Mom Missed her Deadline

In my business deadlines are a daily thing. They are not an option. You WILL make your deadline.

I have missed a few. Oh, the humility, the horror. There is little worse than the dreaded walk of missed deadline shame through the newsroom, past all of your peers (who made their deadline) knowing that for this day you are a complete and utter journalistic failure. No matter how good your story, if people don't know about it - it doesn't matter.

Mom missed her deadline. I want everyone to know.

The oncologist told us five months ago that at "the most" she had five months. Five months has come and gone, by just a few days.

I was talking about it with mom a few minutes ago.

"I honestly didn't think I would last this long," she said.

I asked her how much longer she thinks she has.

"I don't know," she replied.

I'm glad she's hanging in there. I admit, in the back of my mind there has been a quiet, haunting countdown to the end based on the oncologist's predictions. Now that the deadline has passed that annoying voice in my head can shut-up.

But I have to do a reality check, I don't think mom wants to live like this for an extended amount of time. Her ups and downs are taking a toll. She doesn't want to get out much in her wheelchair, and her appetite is flaky at best due to frequent bouts of nausea. Not much of a life, but she can still mosey around the house, read her books and watch old movies.

I just read that last paragraph and it is all over the place, but I am going to leave it, because that is my flip-floppy thought process over all this. She dying, but alive. Sick but kicking. Weigh the positives with the negatives, Yin-Yang, blah, blah, blah.

OK, I will leave that too.

Anyway, we are both glad she missed her deadline. Now she can go on her own schedule... and I don't want to know what it is.

I made her a grilled cheese this afternoon (with the crusts cut off). She ate the whole thing. She has lost 50 pounds now, but still holding at a healthy 130 pounds. She didn't want her face in the picture today because her dentures are hurting her mouth, and without them she thinks she looks like an old lady.