Long Time, No Blog

So, it's been a while since I've blogged on my own site. I usually do all my blogging through the girls' blog, but since there have been a lot of changes, I thought I'd post on here. I'm probably going to go on and on here, so ignore my rambling.

This year has been crazy for the Prices. At the beginning of the year, my mom had been on a new type of chemo and it seemed to be working. Both Patsy (my sister-in-law) and I were pregnant and things were going pretty smoothly. My, how things change...

Summer came around and my family went to Hawaii and had an amazing time. During the two weeks we were there, we got to snorkel, sight-see, and spend time with my family while enjoying some fantastic scenery. While by the ocean, I wondered in the back of my mind if this was the last trip we were going to take as a family (the year before we all went to the Oregon coast and stayed on the beach) because of my mom's condition. I didn't want to think about it, but with cancer, especially stage IV ovarian cancer, you tend to think of the end.

After we got home from the trip and returned to real life, my mom's doctor discovered that the chemo my mom had been on hadn't been effective and the spots on the liver (that they were really concerned about) had been growing. They wanted to try a new drug, but it wasn't FDA-approved and were having insurance issues. Finally in August, the doctors decided that they had exhausted all options and were moving to comfort care for 6 months to a year, which was a nice way of saying that there was no more to do and the end was in sight.

While this was all happening, I really leaned on Garrett and depended on him to keep my sanity. He is a chaplain for a hospice company and has a lot of experience with what I was going through, so he was there for tell me that it was okay to feel how I felt and to hold me when all I could do was cry. I still remember the phone call that I got from my dad to tell me that there was no more to do. It wasn't fair that my daughters weren't going to have there grandma and it wasn't fair that my brother was going to have his first child and that my mom wouldn't be there to see him grow up. It wasn't fair that my dad was going to be alone for the first time in 40 years and that I wouldn't be able to call my mom anymore with questions about gardening, cooking, or just to talk like we had done so quite often. I took a week off work after we got the news and spent a lot of time at my parents' house talking to my mom and just being there with Kami as a distraction for all of us.

Labor Day weekend came in September and between the news in August and September 7th, my mom had gone downhill quicker than anyone saw coming. She hadn't been eating much or moving around as well as she had previously. I got another fateful phone call from my dad on Sunday night of Labor Day weekend to tell me that my mom wasn't doing so well and that she was pretty unresponsive to people. The hospice nurse was thinking that it was the morphine that they had put her on (maybe it was too much) and they were switching her pain meds yet again to try to make her better. We went in to town on Monday and in my mom's chair was a different person than before. She was sleeping a lot and even though she knew you were there, she didn't say much or respond much. It was extremely hard for me to see my vibrant, strong, talkative mother in this state, especially since we had talked about having her in the delivery room for Brooklyn's delivery (I really wanted her there since she had never experience childbirth herself) and I was getting closer to my due date.

September 8th, I went back to work after a three-day weekend. I got sent home early so I could take that day off for Saturday and we headed into town. My mom had been on different pain medications since Monday morning and she seemed to be responding well. The nurse seemed to think that the changes had been due to the morphine instead of the cancer, which is what we were all hoping for. Things were looking up for us and my mom had even talked about going to the Oregon Coast next year for our family vacation. When we first got the news about comfort cares, I was really hoping to get through the holidays with no issues, but again, how things change.

The next day, I didn't want to go back to work and was so uncomfortably pregnant that I called in. We had our 38-week appointment with our doctor the day before and talked about inducing. He stripped the membranes while we were there and told us to go to the mall and walk a lot, so we tried walking around, but not much happened until Wednesday afternoon. I had been having contractions Tuesday night, but nothing too regular, but things changed on Wednesday and we went to the hospital that night. I was dilated to 3 cm, but nothing was happening, so they sent us home. Garrett and I went to IHOP and then back to his parents' house. We decided to stay in town just in case things happened and it would be easier to drive from their house than ours in Nampa and Kami would already be with someone. Thursday I called in again and Garrett, Kami, and I went on a big walk around the neighborhood and to a park. On our way home, I got a call from my mom who sounded the best she had in a few days. She wasn't going to be at the hospital for the delivery, which was sad, but I was still hopeful that we would see them at the hospital. I had been having contractions all day long, but still didn't feel like anything was changing. Finally later in the afternoon, my contractions got closer together and more intense. I didn't want to go to the hospital again just to be sent home, so I probably waited too long and my water finally broke at 6:15, so we headed to the hospital. When we got there, I was dying for an epidural and was at 6 cm, so I knew we weren't going anywhere. By the time they got us to our labor and delivery room, I was at 8 cm and even though no one said anything about it, I knew I wasn't getting that epidural. Our doctor got there just in time for me to start pushing and four contractions later, Brooklyn was born at 7:45 pm. I had no idea I could make it through labor and delivery without drugs and feel so good afterwards. After they got everyone cleaned up, Garrett's parents came to our room with Kami and they all got to see the new baby. It was bittersweet because my parents weren't there, but my dad sounded very proud and excited when I called him on the phone.

We got to go home on Friday the 11th and went straight to my parents' house with the girls. My mom even got to hold Brooklyn, even if she was in a wheelchair. She didn't look very good, but she put on a strong face. During the month of September, I spent a lot of time in town with my parents, sitting with my mom, and giving my dad a break from being caretaker. During the month, my mom did get a bit better from the morphine setback, but there were still obvious signs that the cancer was progressing and it was doing so quicker than any of us had thought.

