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Aug. 5th, 2004 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynIf I'm flakier than usual for a while, I hope that my friends will understand. I just got off the phone with my sister, aka Evil Twin, and she is having major surgery next week to remove a rapidly enlarging cyst on her ovary. She's been in poor health for a while, but they said it wasn't anything to be alarmed by (they *always* say that, the lying fucks) -- that she was anemic because of a cold she couldn't shake, and all kinds of other crap. They said now that some of her problems could be that the cyst is twisting around the ovary, and that's it's enlarged so much that now they have to go in and cut the whole ovary out. Her CT count -- what they use to see if there are cancer cells -- is elevated slightly.
This is what my mom died from. Ovarian cancer and a lot of neglect and lies. Her prick of a doctor told her that her stomach was just pressing on her liver or some dumbass thing, when you could see her gettting sicker and sicker and more and more bloated with fluid. This was a woman who never got sick except for some very serious things like polyps on her uterus and a breast cyst. When we finally got her to the oncologist, they ended up taking over 6 liters of fluid out of her abdomen -- she looked as if she was 14 months pregnant. Even after the surgery and a successful first year of chemo, she never fully recovered, and in the end, when her cancer came back, she was so debilitated that a horrible infection killed her in the most agonizing way possible. This is all I can think of.
My twin sister and I are not related by blood to my mom, but because we're adopted, we know nothing of our medical history. Maybe ovarian cancer runs in our family, too, but we'll never know. And listening to my sister spell out the details of her death because she doesn't have time to get a power of attorney and other things, in the event she dies in the operation, is like reliving the two years of mom's illness and fight all over again. Everyone keeps telling me that lots of people have cysts removed. And Sis says that the doctors told her that an elevated CT count could simply be because of the inflammation. But they say lots of terrible, lying things, and I no longer believe the stories of benignness and hope and all that other shit. Tomorrow she goes in for a full body CT scan, and the surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. I'm supposed to take off for Vividcon in the wee hours of Thursday morning. I don't know what to do. If something happens after surgery like an infection, I'll be stuck on a plane, unable to be contacted. I might have to turn right around and head to southern California. She doesn't want me to change plans, since most of the time all we do is bicker and quibble anyway. But she's my only blood relative that I know of, and even though we don't like each other, we love each other. And I don't want anything to happen to her, and it would kill my dad. I really think it would kill him.
I'm so terrified of surgery. People don't always come through it. Bad things can happen afterwards. I'll be a wreck all through the con. She has friends to take care of her, but I still feel like I should be there, just because unlike with my mom, I can't get on a plane and be there in a few hours if anything goes wrong, like she was able to. She's more worried about a home for her kitties than anything else. I'm sick to my stomach and I know I just have to carry on like nothing bad is happening, but it is. It could be as bad as it gets. I've been there, I know what it's like. So no matter how much she says "I have to focus on the positive," all I can think of is the negative. I've looked forward to Vividcon more than anything else for so long now, and suddenly it feels very far away, and very frivolous and wrong. The first time mom got sick, it was right before my first big trip to England. And that was always in the back of my head, and suddenly it feels very much like that time again, after all these years. If I'm out of the loop, out of contact, out of sanity, this is why.
This is what my mom died from. Ovarian cancer and a lot of neglect and lies. Her prick of a doctor told her that her stomach was just pressing on her liver or some dumbass thing, when you could see her gettting sicker and sicker and more and more bloated with fluid. This was a woman who never got sick except for some very serious things like polyps on her uterus and a breast cyst. When we finally got her to the oncologist, they ended up taking over 6 liters of fluid out of her abdomen -- she looked as if she was 14 months pregnant. Even after the surgery and a successful first year of chemo, she never fully recovered, and in the end, when her cancer came back, she was so debilitated that a horrible infection killed her in the most agonizing way possible. This is all I can think of.
My twin sister and I are not related by blood to my mom, but because we're adopted, we know nothing of our medical history. Maybe ovarian cancer runs in our family, too, but we'll never know. And listening to my sister spell out the details of her death because she doesn't have time to get a power of attorney and other things, in the event she dies in the operation, is like reliving the two years of mom's illness and fight all over again. Everyone keeps telling me that lots of people have cysts removed. And Sis says that the doctors told her that an elevated CT count could simply be because of the inflammation. But they say lots of terrible, lying things, and I no longer believe the stories of benignness and hope and all that other shit. Tomorrow she goes in for a full body CT scan, and the surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. I'm supposed to take off for Vividcon in the wee hours of Thursday morning. I don't know what to do. If something happens after surgery like an infection, I'll be stuck on a plane, unable to be contacted. I might have to turn right around and head to southern California. She doesn't want me to change plans, since most of the time all we do is bicker and quibble anyway. But she's my only blood relative that I know of, and even though we don't like each other, we love each other. And I don't want anything to happen to her, and it would kill my dad. I really think it would kill him.
I'm so terrified of surgery. People don't always come through it. Bad things can happen afterwards. I'll be a wreck all through the con. She has friends to take care of her, but I still feel like I should be there, just because unlike with my mom, I can't get on a plane and be there in a few hours if anything goes wrong, like she was able to. She's more worried about a home for her kitties than anything else. I'm sick to my stomach and I know I just have to carry on like nothing bad is happening, but it is. It could be as bad as it gets. I've been there, I know what it's like. So no matter how much she says "I have to focus on the positive," all I can think of is the negative. I've looked forward to Vividcon more than anything else for so long now, and suddenly it feels very far away, and very frivolous and wrong. The first time mom got sick, it was right before my first big trip to England. And that was always in the back of my head, and suddenly it feels very much like that time again, after all these years. If I'm out of the loop, out of contact, out of sanity, this is why.
