I don't know of anything that makes you feel more like a powerless backseat passenger of life's journey than dealing with the prolonged illness of a loved one. That's exactly the road I've been traveling with my mom for the past year.
You might say she's had one the worst years of her life, or the best, depending on how you choose to look at things. It's been a solid string of events that, one after another, it was a miracle she even survived. For that, we are immensely grateful.
When things went downhill
Surgery was scheduled for her kidney, and one problem was fixed. But open heart surgery was on the horizon. Less than two months down the road, she was under the knife again. Within just a couple of weeks after the bypass, it was clear she was not out of the woods.
Another surgery to correct more arterial blockages followed, after weeks of excruciating pain. Apparently when you unkink a hose up the line, any blockages downstream scream out in agony from the new pressure.
Things were looking up
The third round of vascular surgery stopped the pain, and soon my mom appeared to be truly on the road to recovery. We said so many prayers of thanksgiving, knowing beyond a doubt that she had narrowly escaped death on multiple occasions this year.
It looked like clear road ahead. We started our new school year and got a few chapters into Algebra 2 and Geometry, signed my youngest up for co-op and started preparing for driver's ed with the twins. Things were going smoothly enough we even scheduled my older daughter's tonsillectomy, for just about the time the water park closed for the summer. I even started to revive my blog.
My mom, at age 70, was getting better, albeit slowly, and we all started to feel like we could take a deep breath and put this difficult season behind us. But the late summer cold she caught kept holding on, with a cough that refused to go away and shortness of breath that seemed to be a harbinger of trouble to come.