Flaxseed Proves Itself

[Tom]

Dear Steph,

I appreciate your kind comments, as I do all of you who have mentioned my Mother's care. But I must insist that you all understand one thing. My decision to stay at home and care for my Mother was totally selfish on my part. It is selfish because I do it mostly because I can't bear the thought of being without her one minute sooner than is necessary. Granted, I might be
a bit in denial about the inevitability of death for us all, as her surgeon was so quick to point out after the realization of his/her failure to properly stage Mom, not to mention the pathology report showing her cancer to be HER2+. The surgeon's exact words to me were, "It would be nice if we could all live forever". Some of my friends even kid me about being the modern day Norman Bates. But I am not one to except the inevitable without a fight.

My Mother was and is now, though perhaps in a different way, the most loving and thoughtful human being I have ever met. I know my view of her is jaded, but if any of you knew her for five minutes, you would agree. She was the town's librarian for almost thirty years. We still have grown people, men and women, come up to us and thank her for helping them with their homework over the years. She still says "Oh boy, thanks a lot", when I put her dinner in front of her. She was nothing short of a saint in my opinion, and is probably the only woman that never hurt me (sorry ladies), other than happening to get sick with the Beast. My decision to stay with her and help her to the end of her days was a no-brainer. I also promised my Dad on his death bed that I wouldn't let her go into a nursing home. A woman I was engaged to, asked me casually one day, "Where are we going to put your Mother?" At first the question didn't even register, but then I caught on and an argument ensued. Then came the ultimatum, "Either she goes or I do". I will simply say that Mom is, as I type this post, soundly snoring away in her comfy bed. Enough about that. But I did want to thank all of your for your kind words anyway, though I don't really deserve them.

Fighting the Beast is not new around this house. My Dad fought his cancer from right after I was born, till the day he left us from a colorectal malignancy that recurred after 17 years. All of his 9 siblings succumbed to the Beast. I can honestly say that I HATE cancer with a passion that is hard to describe. I hate what it does to it's victims, and I hate what it does to those that love them. In my opinion, it is evil incarnate, and should be studied and researched no matter the cost, until it is wiped out in our lifetime.

Anyway, I am greatful to Joe and Christine, and all of those who post here. This website has become my sanctuary. I come here to read whether I
am in the depths of despair over Mom's disease, or simply excited about a new piece of information that I have managed to stumble across on the web. I think I went through withdrawal while this website was down for remodeling. There were days when I thought I just couldn't go on, mostly when we were driving to radiation therapy every morning, for the second round after Mom's second surgery. We would come home and I would get her in her recliner,put a bucket of food in front of her, and race upstairs to see what was new on the message board. You have all been an emotional lifeline to me, and I will be forever greatful.

And StephN, I was jealous when you mentioned that you played the violin. One day I was so distraught over our situation, that I sat down to order a violin over the Internet, determined that I was going to teach myself to play...lol. After a moment of insanity, I came to my senses and realized that I no more had time to learn the violin, than I did to study molecular biology, though I have been shopping around Amazon.com to see if there are any primers on the subject. It would be far easier to struggle through many of these research abstracts if I didn't have to stop and look up words like "phosphorylation" and "heterodimer". Some days it's hard to transition from woodworking to the mysteries of the cell cycle.

And to Sue, the mention of those brownies brings back memories of Mom when I was a child, just starting my career as a baked goods tester...lol. Mom was a great cook, as was her Mother. I am going to look for her old recipe book. I'm sure there was a brownie formula in there somewhere. The Hershey's Cocoa that would no doubt be used, contains lots of good polyphenols, and walnuts and flaxseed would round out the necessary excuse for wolfing down the occasional 2 or 3, purely for therapeutic purposes of course. I'll put it on my list of things to do. Well, it's after 2 AM here, so I'm off to dream of chocolate eclairs and Taxotere. Good Night All.