When it rains...

It pours drama!  Yep...  drama.  The wedding invite creation process has been on again/off again for the last month due to the chaos that surrounds us.  At first it was my father bringing the crazy with his rants about us having two ceremonies (Which on a side note...  I broke the ice on father's day realizing that if I didn't wish him a happy dad's day, he'd probably be even more irritable.  This time he was rational, not antsy, not crazy and listening.  I also told him what he wanted to hear, even if it doesn't happen that way, as we can't handle him on top of the current circumstances.).  Then it was the two weeks of dealing with basement flooding followed by the mother of all disasters, Josh's grandma being diagnosed as terminally ill.

We should have seen this coming as she's been hospitalized something like 5 times over the last year with heart problems and a stroke the 2 most recent times.  But when she went into the hospital with kidney failure 2 weeks back, it set in that she wasn't doing well at all.  At the hospital she told us that they had to remove one of her kidneys because it just shriveled up and died.  Yes shriveled up and died...  And at that point they didn't know why but suspected that her cancer had returned.  Sure enough, a scan revealed it returned with a vengeance.  She now has bone cancer in a rib and multiple places within her spine.  Due to her age, health, and location of the cancer, there's not much that can be done except for treating the pain.  They plan to start her on chemo this week but at this point, it's like trying to throw a cup of water onto a house fire.  It might buy a little time but won't solve the problem.

But she's not giving up and is determined to get well in order to go home.  The two things that are keeping her going is her husband Joe and our wedding this September.  She says she's just got to hold on until the Wedding.  And when I mentioned the wedding site is wheelchair accessible, she said she will be walking to the wedding.  She's such a spunky old gal!  =)  I only hope that she turns the corner and is healthy enough to come.  I'm not sure how long the doctors have given her to live or if they even know how aggressive the cancer is.  Josh has been told it's really aggressive but if she's had not bone scans recently then it could have been brewing for some time.

Either way watching his grandma's health decline is getting to him.  He's been hiding it well but then again he hides his daily headaches well unless they are extreme.  He does this to not make me more anxious even though I would rather know when he's down so I can attempt to lighten his spirits before it gets worse.  But in this case, I'm unsure of how to comfort him.  The scientific me wants to rationalize things and say that we are lucky that she's still around now considering all the times we could have lost her if she hadn't gotten to the hospital soon enough over the last year.  I tell him to make her as happy as he can given that the outcome isn't well, but I don't have any great words of wisdom or ways to make it hurt less.  And even though I don't know his grandma well, her circumstances are getting to me too.  The first weekend we visited, she seemed peppy and energetic to certainly bounce back for the wedding.  But during the last visit she was worn out and very tired.  After the simple act of eating dinner, she looked as though the effort she used to eat had tired her to the point of passing.

It's sad as she's got a fighting spirit but her body is giving up on her.  Part of me is wondering if we shouldn't plan the city hall wedding sooner so that she can see it before she gets too weak.  But the other part of me is wondering if we do have a ceremony sooner, will she just give up after that...  I'm just glad that Josh is out of the Army and can spend as much time as possible at the hospital.  Had he still been active duty under the same 1st sergeant as he had last year, I doubt they would have let him leave.  At least she refused to let him take leave when I had my appendectomy last June and really needed someone helping me the first few days while I was drugged up and unable to walk well.

How does a new couple planning for the future deal with such a hurdle before their wedding?  I just hope this stress and pain doesn't hurt our newly budding relationship...