Surviving the Worst Days Of Your Life...

Some people think that the worst day of their lives will be the one wherein they die. I tend to disagree with that notion, since, for most people, shuffling off this mortal coil will be the easier than falling out of a boat and hitting water. This, of course, discounts those people who fall out of the boat BEFORE they get it into the water, or indeed off the highway. In nearly all of those cases, however, the people are idiots and probably deserve their impromptu meeting with the Grim Reaper.

No, the worst days of your life are the ones that you receive bad news of catastrophic illness, impending death or actual death of the people you love and hold most dear. Those are the days where the world gets pulled out from under you and you're left to twirl.

I had one of the worst days of my life today when I found out that my Mom, the rock of my family, was rushed to the hospital coughing up blood and was diagnosed with a large cancerous mass in her lung.

I got this horrible, awful news as I took the first bite of the weekly lunch special at Bandidos in Hillsborough, NC. It's amazing how "Pollo Whateverthefuckitwaso" can just turn to dust in one's mouth when paired up with news that bad. I had noted as I sat down that all three of my sisters and my mom and dad had called my cell phone multiple times before noon. The first thought to come to mind was, 'Crap! that can't be good. Something's gotta be wrong.'

I tried my eldest sister Dee with no luck, and then my middle sister Kathy, also with no luck, but then was able to get my youngest sister Shelly on her cellphone. She immediately asked me how I was doing and holding up.... and I probably ruined her day when I asked her what in the hell had happened. Shelly was audibly upset to be the one to have to tell me, as she figured that Dad or my other two sisters would have gotten hold of me already.

So, Shelly spilled the beans (honest, no mexican food pun intended!) just as the waitress plunked down my food and I began to absently cut and chew on my "Pollo Whateverthefuckitwaso" and become completely unraveled.

John, of course, quickly realized that it wasn't the food that was causing my eyes to stream and me to blubber and he began to ask what was wrong and beckon frantically for the phone to talk to my sister himself. I waved him off and finished my conversation quickly and then told him what had happened. Being a recent cancer survivor, he immediately went into "Circle the Wagons" mode, and began making plans... none of which I really heard at all because I was so "in my head" at that point that I didn't hear much of anything. I was just in total shock.

I just couldn't believe that the woman who rarely got anything worse than a cold... Janey the Mule... my mom... the woman from whom I had inherited my ever-so appealing, "You got 32 teeth, buddy.... you wanna try for 16?" temperment... the woman who once had picked a man up by his neck and held him there suspended for some long time as she explained the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace after he had smacked her on the ass....This virtual Superman of women, had been laid low by this malignant kryptonite-like growth in her lung.

I got up from the table and calmly walked to the wrong bathroom, then turned around and found the men's room and had a complete and totally silent freak-out for about two minutes. Thankfully through the years I've learned to control my freak-outs, as I'm sure if I'd put voice to my internal scream-fest in the bathroom as I used to when I was younger, the cops would have been called, along with an exorcist and probably some mental health people with a oversize straightjacket.

I got back from lunch and, after informing my coworkers of this news, tried to work through the day. As you might surmise... I didn't get shit done the rest of the day.

I called my Dad and we talked for a while, and he got pretty emotional when he confided in me that the ER doctor at Mesa View Hospital had practically pronounced my mother dead, telling him (my father, Mr. Bill 'Nuclear-sized Overreaction' Kinnik) that my mother didn't have much time left and that because of the kind of disease it was it wouldn't be all that painful. I often am thankful that no instantaneous means of travel has ever been invented because Mesa View would have been accepting applications for a new ER doctor by about 2 pm EST/ 11 am PST after I dropped his ass off one of the high desert buttes in Mesquite, NV.

What in the name of Gay Hell was he thinking?!?!?

What on Earth would possess him, an ER doctor of a diddley-shit 25-bed hospital in a teeny-tiny (albeit beautiful) town with 3 stoplights MAX... to absent-mindedly toss out a judgement call like that about the wife of a 70-plus year old man who has a heart condition and has just come through cancer treatment himself?!??!?!?!? Yeah... he really needs stress like that!

Did this doctor graduate from the Himmler School of Doctor/Patient Relations?!?
So I spent some time telling my father that the doctor was so full of shit that his eyes were brown, and that we didn't know anything til we went to see a pulmonologist and oncologist about this stuff. As I spoke these words of reassurance to my father, I surfed over to the Mesa View Hospital website and found that the president of Mesa View Hospital actually has her home and her office telephone number listed for complaints. Be sure I will avail myself of those tomorrow. Woe betide her and the ER doc after I'm done, is all I can say. It's outrageous!

My sister Kathy called after I got off the phone with my Dad and I proceeded to tell her what Dad and said to me about the doctor, and then she and I discussed Mom's condition like sane adults after we discussed disembowling techniques for stupid, mouthy ER doctors with absolutely no bedside manner.

It was at during this phone call that I realized that Battlestar Galactica is a brilliantly written show. I realize that is sort of random, but as I heard my sister's voice break and fill with emotion and I remembered how my upset my Dad sounded on the phone just moments before, I felt my own emotions begin to run high again and three words from a Battlestar Galactica episode from a few weeks ago popped into my mind completely from out of the blue:

"Sine Qua Non"

"Sine Qua Non", from the Latin, it translates to "without which not" or, as Mr. Romo Lampkin the Galactica lawyer so astutely says, "those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living, without which life loses its specific value, and becomes abstract." I realized then that my mother is one of those things for me, for my sisters and for my Dad, "Sine Qua Non."

After I realized that, I began to mentally make a list of the other people and things that qualify as "Sine Qua Non" at this moment in my life, and quickly realized that this makes for a completely depressing exercise that is, like a broken pencil, utterly pointless. It's also an exercise that I don't hesistate not to recommend.

I pushed out of my mind all of that maudlin crap just in time to hear my sister give her own doom and gloom prediction for our Mom's health and came to the conclusion, as I had done before when John was diagnosed with lymphoma, that all the medical statistics and studies on life expectancy in the world mean exactly jack shit to me, and though it's important to know the odds, it's just as important to know that those figures are just "odds" and that they can be beaten.

I realized that it's game-on time, and my family needs to shelve our doubts and concerns right next to the odds and the doctor's statistics and come and rally behind Mom and become her own personal cheering and motivation group. Mom needs to go into this with her head held high and her family at her back because whether she knows it or not, she's just sat down at the biggest poker game ever! And it's no time to leave her poker face at home... It's no time to play to break-even... It's time to go all-in and play to win!

Since moving to NV a few year back, my Mom has shown herself to be quite the winner when it comes to gambling and regularly cleans-up at the local casinos. Though this game isn't her usual nickel slots and has much higher stakes, I'd like to think her luck's gonna hold and that she's gonna beat the odds.

So yeah, it was one of the worst days of my life... but you know what? It's now past 12:00 am, and that day is now officially over. It's past and I think it's time to make this day a really good day... for my Mom, for my sisters, for John, and for everyone else that I deem "Sine Qua Non".

Cheers!