Wow.

My Opa just vacuumed the oven.

Things Are Looking Up

My mom is healing well and is coming home today. I think she'll get better a lot faster if she can rest at home. She's also pleased because she was worried that she'd forget English when she woke up and only remember German, but that didn't happen.

Yesterday night, my dad took Steve and I to Mac for an acedemic councilling session where we got to ask questions about the courses we need to take for Science I. I'm feeling a lot better about university now. This morning I went though the course callendar and bookmarked and highlighted all the information on the classes I'm going to take. They all sound hard and scary, but at least I know what I have to expect. I'm glad Steve has decided what he wanted to do, as well. He seemed worried about getting into med school, but I think he's got his plan now.

I got a whole bunch of papers and a big course callendar book from that session, and they all have some pretty good details on what steps I need to take. There's a checklist, too. (♥ checklists) I spoke to the Astronomy profs, and one of them remembered me from the open house that was in May, which I thought was awesome. He'll be one of my profs, and he's really nice and helpful, so I'm happy about that. One of the others was a really nice woman who explained all the courses to me, and the other was this super-tall older guy that likes to learn about space by shooting lasers at stars. Hmmmm. (Scarlett, go to one of these sessions! I'm not sure when they have the radiation stuff, but the whole thing was really helpful. :D)

On the down-side, my work schedule is looking quite... sparse. They called me off today because there's absolutely no one there, and then I'm only working three days next week. Maybe it's because they're all 8-hour shifts, but... I need at least one more day. Money is good. D:

Anyway, that's my happy little update.

Can't wait for mom to get home.

Long Day

The surgery was this afternoon, and now the biggest part is over. I keep being told to think of this in steps, and it'll be better that way. For now, all she needs to do is rest and get better.

The surgery was delayed because someone screwed up and forgot to do some sort of scan at the pre-op. They had to do it right before, and one everything was figured out, the surgery went on.

It took three hours, even though we were told it would take as long as four or five hours. Everything went perfectly. The surgeon was able to get all of the visable tumor out, and a scan just has to confirm if any cells remain. If it's cancer, it's a "low grade", meaning that it's either non-threatening, or hardly threatening. Of course, the biopsy has to confirm this first. They made the cut below her hairline, so they didn't need to get rid of any hair at all, which I think will make her happy.

We got to see her for only two minutes, and I screwed up those two minutes. She really wasn't as bad-looking as I assumed she would be. The cut was long and very fresh-looking (I don't know how else to describe it). We all held her hands and told her that we were here, and that she did great. She never opened her eyes or spoke, but she nodded. She nodded when they asked if she was in pain. On the side I stood on, my mom had a line into her neck as an alternative to an IV during surgery. It wasn't the incision that bothered me - when I saw that line in her neck, I practically fainted. I guess it wasn't a complete faint because I didn't fall over, but I certainly couldn't see or hear or stand up anymore. The nurse got really pissed when I said I felt faint. "That's exactly why we don't usually let people in here." Sorry lady, but I wanted to see my mother, who just had brain surgery. Screw off. She made us leave a little sooner that we would've had to.

Tomorrow we're going to see her in the morning. I hope I can talk to her... I really want her to know that I miss her and she did such a good job. I hope she's not in pain. I hope she's finally getting some sleep right now.

Keeps Going

Nothing has really set in yet. I can't decide if I've really become numb to all these changes, or I just don't care. I feel odd and kind of out of place.

I've wanted to go out a lot lately. Normally I'm happiest just getting fat in front of my computer, but something keeps telling me to just go and leave. Somewhere. I don't know what. Unfortunately, I'm kind of trapped. My day of driving the Civic went well except for one moment, and now I'm not feeling so enthused about taking the car again. I want to really badly, but we'll see.

My mom's surgery is tomorrow morning. The whole situation is so surreal. My mom was saying today that she still feels like it's not her that it's happening to, it's another person. Tomorrow is going to be a terribly long day. Impatience, fear, and worry don't make time pass quickly. I have jobs tomorrow, too. I'm in charge of bringing my mom's bracelet to her that she really likes after the surgery. It's also my job to call the entire family once she's out of surgery. My cell phone battery has been iffy lately, and I hope it'll last the day if I'm using it constantly.

My oma and opa just had an arguement, while I was sitting here next to them, about going home. My oma says that she wants to stay for at least a week after my mom's surgery to make sure that we'll all be okay (mom's friends have already made up shifts to take her to her radiation therapy and anything else we need to get to), but my opa wants to leave ASAP. He says their house needs to be looked after. My mom's brother lives 10 minutes away from their house, I don't see why he can't take care of it...

Starting

My mom has pre-op today in just a few hours.

Her surgery is scheduled for Monday morning.

But the stupid thing is, my mom can get there and they can tell her that there's no bed space, so they'd have to reschedule the surgery. How stupid. Let's just get it over with.

Driving

Everyone has decided that I am ready to drive the Civic by myself - I just need to start very slowly.

I'm taking it to and from work, and then afterwards, to Steve's house (backroads FTW!), and then hom again.

Wish me luck... :(

I just want...

My Opa won't leave me alone. Ever since he got here, he's been mocking me for wanting to be an astronomer. I realize that jobs aren't exactly wonderful in that area, but I know that if I really work at it and be the best I can be, I can be an astronomer. And maybe I'll end up finding something else I love while in university, and decide to go on a different path.

