Panther F,
Thank you for the kind words of support and encouragement. It has been a tough road.

My mom was initially diagnosed with terminal cancer back in December after an initial surgery failed to completely remove a tumor. She had another extensive surgery in January, that's when I moved her in with me and my 17 year old daughter (as my dad had passed just over a year ago). She was supposed to be with me until about May.

Complications from the second surgery put her back in hospital in June, and that's when I think her body just started to give up. She went into full renal failure, which spiked her potassium levels to a point that they thought it damaged her heart, went onto dialysis, got hydrostatic pneumonia, almost died twice. Stayed three weeks in ICU and another two weeks in telemetry. Then she contracted a staff infection in which they had to open up her leg and scrape out the infection because they thought it might be the flesh eating virus MRSA.

Anyways 5 1/2 weeks in hospital, and 5 surgeries during that time (7 since December) 3 of which they had to open the same incision in her abdomen. By the time they released her she was pretty much a mess and required 24/7 care. She couldn't even get up or down on her own. She's had an additional month of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and home nursing.

But she is doing much much better now, and in the next few weeks she is going to move in with my sister and her husband. Time for some other family members to step up and help out a bit with her care. I need to try and get my life back and track and back to some resemblance of normalcy, which would include my hobbies. I'm looking forward to the much needed break!

Craig