioned, sing alongs are typical for passing time. Since time immemorial, we’ve tried to outperform each other in annoying song-dance tributes. The three girls will typically start things off, with the rest of the family chiming in for an over-the-top, craptastic sing along. All of us have our go-to songs. For instance, Dad’s favorite is a [...]
In sixth grade I met my soon to be best friend on the bus to school. She offered me some of her chocolate flavored chapstick and we became fast friends forever after. What I didn’t realize at the time was that becoming friends with Pearl meant befriending her entire family. They were [...]
Back in the day, we (i.e. the four kids + dad) used to have a cuss can in which we were to deposit one quarter for every time we said an impolite word. Though, technically, we should have been able to collect enough to pay for at least three college tuitions, I doubt we had [...]