Lump

Mum looked like she was in a lot of pain. When asked what it feels like, she cannot say. "Just discomfort all over..." The problem is mainly in the bowel area.

She asked me to rub some mint ointment on her belly, which to some degree would alleviate the discomfort of bloatedness she feels.

There was a visible and touchable lump to the right of her latest incision. It felt hard and abnormal. It was the source of much of mum's current discomforts...

"How hard it is on you..." I kept on saying to mum. It may sound condescending, trivialising, but not combined with the way I would rub mum's back whenever I said those words to mum.

It really has been so hard on her. She seemed to be recovering and was so hopeful toward the end of last week to be discharged, but her skin turned yellower and yellower, and her appetite (and hence also strength...) deteriorated and deteriorated...

Tomorrow a small surgical procedure is planned to insert a tube to drain bile from the inflamed gallbladder. That should relieve the bloated feelings and hopefully make the jaundice subside with time. After some googling online, I came across some startling news. Jaundice may also be caused by pancreatic cancer... Could it be? Could it be...?

How hard it has been for her, to be so tormented by her body, and over the past few months, to have to deal with issue after issue after issue.

I hope and pray, hope and pray that mum can go home soon, for she needs to be home, she needs to be reminded that there is a world beyond these hospital walls.

For the longer she stays at the hospital, the weaker her resolve is, the more she is growing weaker in mind and spirit...