Yeah, I disappear for a while and when I finally come back it's with bad news. At least, it's bad news for my family. Part of the reason I haven't been around is that I have an aunt cancer. I've been trying to help out my cousin, her daughter (who has enough stress as it is), and haven't had much time for blogging. The cancer was on her spine, attached to some nerves and somehow or other the doctors didn't catch it until recently; odd, considering how much weight she was losing. And when they weren't finding what was causing her pain and issues with her legs, one would have thought that they might have suspected cancer. I don't know how they missed it, honestly, considering the size of the tumor.

She had surgery not long back to remove the mass. They couldn't get all of it, but were waiting to see if it was benign or malignant before they decided on a further course of action. It was malignant and they found another tumor in her pelvis. They gave her 3 to 4 months to live, unless she had surgery to remove the tumor, which had spread down her leg enough (something to do with the blood vessels or muscle tissue, was my understanding) that they would also have to amputate her leg. They couldn't guarantee how much more time she would have after that, but it improved her chances, so she went with that option.


All of us were optimistic that at least she would live, even though things would still be hard - she would be missing a leg and still would have to undergo some chemo to make sure they got it all, but at least it would give her more than a few months. We weren't supposed to hear anything until tomorrow, because the surgery was supposed to be a long one. But we got a call from a cousin - who, along with my grandmother, had gotten a call from the friend who was able to be up there with my aunt (she had to go to another city a few hours away, and none of us could get off work; it would risk my job to ask for time off, or I would have gone) - and we got some bad news.

When the surgeon went in to cut the nerves to her leg, he discovered more cancer in her spinal cord. He didn't bother with the amputation, because there was no point, with the cancer spread to that point. She has at least a month left, no more than four. We don't know anything else beyond that at this point. She'll probably be coming home in a week and I imagine she's probably woken up and heard the news by now.

I'm still in a state of shock. It doesn't seem real, like it can't possibly be happening to my family. I've gotten teary-eyed a few times, but it hasn't totally sunk in yet. I don't know how long it will take for it to, if it even really will. No, it will. It's kind of starting to.

I didn't particularly like this aunt, but she's still my aunt, and as much as I didn't care for being around her, it's still hard to believe that she's dying, that she probably won't be around for Christmas, or even Thanksgiving. I mean, for crying out loud, it wasn't even a year ago that she tried to do NaNoWriMo with me (frustrated the hell out of me, the way she was acting about it, but I'm trying not to think of the bad parts right now. It doesn't seem right, somehow). She had been so gung-ho when she started; she didn't get very far, but...it was a start. I thought that maybe this year, she'd finally do something and stop using her disability as an excuse, get herself back on track.  But now...

Yeah, now it's really starting to hit.

I'm forgoing classes for the fall semester, so that I can spend more time helping out the family where I can. If I had classes, I wouldn't be able to - I can't afford to fail any more classes and with everything going on, there just wouldn't be time for my studies. I wouldn't feel right not helping my family; whether I always liked them or not, they did help us out before and I'm sure they'd do the same for me if the tables were turned...