~the foothills of Alberta ~

I'll be taking Emil and Everett and moving to Kelowna in mid-to-late August. I'd been waffling on that quite a bit, thinking I could fly back and forth for a week every month, until I was on the drive home after parting with Mom. Then it became clear that if she was on her deathbed, I would not be able to leave. Very plain, very simple. I would be torn between getting home to my kids, who need me, and staying with my mom and dad, who will also need me when/if things get bad. Chances are, things will. We have to be ready for that. And I will need to be there, for my own sanity. So off we go. I expect it will be temporary, but will figure that out later and for now, just go with it.

~ driving through the Rocky Mountains ~

My sister Karen, who lives out here on a farm just 15 minutes from me, is also taking her 13-year-old daughter and moving to Kelowna in early August. We are leaving our farming spouses behind. Scott's feeling down about that today, but he understands. He's seen the shape I'm in when I'm worried about Mom from this distance. So he'll come out when he can, and so will Karen's husband Dick, probably after harvest. They both raise cattle too, so will have to come back and deal with that. But it can be done, and they are being supportive, and what more can one ask from a partner? We sisters are lucky in our menfolk.

~ driving, driving, driving through the Rockies ~

Mom's feeling fine, by the way. Just some chest pain from the kidney cancer spreading into her breastbone, and she tires easily. There were some complications from taking morphine and anti-inflammatories to handle the discomfort, and I was up in the night with Mom once. What to do seemed obvious, and I remained calm although it was quite distressing to see her in such pain. The next day she said, "Your dad would have called an ambulance. He would not have thought of telling me to do this and this, as you did, and he wouldn't have known where to massage my feet. The pain seemed to go away right after you did that."

~there is always road construction on the #1 hwy~

The first day we were in BC, I spent the day at the cancer clinic with Mom and Dad. This was the day they would find out if Mom could get on the experimental drug trial, and Dad was wound up so tight I was afraid he'd have a heart attack. He knew how much Mom was hoping to get on the trial, and was afraid of seeing her disappointed. You see, Mom's prognosis was that without treatment, she'd only have six to twelve months to live. It's only a best guess, of course, but it's a pretty daunting idea for all of us to face up to. We are scared shitless. (Well, Mom isn't; "I'm not afraid of dying," she said, "but I'd like to live a little longer than that, if I can.")

~ who knew there are pyramids in Alberta?
this is near Drumheller on our rainy drive home ~

There is the standard immunology (interfuron) treatment, but there is an experimental drug trial starting right away and she is eligible to participate in it. If she'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer even a month sooner, she'd already have been taking some other kind of treatment and would not have been eligible for this new one. So she feels rather lucky, considering the timing.

~ coming back through a rainy Saskatchewan ~

Who knows, maybe it will be the miracle cure the world has been waiting for. On the way back to their Salmon Arm condo from the clinic in Kelowna, I saw a semi-truck with "nothing short of a miracle" painted on it as I was mulling the possibilities over. Now if there is no miracle, I won't be able to believe there is meaning in synchronicities and apparent coincidences anymore. Nope. Because that, to me, was a pretty straightforward and powerful message of hope.

On the last stretch of our drive home, we were coming east out of St. Gregor, Saskatchewan, when a deer leapt out in front of the van and I drove right over it. It happened so fast I had no time to try to avoid the animal, even if I'd had a place to swerve to. A semi had just pulled out to pass on my left, and on the right, maybe 50 feet across the ditch, was a train. I had no choice but to go straight ahead and hope for the best.

There was very little damage to the van — the deer's body tore off the front license plate and put a silver-dollar-size hole in the plastic in front of the bumper, but that was all we have been able to see. Tomorrow I have an appointment to have things checked out.

We stopped and got out of the vehicle, which was covered in deer hair and snot right around to the rear window and stunk to high heaven. Scott walked back to find the license plate and pull the mangled deer off the road. I followed slowly, sad. There was probably a fawn somewhere hidden in the bushes back of the ditch's tall grass, but we would be highly unlikely to find it. "They hide so well, it's almost impossible to find them," Scott told me.

I still feel bad.