Nightglow Window

Flying Solo

Christy left at noon to visit her grandmother Cleo in Lone Pine. She'll be gone at least until Monday night -- maybe longer if something serious happens, which is always a possibility these days.

We found out that the care center/nursing home in Ridgecrest where Cleo was planning to stay during her six weeks of chemo is no longer an option. She's just too weak to be considered "able bodied" -- a stipulation for residency.

In Cleo's opinion, this is just as well.

With every passing day, I doubt more and more that she'll ever go back for chemotherapy or radiation treatment.

I think she'd rather spend her remaining time at home unmolested. She got pretty sick during her last dosing, and the idea of her puking repeatedly on the side of the 395 is just too awful to bear. Making that 160-mile roundtrip three times a week in her state might just be too much and they refuse to stay in a hotel or come down to SoCal to live.

Lung cancer is bad news, one of the worst ways to go at the end. But if you were 78, would you rather have six to nine months of relative peace (her cancer symptoms aren't bad yet) or two years of battling terminal cancer with chemotherapy and other things that would make you feel nauseous, weak, and awful?

It's a tough call.

Her doctor says the full battery of chemotherapy will most likely diminish her lungs to the point where she'll be on oxygen for the rest of her life -- and he's vague about just how long that would be.

Anyway, she made it back home from Reno (where she was lifeflighted two weeks ago) and doesn't want to budge. I can't say I blame her.

So Christy is heading up there for a few days to talk it over with her and see if she's thought it all through.

Sorry to be so sober...

Anyway, I'm looking at a huge pile of laundry I have to put away, but I'd rather work with Sydney on her huge 500-piece jigsaw puzzle -- hey, I'm a single guy this weekend, so who's going to care if the laundry waits?

In fact, I think we'll go see the movie Happy Feet tonight and then maybe grab dinner.