What follows is true and ongoing, though names have been changed and it’s told from my point of view, so please take that into consideration. I will update as I can.

Cast of Characters:

~Mary (Mom) – A 77-year-old child at heart who had 5 children and had preferred chiropractic care over traditional medicine.

~Carol – The oldest of Mary’s 5 children, an alcoholic who suffered from DTs at one point, hospitalized and changed from oxygen deprivation, currently living with Mary, unable to work.

~Heather – Second daughter, diabetic with manic and depressive episodes, but as far as the author knows, was never formally diagnosed with bi-polar. Lives with her husband.

~Natalie – Third daughter, and eclectic artist who lives with her husband and daughter. A macabre personality and lives the furthest away.

~Bruce – The only son, alcoholic who returned to help repair the way-under-cared for house but has hardly made any moves to repair anything.

~Cathy – The author and fifth child of Mary. Lives in her van because rent and home prices are out of control, and van living was preferable to living in her mother’s hoarder home.

~Jean – Carol’s daughter, Mary’s oldest grandchild and a wanted felon.

December

My mother, Mary, had been going almost weekly to the chiropractor for about 30 years. I believe in chiropractic care, had worked in a chiropractor’s office and had seen what could be called miracles walk out of that office. But Mom had been diagnosed with osteoporosis after many falls, and when she had complained that a substitute doctor had hurt her back last summer, I told her that she should only let Dr. Burke adjust her, the doctor that she’d been going to all these years. This past December, she had complained about the tens-unit, which she calls “the zapper”, which is a device that sends electric waves into your muscles to stimulate them. It started with back pain, strong enough to keep her home from work. She has to work as a lunch lady to cover the cost of the taxes for the house – good ole’ American Dream! Jean had come to stay for “a couple of days” over Christmas but, as all expected, it lasted longer and into the next month. Jean has every single symptom of a psychopath without exaggeration, and is also wanted for bail bonds in another state. Her visits always come with chaos and this time was no different.

January

By the end of January even the chiropractor was telling Mom that she needed to go to a regular doctor. I mentioned Urgent Care, since she didn’t have a regular doctor and she didn’t want to go to the hospital. She could barely walk without guidance from either a helping hand or leaning on walls and counters, it was time. A Saturday chiropractic appointment where she was not adjusted but told to come back after she’d seen a regular doctor became a Thursday Urgent Care walk-in where they diagnosed her with pneumonia and gave her the first round of antibiotics. Jean was staying at my mother’s house and would pester her without even seeing that her grandmother was in pain and sick. One evening, Jean and my mother were fighting so badly that her neighbor came to her window to ask if everything was alright. I’m not sure if the police were called, but that was the last night that my niece was there. My brother, Bruce, and I did send an edible arrangement to them in appreciation.

February

Mom was still sick so a second round of antibiotics were given and Mom said the color of her phlegm was better, but her back was still bugging her and she spent all of her time laying in her bed. By the last week of the month, I was growing more and more concerned. When she mentioned that her bottom was sore, and that she was afraid of getting a bed sore, I began a group text message that I called The Five. In it I told everyone, my four siblings, that I believed that Mom needed to be convinced to go to the doctor. My oldest sister, Carol, who lost a lot of oxygen when she couldn’t get alcohol and had been hospitalized, was upset that I sent the message. She currently lives with my mother and does not, can not work. She takes the garbage out and to the curb. She feeds the dogs and lets them out into the backyard. She goes with my mother to the chiropractor, church and food shopping. But that alone has been her contribution to the household. Food, cigarettes, marijuana (which is recreationally legal in my state, so don’t judge us) is all supplied by Mom. In her defense, she’s not all there, not the same sister that I grew up with. Her response to the message was “Mom says she’s fine! She just needs to rest and heal” which was the point of the text, dear sister. Mom says she’s fine but she is not.

The last day of February, a Friday, my mother decides on her own that she is having shortness of breath and needs to go to the ER. My brother was there and called the ambulance for her.

March Week 1

CT scans were done and on Sunday I saw a doctor who told me that there were lesions found in her bones, in her uterus and a 5-6 cm mass in her liver, which they wanted to do a biopsy on. The biopsy was done on Monday and on Wednesday I get a call from my mom, doctor is there and wants to talk to Us.

It is cancer.

The doctor tells me that she’ll spend another week-or-so in the hospital, then she’ll be sent to rehab. Once she gets strong enough to come home, we can bring her to outpatient treatment. The next day, my mom calls me to let me know that she’s being transferred to a rehab that day. So much for a week in the hospital! I had taken the day off from work to process the news that my mother had been diagnosed with this awful thing and I spent it shopping for things she would need in the rehab. I had gone into her room to look for clothes and stuff to bring, but from my point of view, it is a hoarder home, with paths that lead to things needed and garbage everywhere. From what I could see, she didn’t have any clean clothes to grab. So, I bought her some clean t shirts, underwear and a couple of sweat outfits to wear in the rehab, and took that Friday off of work too. There was something looming larger than even my mother’s cancer.

