Mom has breast cancer

What an unnatural statement. "Mom has breast cancer." It doesn't seem real, even as I'm in the waiting area where she's having her right breast removed. Maybe because I heard of the cancer just a week before Ryan and I left for 3 1/2 weeks. It's been over a week since we got back, but it's impossible to understand this reality.

Mom went in two hours ago with "yes" marked on her breast in Sharpie. As in, "Yes, you can remove me. Yes, you can chop me off as if I never mattered." And then what happens to it? I think they said it's sent to the lab...or at least parts of it.

PARTS of it. Once a complete entity and maybe even now a fragmented wreck. I'm actually not feeling this negative right now. There were some crazy moments on the drive down here, such as hearing mom cry for a few minutes of the drive. She's brave, but of course emotional. I don't know how to handle the grief. For some dumb reason, I felt annoyed when she first cried and realized that's my defense mechanism when I see my mom despairing. I hate that I get annoyed when she's suffering. So I kept reminding my annoyance to shut the F up and just allow ourselves to grieve.

At least hospital employees are held accountable to be nice. With some rather ugly moments the past few weeks where harshness prevailed despite this looming cancer surgery, we can use all the niceness we can get. And here's my special shout-out to all of you who have been so genuinely loving to us, especially my Marmee. And, Ryan's family, you are among the most supportive of all! I love my in-laws and not just in a pandering way! My mother-in-law actually prayed with my mom this past week and never underestimate the value of a supportive text!

So mom's officially in surgery and I wish I could say I had a clue what was going on. There's a social worker that will come see me periodically, but right now I'm just assuming no news is good news. Several people are concerned about me being here alone, but I'm actually glad for it in a way. I tend to be a loner when it comes to stuff like this and actually do pretty well in trying to keep myself occupied. Hey, I even almost have my W233 syllabus finished! Also, Kristin will be here later this afternoon, so I know I'm not alone this whole time.

As for mom, she's under anesthesia by now. How crazy is it that she won't remember any of the rest of this procedure? She'll just wake up and her breast will be GONE. I really can't imagine that. Of course, she was sad to say goodbye to it this morning. We took some pictures and wrote a song for it. If you know anything about my mom, that meant a lot to her. It's silly, of course...and to the tune of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," I think.

Social work lady coming up....she just said they officially started the surgery at 1:18 and, as of 20 minutes ago, everything was going as planned. It will be nice when this is all over, of course, but especially because we'll know almost right away if any cancer was found during the surgery. That's mom's biggest fear so while it's unlikely it spread, at least we'll know more then!

Everything was said to take about 4 hours, but it will probably be closer to 3 since the reconstruction surgery is set for another few weeks. Not sure what else to write about....I should write a post about our trip, but I don't think I can focus on that kind of thing write now. I'm starting to feel more negative, thinking about the following recovery process. Mom should be able to come home as soon as tomorrow, but I really don't know how long until she'll feel "normal" again. I think if any of you want to help mom after the surgery, a good joke written on her FB wall would do wonders! It might be awhile til she's checking FB, of course, but she'll LOVE it if people flood her wall with good post-surgery jokes. I really love that that's my mom's main request before a huge surgery...a good joke.