No news is good news

Things are not going so well with my Ma these day.

I've been worried about her for some time now. Even moved her closer to me so I could keep an eye on her. But her memory has been fading, her mobility is growing worse and her personality has been changing.

Several appointments, an electrocardiogram and an MRI later, we finally have a diagnosis.

My Mom has severe aortic stenosis -- this is an obstruction of the blood flow across the aortic valve. But this isn't the only thing the tests found. She also has a brain tumour.

Each condition individually is quite serious and would require surgical intervention but together, with the added complication of her age (78) and Type II Diabetes, her doctor isn't very optimistic that surgery is even an option. While he's offering to refer us to cardiac surgeons and neurologists, he says that neither would operate on one condition without the other, which makes everything entirely riskier.

So....not good news at all.

The only up side of any of this is that my mother can't really comprehend what's happening to her.

She doesn't understand the diagnosis at all. In fact, the doctor said to her, "You remember the last time you were here and I told you not to eat so many cookies." She nodded yes. "Well," he said, "I think you can eat as many cookies as you want."

So her big take away from diagnosis day was: "The doctor says I should eat more cookies."

Sometimes the universe protects us.