I lost a friend too

Over the past month, it has become increasingly apparent to me that the person I thought would be my "knight in shining" armour by being my mom's primary adult support throughout her treatment and diagnosis will not be able to complete his duties. However, before we got that deep, lets strike some tunes: My mother in her utter need for independence has begun to pull away from him to the extent that she now wants me to stay at the shop with her when I visit. When I called Huie this week, he (for the first time ever in 5 months) never called me back. For the second time since my mother got sick, I had no idea where I would stay and visit with her. However, if it hadn't had been for him, I don't think my mother would have even reached the benchmark that she has: Diagnosed with Stage4 Small Cell Lung Cancer, August 2007. Cancer receeding and normal energy returning with a sustation in life cells, Feburary 2008. Everything I read about lung cancer, especially the type my mother has, since her diagnosis, projected that she should have been dead by December and that her life would be extremely painful and tough. As my earlier blogs can show you, my mom's legacy is not similar to the reflection of the popular media.

The following is a copy of the blog I started in August after I heard her diagnosis:
Wow what a week:
It’s Saturday, August 25, 2007, and I have just decided to start a journal for the like 45th time in my life. It will be interesting if I can actually keep up with this one, for my life seem to have loads of interesting issues, trends, and activities emerge from time to time. Most recently, the terminal diagnosis of my mother with small cell lung cancer that has spread to the liver has sent me and my concentration as an individual into a complete tail spin. Here I am, 32, fat and happy, and more worried about the changes in management in my office, than the fact that my mother recently had her home repossessed, her truck repossessed, and is living in a old workshop while coughing and lack of energy were proficient in her daily activities. I sat in my little life in Austin, completely oblivious to the fact that "out of sight- out of mind” actually reigned true for her. On Monday, her boyfriend (and former neighbor) called me (I call him the angel…as you will find in future reports), and advised that she was in the emergency room and that the doctor thought she might have lung cancer. As a transition for this report, Huie lost his wife one year ago to small celled lung cancer. Now he was telling me that he took my mother to the emergency room with a “stomach” flu that included her inability to eat for 3 days and interrupted her breathing. I immediately made arrangements to make my first trip home to visit in over two years. Without beating myself up anymore, what I will say is that I had a very good if not one of my best visits with my mother. She was in high spirits and feeling honery the entire time she was in the hospital. I walked in during a moment when she was gently reminding the nurse that she had “30 minutes” until the next pain killer, and during a point when she was adamant that “It’s going to get rough for me soon, I don’t want to use up all of my resistance to medications right off the bat”…this was a hard statement for me to take. To imagine a point in your life when you know that you will be in more pain tomorrow than you are today….well hmm that says it all to me.

Fast foward to today.

There are so many soundbites in this blog, I had a hard time limiting them and still trying to cover my story. The point of this story is that at one point I got all of my information from Huie because my mother could or would not communicate with people. Today, I don't hear from Huie and my mom calls every day. When I ask her about him, she simply states that Cleota (his deceased wife) was her friend. She tells me that she and Cleota would sit on the porch, drink beer, and watch Huie mow the lawns.

Here is a synopsis of our conversation:
Mom: "Cleota was my friend..we picked on Huie and had a common bond being mothers"
Erin: "What? You mean you hung out with his wife? and You guys talked about him? Intersting." Mom: "Yeah, you weren't around, and I needed a friend. I liked her before I liked him."
Erin: "So, now you have this tension between you and him. He has helped you alot and I have come to rely on him for a place to stay when I come to visit. From our conversation today, I can't do that anymore and I am not sure how I can work out coming to visit in the future."
Mom: "I know, Erin, but when I stay at Huie's, he speaks as if it is 'our' home, but he has Cleota everywhere...we both battled lung cancer...it has only been a year..that is too much."
Erin: "I understand...but I like him"
Mom: "Glad to hear it, but he forgets that I lost a friend too when Cleota died....I won't put him, myself, or his family through that again. I will not stay another night out there.I love him and he is a special man, but I need my independence right now."
Erin: "Okay...I will find a way to visit. I love you mom, please give me a couple weeks."

Here is a picture of my mom and Huie at Christmas.. the picture says everything:

While I am sad to see my mom pulling away from him, I will continue to stay in touch because when she is gone, he would have lost a friend and I will need one.