Columbus OH

This is another installment for masochists and relatives.

Sunday (the 11th) was Mother's Day, and we all had a tear-jerker in a private dining room at the nursing home. Everyone attended: all three children, their spouses, and the two grandchildren. Paul took photos with his digital camera and meticulously waited attendance on grandma. Bobbi and Rhonda managed a remarkably close approximation of the traditional Georgia Mae dinner -- good enough to satisfy grandma. As always, the food was in surplus and was parceled out to the different families for leftovers. Lew got the remnants of the two pies: lemon and chocolate, and polished them off in a couple of days.

The rest of the week Lew was mostly alone at the house, dogsitting. Since Bobbi used the van to go visit with her mother as much as possible, he was pretty much isolated at the house, walking the dogs and surfing the web.

On Wednesday morning (the 14th) Lew had a little variety when he went to St. Vincent's Family Center for their Deaf clinic. His other variety was on Thursday morning (the 15th), when he escorted Paul to the gastroenterologist for colonoscopy and esophagoscopy. Paul did not enjoy the experience, and coming out of the anesthetic was pretty grouchy. In the afternoon Lew took Smokey to the vet to have a rash examined, and picked him up just before supper. But since the vet's office was only a few hundred feet outside the door, this did not introduce a whole lot of variety.

On Thursday Bobbi suffered still another blow when the oncologist phoned her to report that the repeat MRI showed radiation had not materially affected mother's intracranial metastases. When pressed, he advised Bobbi that average survival for someone in mother's circumstances was about two months. Naturally, she was devastated, and Lew spent considerable time just being with her.

On Friday (the 16th) Bobbi visited her internist and got a prescription for a sedative.

Today (Saturday the 17th) the three children all met at the nursing home to transmit the negative news to their mother -- and at this point Bobbi has not yet returned.