Tomorrow, I'll drive to Denver to switch with Jill. We'll take a few days to ensure a proper 'handoff' and then she'll journey to Oklahoma to help take care of Mom. How does one leave their sick mom to tend to their sick brother or vice versa knowing that time is somewhat of a scarce resource? It's unbelievable we are even faced with these decisions, but here we are and have been for the last 2 months.
It's a heartbreaking and somewhat helpless feeling knowing that we all need each other but are torn between two places--four, if you're counting DC and Bangkok. To visit one means sacrificing precious time with the other. So, we rotate and hope that we can "pack it in" in the time we have before another shift change. It would be ideal and perhaps easier to move either Mom or Craig to one location, but both Craig and our mom can't necessarily travel without the significant risk of compromising their current conditions, not to mention disrupting the element of "home is where the heart is" for one of them.
It is the proverbial logistical nightmare at the moment and we hope that as the weeks pass, one of them (hopefully both!) will be well enough to make the journey to visit the other.
I once wrote a poem when Craig was originally diagnosed two years ago in response to the abrupt departure from normalcy and simplicity (relatively speaking...not like our lives were all that simple pre-cancer). This is the beginning of one version:
...The harried riptide of this disease
changes the contours of a crafted plan
calmly and cruely it carries you sideways
further from the simplicity that you demand
'til it finds you between the crest and the fall
crying i can't swim despite swimming along...
~E
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