hahaha I think I broke my uncle.

So "Emmanuel" called me last night wondering if I wanted to ride with him when he went to visit Mom today and I had to tell him that she didn't want visitors.  At all. No exceptions. So he got all sad and pouty on the phone. Then he asked how she was doing, so I told him what I thought was good news. I said that she's recovering wonderfully and could come home now except that they want to keep her to run some more tests because they can't figure out where the cancer came from so they're just gonna do another scan.

"She has cancer?"

*shake my head.*  *smack my forehead*
"Emmanuel, she just had a brain tumor removed. She has cancer.  Didn't she tell you that?"

"She said they didn't know what it was or where it came from."

"They don't know where it came from. It's not brain cancer; it didn't start there. It spread to the brain and they don't know where it started or where else it is."

"But they took it all out, right?"

"They took out the big tumor. They couldn't get to the little ones so they're going to get them with chemo and radiation and hope that gets them wherever they came from."

"I don't know what that means. What do you mean, where it came from? And what other tumors?"

"Em, this isn't something they caught early. She has Stage 3 or 4 cancer. It is spreading throughout her body and is in her brain  now. She has cancer and they say she's had it for a while, and they can't find all of it."


Sometimes it's funny to mess with idiot family members.  Sometimes it's just sad.  I think I'll just text "Sheila" if I ever have anything really bad to tell him. On the bright side, though, Mom called me today while I was at the grocery store and told me I needed to come pick her up because they were sending her home today anyway.  But just in case you've never tried to get into the University of Iowa Hospital as a University of Iowa football game let out directly across the street, let me just advise you never to try. The fucking cops won't let you in the parking garages, there are tailgaters in there if you do manage to sneak in, and the football fans all act irritated that the hospital doesn't just shut down for them.  We live in a really fucked up society when football trumps hospitals as a priority.