Surgery and the Family Curse

Photo of the best hams - a Honeybaked Ham. My mom's favorite!

Mom’s cancer surgery was Tuesday. We arrived early bearing Mother’s Day presents, some Honeybaked ham with a bone for making soup and a pound of my famous Sugar-Glazed Walnuts. Yes, I am trying to put some weight on her!

We left home well before dawn and got to the doctor's office early. Being early is a curse in the family that goes back generations. At the age of 18, my mom’s maternal grandfather was a striking young Irishman who was late and ran through the train yards in Chicago when something happened. Mom never learned the full details, but he lost a foot.

From that point forward, he never hurried and made sure he was never late again. For anything. The curse has followed everyone in the family since then. In fact, once one marries into the family, they too are no longer late. Ever.

The railroad gave him a job for life and mom tells stories about how he would leave his wooden leg under the bed at night. Yes, wooden. Imagine how uncomfortable that was? He walked with the help of a cane when he was older.

So, we were early to the doctor’s office, naturally. It all happened in a small office where the doctor would slice a piece off the cancerous area, test it to see if the cancer was even deeper, take another slice until the slice was free of cancer. Mom needed two slices, others in the office needed up to 5 slices.

We had so much fun. We got to know the other five people also having cancer removed from various areas of their bodies. We kept everyone laughing all day. We arrive at 8:00AM and left just after 5:00PM. It was a long day. Mom is recovering and will have the stitches removed in a week.

She told us that she is ready to give up her house and move into an independent living environment. I passed this along to my sister and brother. My sister is the executor of the estate and will need to be close to mom, as she gets older. She also lives in a less expensive area so we will begin a search for a place for mom in her town.

Last night was the orchestra dress rehearsal and I am feeling pretty good about the concert. We will be fine. Dress rehearsals don’t mean that everyone dresses up; it means that the rehearsal will be a run-through of the all the music in concert order with very few stops. The threat of a performance makes everyone focus and play their very best.

Mary flies in this afternoon.

Here we go!