Tomorrow morning my mother will have spinal surgery. I say it so straightforward because I don’t know what I think about all of this. Part of me knows how much pain she’s been in and I am very relieved that they figured out what’s going on with her. Another part of me thinks that some doctor cutting into my mother’s back, chopping away part of her vertebrate, and scopping some goo out of her back is kinda scary.

She had her hip replaced a few years back, and she’s had problems with her siatica for a couple years, but this whole back thing was an issue. An MRI last month showed a huge mass at the base of her spine, and the neurosurgeon said he’s pretty sure it’s a cyst (which is a helluva a lot better than a tumor!). He also seemed like this procedure was pretty commonplace for neurosurgeons.

My sister, Meghan, took time off work and flew home for two weeks to take care of mum. Now it’s 1AM, and at 330AM MST she is headed to the hospital. The procedure begins two hours later while I am still asleep here in Arizona. I made Meghan promise me that she’d at least text me every hour to give me updates (even if nothing at all is new). Meghan is an even more level headed person to be there with my mother, but asking Meghan very awkwardly to make sure paperwork is in order and wishes are known just-in-case wasn’t very fun tonight. Mum’s the glue of the family and it’s such a hard job. That’s probably caused a lot of this, and it doesn’t help with such selfish, hard headed people in our family. Mum, I love you and know you will read this blog post tomorrow night while relaxing in your hospital bed with Meghan there at your side.