Where Are You?

My sister-in-law Amy asked "Where are you?" as a comment on my last post. She wondered if perhaps I'd been sucked up by the paint monster that was devouring my soul last week. Happily, such is not the case.

We are in Idaho. I'm writing this post while sitting on my mother's couch in the living room in Rigby, Idaho. We made the trip in two days, stopping on Wednesday night in North Platte, Nebraska and pulling into Rigby at about 9:30 on Thursday evening. It was a mercifully quick and uneventful trip. In fact, the only outright bad part of it was eating at Little America in Wyoming. Take it from me: you should only eat there if you have time to kill, money to spare, and taste buds like tiles on the Space Shuttle. There just ain't nothing good about it.

Anyway, being here has been wonderful. It's the first time in probably four years that everyone has been in the same house at the same time. It's been ridiculously loud and chaotic but a lot of fun nevertheless. My newest nephews, Blake and Cameron, are a blast and the slightly less new nieces and nephews are pretty great as well. We've had some family dinners, had some long talks, shared some tears, gone to church together, and generally had a good time.

As I write this, Maryn and Avery are downstairs having a sleepover with a few of their cousins. They've had such a good time playing dress up and putting on plays and parades with their cousins I'm afraid it will take an act of Congress to get them out of here in a few days.

Mom, Mindy, Shalee, and Melanie threw a baby shower for Suzanne on Saturday and a ton of our nearby relatives showed up to support her. The menfolk were mostly banished to other parts of the house but we heard a lot of laughter (Suzanne's cackle carries over long distances). Aunts Fay and Nan provided the wonderful spread and we got lots of good stuff. It's a little funny to have a baby shower at age 35 with two kids already - but we're definitely not complaining. We appreciate everyone who arranged it and everyone who came. It was a lot of fun.

My mom is doing well considering everything. She's very weak physically and needs help walking but otherwise is still very much Mom. She puts up with the brothers' stupid jokes and loves on her grandkids with elemental force. She's just really happy that we're all here. She keeps saying that having all her grandkids (and I suppose she means her kids too) nearby is the best medicine.

She started radiation therapy last week and will continue for a couple of weeks. After that, she and the doctors will reassess and decide on the next step. Most recently she was told that the radiation won't give her any more days than she already has but it will make the days she does have better. Whether or not she goes through with the gamma knife treatment remains to be seen. Largely, it will be a question of quality of life. Mom has said repeatedly that she doesn't want to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic and that she's not interested in staying alive at the cost of her ability to function and communicate and relate to her family. So we'll wait and see how the radiation affects the four tumors on her brain and go from there.

Vacation-wise, we still have a few things on deck for this week such as a trip to BYUI to look around and reminisce about how much its changed, lunch at Fongs (which is a really fun name to say. Say it with me: "Fongs!"), possibly a trip to see UP, a production of Footloose at the Playmill, a day in Yellowstone park, and then pointing our van east and heading back to the land of corn and birds.

I'll try to check in again before we head back. I'd hate for my loyal readers to feel abandoned.