update

Many thanks to everyone for all the expressions of support. I don't want to go into back story, but the upshot is this:

Mom has a small mass on one of the frontal lobes of her brain. The mass is what is called a "primary tumor," i.e., it isn't the child of a tumor that originated elsewhere in her body. The docs appear to have caught this early, and its position on or near the surface of the brain makes it "very operable," to use the phrase Dad borrowed from the docs.

Mom initially underwent a CAT scan at Mount Vernon Hospital, which is how the mass was first discovered. A subsequent MRI led the docs to diagnose the mass as a tumor. After several hours, Mom was moved from Mount Vernon Hospital to Fairfax Hospital, a much larger and better-equipped facility. A neurological team has been assembled and prepped; the most likely plan of attack is surgery to extract the mass. As of tonight, Mom has been given steroids to reduce the pressure in her brain; when we three brothers saw her this evening, she was slightly more herself than she had been at 9AM on Thursday.

Tomorrow, Mom is likely to undergo a biopsy procedure; what happens after that will be determined by the biopsy. Surgery to extract the mass is probable.

What this means for readers of Kevin's Walk is that I won't be heading out Saturday. I'm putting the walk on hold indefinitely. After all, what sort of person could possibly leave at a time like this? There's little use blathering on and on about religion if you can't even practice proper virtues with your own family-- things like love, attentiveness, dedication, and just being present and available.

I've decided not to deactivate the blog, though; I still have many promises to keep in terms of dialogue transcription, and that activity will give me something to do over the coming weeks. I need a distraction.

I might post further Mom-related updates to the blog. If I don't, feel free to email or contact me via Facebook. Meanwhile, do me a favor: if your parents are still around, go find them, talk to them, hug them. If they're no longer with you, take some time to think about all they've done for you. Don't let sadness and regret dominate your thinking; be filled instead with gratitude-- nothing but gratitude. And if that gratitude moves you to do something nice for someone you love, all the better.


_