And so

It's back to me.  I feel like my mom and I are playing tennis lobbing the ball back and forth into each other's court.  My uncle, who is dying from brain cancer and has no family of his immediate own - outside of us - was in the hospital here.  He was transferred for a couple of weeks to the city my mom lives 1 hour and 1/2 away from me.  Now he has been transferred back, which is a good sign; he has stabalized.  Doctors here are trying to find a care home for him.

I offered my home but, apparently, I would need to quit my job as he needs constant supervision given the nature of his disease, and, the doctor doesn't think that it would be a great environment for my children. Thinking upon it after, I tend to agree.  He has horrible seizures and he gets very confused, sometimes angry, and he is very, very weepy given the location of the tumor on his brain.

I am now resigned to only caring for him by baking him goodies, visiting him, finding ways to make him smile and bringing him the odd cup of coffee.  All these things, while normally contraband for someone with similar underlying health issues (ulcers from the medication), are welcomed by his doctor in an attempt to make his "last days" comfortable and loving.

He is a strong man.  A few years ago he decided to take on a train while he was in a tractor - somehow he did not hear it coming.  Miraculously, my uncle won (after a long fight).  Last year, almost exactly, he fought and, thought he had, beat lung cancer.  He had the lower lobe of his right lung removed; the doctor's think the cancer had all ready spread to his brain but was, at that time, undetected due to not enough cancer cells in the brain to "show".

As many of you out there know, it is hard watching someone you love die, especially slowly but I count it an honor and privelege to make his last days, weeks, months (?) as happy as I possibly can