October came and Nick and Patsy were getting closer to their due date and my mom was continuing to decline. They had meetings with people about things (funeral plans, cremation plans, etc.) and had gotten their ducks in a row. My mom had three goals to meet before she died: to make it past Brooklyn's birth, make it past Jonah's birth, and to see her family. She got to go to northern Idaho in August to see her family, she saw and held Brooklyn, and now she was one goal away. The latter part of the first week of October came even more changes with my mom's health. She had started to sleep much more often and had become anxious and agitated more easily. The weekend before Jonah's birth, my dad had to start giving my mom an anti-anxiety medication along with her morphine that really knocked my mom out. Sunday night, she went to bed, Monday morning (the 12th), she got out of bed on her own and even moved around a bit, but that day a hospital bed was delivered to the house and she was in it Monday night until her death early Thursday morning. Monday afternoon, she knew Jonah William had been born and got to hold a picture of him, and met her last goal. She held on to the picture of Jonah that my dad had gotten printed off until she went to bed that night and got it the next day. My dad even left the house for a few minutes after I was there to go see them at the hospital. He was so proud of Nick and Patsy and thrilled to have another grandchild.

I had come into town Monday afternoon after a phone call from my dad telling me that the hospice nurse thought my mom would die sometime within a week. I packed up the family and we decided we would stay with my parents. Unfortunately, Garrett had to go to Portland for some school, so he would be leaving on Tuesday afternoon, fly home Thursday morning, fly back Friday night, then drive back home for good on Wednesday afternoon. Originally, he was going to be driving out Tuesday and not home until the next Wednesday, but because of my mom's condition, we ended up buying a plane ticket for him to come home in between his class sessions. Garrett's parents were gracious enough to take the girls during the nights, so they were one less thing to worry about. After Sunday night, we were giving my mom her anti-anxiety medication every four hours, so she was basically knocked out to avoid any agitations and leaving her comfortable and peaceful.

On Tuesday, my mom was in bed but was still awake here and there, but not much. Garrett and I were able to talk to her and Kami went up and talked to my mom like there was nothing different. It broke my heart to hear Kami talk to her grandma and tell her that she loved her. She was so sweet to my mom and my dad, continuing to give them lots of hugs and kisses, like she knew that that's what they needed in those moments. She got right up on the chair next to my mom and talked to her about going to the zoo, coloring pictures, and hanging out with Grandma and Papa (Garrett's parents). Garrett drove to Portland that afternoon after taking the girls back to his parents' house and Nick came over for Tuesday night dinner with more pictures of Jonah.

On Wednesday, the hospice nurse came over again and told us that because of her oxygen levels, she thought that it would happen in a day or so. Her breathing had gotten worse and it sounded like she had a lot of fluid and mucous in the back of her throat. Kami and Brooklyn came by and before I took Kami back over to Dave and Carol's, she gave my mom a hug and a kiss, not knowing that was the last time she would see her. Later that night, my aunts and I decided we would stay up with my mom since my dad had been doing so and not getting much sleep (we made him go upstairs and sleep on the sofa bed instead of sleeping on the couch or on the floor). Around 12:30, my mom's breathing changed, so I went to get my dad and called my brother. My dad rushed downstairs and he was on her right side and I was on her left side listening for each breath. She had one last breath and then nothing. My dad leaned over, kissed her on the forehead, and told her to have a good trip. A few minutes later, Nick showed up from the hospital.

During the whole week, I was able to talk to her and hold her hand. It was hard to talk to her without her responding, but I'm glad I did it. I'm glad that I was able to be there throughout all the hard moments because there were some good moments in there too. After everything, I still talk to my mom and have felt pretty good. I thought that after she died, I would be a wreck, but I've felt better than I thought I should. The other night, though, I had a question about pies, but I couldn't call my mom like I normally do. And this year was the first Halloween that Kami really understood, and it was hard to not have my mom there to be an excited grandma. Her loss hits me at weird times when it's not expected. I was getting a massage, so I should be relaxed, but all I could think about was the huge hole in my heart and had to try really hard to not cry during my massage. I didn't pay money to cry! I can do that for free at home!

The past three years has been a rollercoaster of emotions. There have been low lows and high highs. I have a lot of great memories that I will carry with me forever and I hope that Kami will have some memories of her as well. Even though the cancer was not a blessing, we received many because of it. I'm not sure my family would be as close as we are today if my mom hadn't gotten cancer. I don't know if we would have gone to the Oregon coast or Hawaii together. I'm sure my mom and I wouldn't have been as honest with each other if she hadn't gotten that diagnosis.

I always felt cheated to only have 3 grandparents growing up. I hope Kami doesn't feel cheated, but lucky to have such a wonderful grandma. I hope we can tell Brooklyn and Jonah stories of her so she can be a part of their heritage. I know that her loss will be easier someday, but sometimes I don't want it to be easier because I feel like that might mean I'm forgetting her, which is something that I fear. I thank God for the times that we had with my mom and am at peace because she is no longer in pain and met all her goals. I miss her tremendously and not a day goes by that I don't wish she were still here.