Reflections on the Ermalator

My mom’s life started in an oven. Born 10 months after her sister, Fern, in 1923, she was a “blue baby.” I think today she'd be called a preemie. Her head fit in a teacup. Her skin color was blue. She wore her sister’s doll’s clothes the first week or so of her life.  The ever-optimistic family doctor, who delivered her at home in her mother’s bed, filled out the birth certificate simply for Child #6. They kept her in the oven—with the door open, of course-- to keep her warm. 

Ninety years later, as I watch her lying in the darkened ICU room at Inland Hospital, I marvel at how far she’s come—not only in her physical strength, but also in her stamina, grit, and sheer determination. Yes, all those terms mean the same thing, but you need that many words to describe my mother’s indomitable inner strength. Okay, so sometimes we call it stubborn, but either way, it got her to 90, and no one will be surprised if she reaches 100.

She had surgery today– the first in nearly 40 years – and it got complicated. For one, don’t let them kid ya, 90 complicates everything. But what was supposed to be a not-so-routine routine appendectomy (9-year-olds get appendicitis, not 90-year-olds, the doc said) turned into a right hemicolectomy, which is the removal of a portion of the colon next to the appendix on the right side of the colon. In this case, they took the appendix, too and the nasty mass that encased it. The scariest part is not that the mass could be cancerous, because it’s out now and on its way to the lab, but more terrifying than the C word is the insidiousness in which it lived inside my mother. 

Attaching itself to her appendix, it grew until it totally encased the normally useless organ. Guess that mass new an appendix was good for something – infrastructure. How it got so comfy there and was able to disrupt her digestion process just enough to be troublesome, but not enough to raise red flags –to anybody – is the frightening part. In this world of medical technology, so much guessing, by us (her daughters), by Mom, by doctors…and all the while that tumor was laughing and growing away and saying, "Why don’t you all just order some tests and find me?”

It wasn’t until that point of no return --at 2 am after several hours of vomiting and other stinky bodily functions– when my mom looked up at me wearily and said, “Okay, take me in. I can’t take much more of this.”

The ER docs didn’t mess around. Tests were ordered and performed. Questions –pertinent questions—were asked. Answers were recorded. Orders were given. She was admitted to the hospital for observation. Less than 48 hours later, here we are in the dark and quiet ICU. Tumor discovered. Tumor gone. And now we are kicking it to the curb. Mom is going to heal well and strongly, as always, with her indomitable spirit intact. Because you don’t get to 90 and let a thing like a mass and a few inches of missing colon stop you from living. She is sleeping right now, mouth open, oxygen tube in her nose, looking tired and drawn, and old, but you can trust me on this: she will be driving her car to the landfill, mowing her lawn, splitting wood, or painting the house again very soon. Not bad for a blue baby.