04.07.04 - 3:07 p.m.

Everything's going fine and dandy, mostly, except late at night when my rooms are too small and there's not enough light and the neighbor's television sounds through the too-thin walls. I'm tired of this monkey-closeness with virtually unseen strangers. I want the grass to be my own and I want to move through private indoor space that actually changes, rather than three boring rooms that are always the same. Also: I want to open the window at night and sleep with the cool air seeping in through the window, pollen and bugs or no.

Dad was going to come with me to look at my latest house. (I should've checked to see whether or not I'm out of the other contract yet.) I bought a sympathy card for H's dad, who died yesterday from lung cancer. (My mother told me: and what could I say? The funeral was today, but I couldn't make it. Actually: I didn't want to go, selfish as that is. Taking over the banana bars was enough. Hospice is called in: euphemism for he's dying. And so he did.) I picked up the pendant I had engraved at the Sterling House.

...and, when I got back to the office, ta-da, I had a call from Dad. I knew it wasn't good, because there was no reason for him to call me, and if it was good, he probably would've left more of a message. Plus, in the back of my mind was the knowledge that mom had had her CT scan yesterday, and the results were pending.

So, CT scan - not good. Most immediately, Mom has a clot in her inferior vena cava, just above the level of the renal vein, extending down into the bifurcation into the iliac veins. She has this major blood clot when her last platelet count was 40 whatevers platelets come in, so low that.. well, low enough to stop chemo and do a CT scan and find the clot and whatnot. She also has, apparently, a herniated bowel, which is the reason her stomach hasn't gotten, well, flat after surgery, even when she was still pretty sick and losing weight from the chemo. And, she has a new growth that someone-or-other (the everpresent: they although presumeably, in this case, the radiologist) thinks is benign, but which is new since her surgery.

I don't know what's going to happen with that. I don't know how "they" can tell that something is benign v. not benign, and if "they" can tell, I don't think I trust them since the surgeon thought her cancerous ovary was benign before he operated on her and told her she could wait until whenever to have her surgery.

This happened the last time I was pondering a house and wanted dad to see it: well, something like it. Mom was in the hospital, and we just couldn't work it out in a timely fashion. I'm going back to that house tonight, though. I'm going to study from top to bottom, and I'll make a decision myself. I don't want to... I want good news to go with the bad.

I know Mom - I know Mom was thinking of herself as a parallel Mr. G, what with the cancer and all, or, maybe I was thinking of Mom as a parallel Mr. G, which wasn't such a good idea since Mr. G. had lung cancer and Mom doesn't, and lung cancer is really, really bad, and ovarian cancer isn't quite as bad, but he died and now Mom has bad news and it's not a good day, is it?