{"id":209,"date":"2013-02-07T16:13:40","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T22:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=209"},"modified":"2013-02-20T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T19:45:00","slug":"ch-2-e-irony-rears-its-head","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=209","title":{"rendered":"ch 2.e     Irony rears its head"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Ch 2.d    Settling In\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=208\">&lt; previous\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <a title=\"ch 2.f     Malignancies\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=210\">next &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Prefer to listen?\u00a0 Click here:<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"mp3jWrap_0\" class=\"mjp-s-wrapper s-graphic unsel-mjp  verdana-mjp\" style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span id=\"playpause_wrap_mp3j_0\" class=\"wrap_inline_mp3j\" style=\"font-weight:700;\"><span class=\"gfxbutton_mp3j play-mjp\" id=\"playpause_mp3j_0\" style=\"font-size:14px;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<span class=\"group_wrap\"><span class=\"bars_mp3j\"><span class=\"loadB_mp3j\" id=\"load_mp3j_0\"><\/span><span class=\"posbarB_mp3j\" id=\"posbar_mp3j_0\"><\/span><\/span><span class=\"T_mp3j\" id=\"T_mp3j_0\" style=\"font-size:14px;\">1. Chapter-2-e<\/span><span class=\"indi_mp3j\" style=\"font-size:9.8px;\" id=\"statusMI_0\"><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><span class=\"s-nosolution\" id=\"mp3j_nosolution_0\" style=\"display:none;\"><\/span><script>\nMP3jPLAYLISTS.inline_0 = [\n\t{ name: \"1. 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sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>My life was absolutely perfect.\u00a0 Except that three months after we moved to Washington, Bob was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.<\/p>\n<p>In another development that felt, cosmically and karmically, really, truly unfair, a few months after that, coming in from yet another doctor\u2019s appointment one afternoon, there was the light flashing on the answering machine.\u00a0 A voice I didn\u2019t recognize, with a thick Georgia drawl:\u00a0 \u201cI hope I\u2019ve reached Leila\u2019s daughter, Hanalie?\u00a0 This is her friend, her neighbor, Betty Rondell?\u00a0 Your mama\u2019s having some problems, honey.\u00a0 Would you mind givin\u2019 me a call?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I really didn\u2019t want to dial that number, but I did, after making sure Bob was settled with his meds and his ever-present laptop.\u00a0 I poured myself a glass of wine, bracing myself for more bad news.\u00a0 Weird how all the bad news about Bob was hard, but it just made me love him more.\u00a0 When it came to Mom, loving her had always been a job she made as difficult as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Betty Rondell herself answered.\u00a0 \u201cOh, honey,\u201d she said, in that way southern women have, talking as if they\u2019re perpetually comforting the recently bereaved, \u201cI\u2019m just so glad you called.\u00a0 Your mama is not well, you know?\u00a0 She\u2019s been doin\u2019 some kind of nutty things lately.\u00a0 Did you know she wrecked her car last week?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why she hasn\u2019t done something about it, she\u2019s gotta have insurance, right?\u00a0 But today, I picked her up, she was walkin\u2019 down the block.\u00a0 She\u2019d been to the Walgreens, but she walked right past her own house, like she didn\u2019t even know where she lived.\u00a0 Once I got her home, she was okay again, you know, thanked me for helpin\u2019 her and all, but I think you better get down here real quick.\u00a0 Somethin\u2019s just not right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bob was great.\u00a0 Go see about your mom, he insisted.\u00a0 His own parents had died when he was fifteen.\u00a0 The grandmother who\u2019d taken him in after that was gone, too.\u00a0 If anything, he was more attached to my mother than I was.<\/p>\n<p>So I went to Atlanta.\u00a0 Went and hired temporary help, and came back to take Bob to his next round of appointments.\u00a0 Mom kept firing the help.\u00a0 I went back to Atlanta, when I couldn\u2019t sort things out over the phone.\u00a0 After the fourth trip, when I came back so exhausted I didn\u2019t even make it to the bedroom, but fell asleep on the living room couch, my still-packed bags sitting next to me, I knew it was time for more drastic measures.\u00a0 I consulted lawyers and began plowing through the paperwork to be able to make what decisions had to be made on her behalf.\u00a0 I lined up the movers in Atlanta, and called a realtor.\u00a0 Like it or not, Mom would have to come to Washington.\u00a0 I researched the best facility available in the city, the best care, and found it was only 20 minutes from our condo.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the medical center, our new home away from home, was 40 minutes in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n<p>Bob had a respite, a three-week window between treatments, and a period when he felt halfway human again.\u00a0 Even though I was trying hard not to worry about him, I was glad he was along, when we made the tense drive from Atlanta back to D.C., Mom repeating the same suspicious questions about where we were going, and why, every few minutes, all the way, protesting the miles away.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019d finally dumped his old junker of a Volvo, and sprung for a small SUV.\u00a0 Bob was too weak to drive, but he was relentlessly upbeat, in his jeans and sweatshirt and what he called his chemo cap, all that beautiful hair gone.\u00a0 I could only imagine what it cost him, that forced cheeriness.\u00a0 I\u2019d seen him in pretty hellish shape not so long before, on his knees, puking his guts out, startling me with his unaccustomed cursing.\u00a0 The profanity was usually my department.<\/p>\n<p>But on the long hypnotic drive back north, while I piloted us, up Interstate 75, to 85, to 95, eyes straight ahead, ears cocked for the slightest sounds of distress from my passengers, Bob was the one who answered her questions every time, with infinite patience, and even good humor.<\/p>\n<p>For me, gripping the steering wheel until my hands cramped, it felt like an unending exercise in fighting my rampaging fears, invoking that inner Source over and over and over again in silent, desperate efforts just to maintain some semblance of tranquility.\u00a0 There were moments I could only credit the Divine with making the critical exits and lane changes; even those big green interstate signs are hard to see when you\u2019re blinking back tears behind your shades.<\/p>\n<p>I won\u2019t say it was a constant struggle, although it mostly was.\u00a0 There were moments \u2013 fleeting but wondrous &#8211;\u00a0 when some ray of the Divine broke through, moments when I found myself flowing on a wave of some amazing energy that impossibly encompassed all the joy and sorrow in my life, moments when I found myself smiling for no good reason, as I drove my dementia-addled mother and my precious dying husband up those long, long interstate miles, headed north, headed home, to where I could watch them both slip away from me.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Ch 2.d    Settling In\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=208\">&lt; previous\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <a title=\"ch 2.f     Malignancies\" href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=210\">next &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &lt; previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 next &gt; &nbsp; Prefer to listen?\u00a0 Click here: &nbsp; My life was absolutely perfect.\u00a0 Except that three months after we moved to Washington, Bob was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. In another development that felt, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/?page_id=209\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-209","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/209\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}