Prayers for my Mom

The diagnosis is official.  It’s Stage 3 lung cancer.  Basic options are painful radiation treatment for six weeks, buying her a few months, or no treatment, leaving her with six month, more or less.

If the latter, then breathing will get harder, strength weaker, and pain will begin and increase till she passes.  The good news, according to my wife who knows about such things, is that she should qualify for hospice and, presumably, lots of pain management drugs.

Still processing.  You think of the strangest things: memories of sitting in a highchair and being fed custard, old home movies of her in her vigor, selfish and self-pitying thoughts of feeling vaguely naked under a pitiless sky with no older generation to protect you.  When Mom goes, I’ll be the adult in the room.  All that wisdom she handed down, all that love, and all those old stories from the past will be alive only in me and my brothers.  And I’m a pretty leaky vessel for that legacy.

She’s pretty comfy at present and still has a hearty appetite and no pain.  Just weak and easily tired.  We saw her last Saturday and will try to make opportunities to go down and visit regularly (she’s in Olympia and we north of Seattle).  She’ll need to decide soon what she wants to do.

Anyway.  Prayers please, particularly for comfort in her last months and above all for the grace of a happy death in Christ.  She is not Catholic, but was raised Anglican and believes in Jesus.