One month later...
It's been roughly a month since I last updated this piece, and to put it lightly, things have rapidly deteriorated since then. As hard as it is to get much information about the situation from my family, it's clear my grandma's cancer is only progressing exponentially faster. From what I've been able to gather, my grandma's body is rapidly deteriorating. Her hip's pretty much disintegrated. She's sleeping 16+ hours a day. Scariest of all, doctors have confirmed she has cancerous lesions in her brain. At least, for now, she's still her same old self, mentally speaking. But, who the hell knows what things will look like when I visit the farm in less than two weeks.
I've slipped into a sort of depression since last I typed anything in this continuous blog. My grades in Astronomy, while still holding strong, have slipped. I went from holding an A, to holding a solid B. With three weeks left of the semester, I don't have the motivation or the care to lift that grade up so I can finish this semester with an A. All I care about is passing. It's cool to have an A to boast about (especially in a class as math and physics heavy as Astronomy), but in the end, that shit doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm still taking relatively good care of myself, and I go say my final goodbyes to my paternal grandma.
Unfortunately, I'm not exactly doing very great as far as taking care of myself. It's hard for me to sleep. I often spend my nights tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning. When I finally do fall asleep, I don't sleep for long. I've been getting about four hours of sleep per night, plus an hour long afternoon nap. Eating has been hard, too. I'm simply not hungry, and if I force myself to eat, I get nauseous and/or suffer severe indigestion later on. Consequently, I have lost some weight. Not enough to scare me, but it's still quite noticeable. Chores are hard to get myself to do these days, though I still do them because moldy dishes and empty dog bowls are not acceptable. I have also been exceedingly restless and out-of-focus (which is why my grades have suffered). My mind is foggy and easy to distract. Oftentimes, my mind goes blank, but not out of anxiety. It's almost like I'm too exhausted to think, read, or write. I am mainly running on auto-pilot.
On the brighter side, my restlessness has motivated me to spend as much time outside as possible. That, and it's the height of rutting season. I've spent the last week relentlessly chasing the bucks as they chase the does (and each other). Of course, I don't let myself get too close to them. But, I still find immense joy hiking the valley trails and landscape, trailing bucks and does through the dry, broom grass fields, along hogback ridges, and into gullies and ditches. I've also caught glimpses of foxes, raccoons, coyotes, and other larger wildlife. My adventurous spirit has also convinced me to check out some nearby state and federal lands, the vast majority of which are tax-paid public lands that anyone can access.
There's some of that public land basically in my backyard, where a Ken Caryl trail called Lyon's Ridge runs from a public trail head called Coyote Song on the very south end of Ken Caryl Valley, all the way to the Willow Springs neighborhood on the far north side (so, roughly three miles of steep, rocky trail that zig-zags through the valley and alongside the hogbacks). There's also a lot of public land just west of Chatfield State Park, some of which I have explored, though not enough to know nearly as well as I know Ken Caryl.
Over this same weekend, Dad and I took the jeep through some of the state land in the mountains straight west from my house. We raced over miles upon miles of washboarded dirt roads through Ponderosa wilderness, up and over mountains and foothills, past campsites and trailheads, till we reached the banks of the South Platte River, miles away from the nearest house. There, we sat along its banks, skipping rocks across the choppy river waters.
As I bent down to find another flat, rounded rock to skip across the water, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a still section of the river. For that brief moment, I saw my grandma Shirley staring back at me. It was an experience I can't quite put into words. It almost brought me to tears. When I wandered back to my dad with a skipping stone in my hand, I was finally able to ask the question I'd been dreading to ask, "How's grandma?"
Dad turned towards me, sadness filling his face as he sighed, "Uhm, not good. It's... It's bad."
"How bad?" I asked in almost a whisper.
"Nurses have started coming to the farm, and your uncle Wade's probably gonna move in with her very soon." my dad croaked, "Her cancer's only progressing faster and faster."
"Fucking hell..."
"Yeah..."
Hot tears welled up in my eyes, and I turned to face the river in an attempt to hide my sadness. My heart literally ached with every beat, and my breathing felt constricted. I began to clench my jaw, closing my fists around the rock. I was seething. The cruelty of cancer was overwhelming. Instead of skipping that rock across the river like I had been, I threw that thing as hard as I could at one of the granite boulders that stuck out of the blue-green water. It made a satisfying crack that echoed through the wilderness, as it shattered into several pieces.
"Jesus Christ, Maya!" my dad snapped, "We're skipping stones here, not throwing fastballs."
"Yeah... I know..." I mumbled, "I'm just pissed at that damn cancer."
"So am I." my dad said as he stood up, "So am I..."
Dad and I stood side-by-side, staring out at the water, lost in our own thoughts. Worry filled my heart like never before, along with a healthy dose of fear regarding my trip to Minnesota. I would spend the rest of the morning with my dad prying him for details, so I could better steel myself for what was to come, but to no avail. Not unusual for my dad or anyone else on that side of the family. They don't like to talk about their feelings, let alone show them. They also don't like to talk about the bad things, or accept the fact things won't get better.
To get to the point, I don't think I will know much more till I see the situation for myself. Understandably, I am pretty afraid of what might be in store for me. Maybe my grandma Shirley's just a little tired, but will be her same old, rambunctious, lively, chatty self when I visit her. However, that's probably not gonna be the case. Chances are, she'll be pretty sick when I go to visit her, though I don't want to speculate much more about what that might look like.
I guess I ought to hope for the best, but prepare myself for the worst. I'm just trying to remain glad that I do have a chance to see my grandma alive one last time, but it's basically impossible to count blessings when faced with something as horrific and cruel as end-stage cancer.