But my Opa said that if I want to go to school, it should be culinary school. I should be learning how to cook so I can get a husband and make him stay. Actually, I shouldn't even be worrying about school. I should be learning to cook at home.

I've worked too damn hard to just be a housewife. It's fine if others are comfortable with it, but I'm not. I don't want to become the woman who seeks approval through dinner. I want to earn things, I want to work at something I genuinely love and have interest in, and I want to have pride in myself, knowing that I've worked hard to get to where I'll be.

I grumbled about this to my mom. She told me that he went on and on about this to her when she was my age, too. What the hell is his problem?

It's nice that he's here with Oma to help around the house for a while, but I'm sick of being told what to be. I want to be me, not a wife.

This makes me want to never get married.

Prom?

I'm a little surprised that there haven't been any blogs or pictures posted yet that involve prom. What's up? I want pictures. :(

Pictures

Their Table
Originally uploaded by Kaitlin Smith.

I added my prom pictures to my Flickr account. I noticed that I really didn't take that many... oh well. Some are pretty nice. Take a look at them.

Difficult

On Thursday, June 8th, my mom was told that she has a relatively large tumor in her left frontal lobe. Everyone is trying hard to grasp the fact that my mom now has a brain tumor, and it's sinking in at much different levelsfor everyone. I didn't cry until the next morning, when I just couldn't stand it anymore. My brother has just been acting deadpan, and that worries me. My dad is upset, and he and I are trying really hard to look after her.

When my mom found out, she was given IV steriods to try to get the tumor to start shrinking, and the side effects still haven't completely worn off. The night she got those steriods, she could walk she was so dizzy. The next morning she only got dizzy if she moved her head, so she spent the entire day on the couch. She was really bored. This morning she went and sat out in the sun, and I was happy to see that my mom was a little better. She says she still feels nautious though.

She has to take a bunch of medication for about a week and half, then they'll do another scan to see if the tumor got smaller. If it does, then they're just going to do a biopsy to find out what it is exactly. If it's still the same, then it needs to immediately come out and they'll biopsy it after it's out. My mom is sad that half of her head will be shaved, but the scar will be cool. It'll be going from the front of her head to the back. I guess the scar is how I'm trying to keep my spirits up. Either way, she needs radiation therapy after.

My mom can't drive because of the dizziness, so we feel kind of trapped. I feel awful that I never tried harder to learn to drive the Civic.

My mom's boss and his wife have been here every day to look after her and keep her entertained. We haven't been able to buy groceries in two weeks, but they bring us food. They skipped their trip to New York to take care of my mom. My Oma and Opa are arriving today, but I'm not sure how long they're stying. They're going to cook and clean for my mom while she gets better.

It's been really hard. My mom doesn't really like people to worry over her, but we have to. She will probably be in for surgery during exam week. I've had very little sleep over the past few days, and I can only imagine that it's worse for her. I'm terrified. I keep telling myself that, whatever is in her brain, she's going to beat it. But sometimes you wonder what's going to happen. There's lots of people here to look after her, and the doctors are doing their best... I know. But it's still really hard.

Prom was a good escape, but towards to end of the night I had this horrible guilt in me that kept saying, "How can you be here dancing when mom is feeling crappy on the couch?" I went home a bit early to see that she was waiting up for me. Steve and I hung around with her until she went to bed, and then Steve slept over.

666

Tomorrow is June 6, 2006. My brother's friend Damien always gets a ton of fun poked at him for this sort of stuff, but tomorrow is just too perfect. I pulled out the old tarot cards and went through them. I found The Devil and gave it to my brother, who then wrote 06/06/06 on the back. He's giving it to Damien tomorrow.

By the way, Damien's phone number is 6661, which is just too awesome.

Tomorrow is also the due-date for all university stuff. I'm glad I'm all done with that. Hopefully everyone has accepted and paid what they had to. :)

Work

I'm not sure why, but every time I see a new schedule posted at work, I feel almost claustrophobic. I can't think of a better way to describe it, but that's pretty much the feeling I get. I can't figure out why this happens. It's not a bad thing to see next week's hours, it's useful. Then I know what's going to happen.

I've always had this fear of not being able to relax, though. It probably comes from the fact that I relax too often. But it's the same with school... I'm terrified of my life becoming purely university next year. I want to have fun, to be able to sit by myself or with my friends. Maybe it's the same way with work. I'm afraid that I'm going to be spending all this time just cooking fries.

But I got a paycheque today. That was nice.

I'm weird. With the hours that I'm working, there's no way my life would just be cooking fries. And I'm always worried about Steve and I having stupid hours and having trouble seeing each other, but in the back of my head I know that won't happen. Which brings me to my next thought about working full-time next summer, or else I'll starve. And the dilemma of wanting to work during school so that I'm not calling my mom for money every so often. But can I deal with that?

I made a calendar website that has my hours and Erik's hours on there. It's mostly for my family to use so that they can plan things around us working (that always causes trouble for them, and when I tell them hours, they forget 5 minutes later). If you guys want to use it for whatever reason, go ahead. The link is to the right. It's not a pretty calendar, but it does its job.

Alright.

I've decided that I'm content with this layout. I played around with it a bit, and I figured out how to add extra little sections on the side there. I was clever and added a Friends section, since I miss that bit about LiveJournal.

I keep reading my organizer and it makes me feel small. There's so many things written down on there, and an even longer list in my head. There's so many things to do, and I'm just one small girl. I want to tell myself that there's just three weeks left, but that makes me feel smaller.

Summer is coming.