March Week 2

My family is more than a bit dysfunctional (which certainly makes us interesting to know) and the house is a big Problem. Even my mother, who was just diagnosed with cancer, looked at me with serious eyes and said “I have to sign the house over to Bruce”. I was the chosen one twice before, but had backed out both times after her childish temper tantrums over the process of clearing out what I see as trash reared their ugly heads. From my point of view, she liked to have the statement “It’s My House” in her pocket and therefore, never actually signed the house over to anyone, but convinced my brother that she would give it to him if he came back to help her out. He’d returned last summer, but she never found the deed and he didn’t want to repair something that he had no say over. It all comes down to Jane, our niece, Carol’s daughter. Mom has always backed down and allowed Jane back in, believed all of her lies, and none of us want to deal with her, including Carol. “She’s Family,” is the answer we would always get. Bruce wasn’t going to spend the time and effort to fix up a house that Jane would return to and destroy. If Mom didn’t actually sign the house over to him, she could say “it’s my house” when Jane turned up looking for shelter. Mind you, at one point, after Jane had beaten up my mother and caused enough bruising for the judge to see from across the room, Mom had a permanent restraining order on Jane. I’m not sure how it stands if Mom breaks it herself by allowing the violent offender back into her home, but anyway… When the holidays came and Mom believed that Jane was on the right track and had a job lined up, was only going to stay for two days before traveling to that job, Bruce was proved right that Mom would pull the “it’s my house” card.

Mom is currently strong in the sentiment that she does not want to see Jane at all. She doesn’t want her knowing where she is, and she knows that she needs to sign the house over to someone soon. We don’t know what kind of cancer she has, what stage it’s at, or if there is any kind of treatment she can get. It’s a waiting game, to get her strong enough to get out – AND that gives us enough time to get cracking on the house. We are getting a dumpster delivered and my brother and I are going to be getting rid of all the garbage.

There is family drama that’s coming along with it, as to be expected. Not your typical family drama. One would assume the children would possibly fight over the ownership of the house, but that’s not the case here. No one wants that responsibility, as my sister Carol sort of comes along with it. Through all of this, she is complaining about being left out, that no one is telling her anything, but all is being relayed through The Five. She has gotten angry at me, snapped at me, YELLED AT ME THROUGH TEXT, and has blocked (and unblocked) me a few times. I am not leaving you out, Mom told the doctors I was the contact to call, and all information is being texted out. If you choose not to get my texts, that’s on you.

The topic of a family lawyer has come up, and the cost of the dumpster needed. Heather, my second sister, pipes in that she paid for Dad’s and Grandma’s funeral all by herself. My father had my brother and I drive to Florida, pick him up and bring him to a hospital in Ohio. We spent the week with him and began heading home when we got the call that he’d passed away. I was 26 years old at the time, Bruce was 28, and we literally had run out of money. Not even money to travel home with after paying what we could to the funeral home. She had covered the balance. My grandmother didn’t have a funeral, it was a mass said for her (no cost) and a gathering at a local restaurant for family. It was all in the same year, a couple of months apart. But yes, you paid your part with Grandma and Dad, so you can sit this one out, no hard feelings. I guess she didn’t like that because the topic had moved on and she kept wanting to talk about it. It was because she had no money. Okay, no worries. It was because she was hangry. Seriously, no worries. She didn’t mean to send that text. WE HAVE MOVED ON! (Not an actual response said, but a definite thought and feeling.) We were talking about different dumpster companies near by at that point.

Another item that is from my point of view, Bruce suffers from Failure to Launch. He has big dreams, and knows what needs to be done, what can be done, big ideas, but nothing ever gets done. He will sit with you over a beer and talk about all the things that can be done, “We can do this, we can do that, we need to do this, we should do that,” but then he’ll crack another beer and keep talking. He’s a hard worker, don’t get me wrong. If there is a task at work that needs to be taken care of, I’m sure he’ll work at it until it’s finished and when he’s finished, say What else have you got? But after work is another ball game altogether. I know where he’s coming from because I am the same way, in a sense. I work hard and rest hard. I never minded leaving my coffee mug in the sink when I lived in an apartment to sit down and write or read.

This house though… we need to get started. Medicare only covers 20 days of rehab, so the house needs to be ready to receive Mom and any nurses that come to see her for PT afterwards. There is no bathroom sink. It’s not that it’s broken, there is none. Just the pipes that come out of the wall. The kitchen sink is busted and rusted. It’s a constant stream that comes out now, after my brother tried to fix the drip leak that was. The toilet on the second floor had been running months ago. Something else my brother tried to fix, but it ended up leaking and now a portion of the ceiling in the kitchen has fallen down, insulation and 50-year-old cobwebs hanging. The room my mother was staying in needs to be cleared out at the very least so that we can get around the new bed we are going to need to get. Bruce called a dumpster rental place today so early next week we can just start clearing out everything.

A fog had settled over my world when I heard the doctor say that the Yes/No test that they had taken turned out Yes. For a couple of days, I was in a sad sort of panic, not knowing anything and finding more questions at every turn. There is still a fog over my world, but I’m navigating it. As each little patch of fog clears, I find an issue to deal with and deal with it. My goal is to keep my mother happy and as pain free as I can. Get her home so we can get some answers on what exactly we are dealing with. One thing at a time, so for now it’s visiting Mom daily and cleaning up the house. Thank you for navigating the fog with me.