Indigestion

Monday January 18, 1993

Awake at 3 a.m. and unable to fully fall asleep after that. I get up at 8. I am sweating alot this morning and don't feel real well. At 10:45 I have my nails done and bring home a Cupid hot dog for Frank and I. We both get indigestion. Mine lasts all day. I feel ill at dinnertime. I eat a yogurt pushup. About 8 p.m. I eat a frozen cannelloni dinner and tangerine and 1/2 banana. I feel better. I can't stay awake after 10 p.m. I go to bed at 11.

I had night sweats last night too, and sometimes have indigestion if I eat too close to bedtime. It seems Mom is having a continuing problem with sweating. I would attribute most of it to menopausal symptoms, but undergoing chemotherapy is certainly making her symptoms even worse. Mom and I always went to Cupid's hot dogs in Van Nuys when we visited Grandma Johnson, pictured in yesterday's post. There was also a Cupid's across the street from CSU Northridge where I attended college from 1972-74. Their hot dogs were great with a thick juicy skin that squirted juice when you would bite into it. Add chili and onions and it would certainly cause indigestion.

Mother is Feeling Better

Sunday January 17, 1993

I awake feeling pretty good. After I shower I roll my hair and Frank gives me a perm. I turns out great. Later I call Mom and Chris. Mom is feeling very good. She has much less pain. She thinks the pills she's taking to improve her platelets from 4000 to 150,000 is helping her arthritis. I pray for her pain relief and Dad's as well, everyday.

I eat very little lunch so by dinner I'm starved. I eat a pork chop, mac & cheese & brussel sprouts. It tastes good but I feel ill for an hour or so afterwards. Probably ate too fast.

Probably shouldn't have eaten a gas-producing vegetable like brussel sprouts! So glad Mom had a better day and that she felt well enough to call me and Grandma Helen. Notice how she is praying for her loved ones, even though she is the one with a terminal illness. Frank's Dad passed away a few months after Mom's death in 1993, but Grandma Helen (pictured above with Mom, Gary and myself) lived another four years. She lived to the old age of 89. Grandma Helen's mother, Amanda Johnson, in the top photo with the four generations of Johnson women, including myself, Mom, Grandma Helen, and Grandma Johnson, lived until the ripe old age of 101. Unfortunately, Mom would not live the long life of her predecessors. I hate that cancer robbed her of the long life she should have had.

Back to Pasadena

Saturday December 26, 1992

I awake feeling very sluggish. It's hard to get ready. We leave for Gene and Cathy's about 11 a.m. We will have lunch with them and leave mother so they can drive her home tomorrow. I'm really tired and my chest hurts by the time we leave at 3 p.m. When we get home I lay on the couch, chilled and ill all afternoon and evening.

It is about a 45 minute drive from Simi Valley to Pasadena and another 100 miles from Pasadena to Desert Hot Springs where Grandma Helen lived in her mobile home in a golf course community. Grandma was in her 80s by now but insisted on living independently in her mobile home. Her mother, my Grandma Johnson, lived a long life until she was 101 by walking everyday, and Grandma Helen enjoyed swimming every morning in the community pool. I think I have a little of both of them in me. I enjoy hiking, but I love to spend time in the pool too. I think I must have been a dolphin in a previous life!

The Maynard House

Friday October 23, 1992

Slept most of the day yesterday and still had a pretty good night. Amazing. Awoke feeling so much better. I'm taking my other anti-nausea medicine.

We tape saran wrap on my chest and I hang the pump outside the shower on the great hook Frank made for that and I'm in the shower. It feels great after 2 days of no shower but the water gets under the saran wrap. Frank helps me flush my catheter, not so bad, and I am dressed and made up by 11 a.m.

We go to Woodland Hills to look at carpet for Maynard game room. Back in Simi we have hot turkey lunch at Millie's. I still don't have an appetite. I've lost 13 pounds in the past 3 weeks.

After resting an hour I drive myself to Maynard. Frank wants me to check it out. I'm nervous driving with my pump beside me. We bought a belt to wear it easier. We have a quiet evening at home.

Oh, I tried that trick when I had my foot in a cast. I wrapped my cast in a black garbage bag and duct taped it to my leg around the cast. How I hated taking sponge baths, but the water got underneath the plastic every time in the shower.

The Maynard Avenue house in Newbury Park was the house where Frank lived and raised his 3 children prior to Mom and Frank's marriage in 1982. After they bought a beautiful new house together, the Maynard house became a rental. The photo above was the only one I could find that was taken in the game room (converted garage) of this house. This photo was taken in 1980 at Christmas. I am 27, Mom is 46, her mother Helen is 72, and Helen's mother Amanda Johnson is 101 years old! Grandma Johnson passed away the following year, Grandma Helen died at the ripe age of 89 and Mom died when she was not yet 59. I have already outlived my mother, but can I possibly live as long as my great-grandmother Johnson? She was always very active and took a walk every afternoon until she fell and broke her hip at the age of 101. What am amazing woman! She moved to the United States when she was just 16, lived in Minnesota and then Van Nuys, California, and raised 14 children in the same house where she died in 1981.

Desert Hot Springs, CA

Tuesday August 4, 1992

We have another huge breakfast. No lunch needed again today. We're on our way about 10 a.m. across the nothing-to-see desert. We arrive at Mother's at 1 p.m. She seems to be doing fine. No worse than May. The house could stand a good cleaning. She needs to hire someone for that. She isn't able. We stay til 4 p.m. and then start home, stopping at the outlet to shop some. By 8:30 we are home. Home Sweet Home! It's always good to get home! Smokey and the dogs are sooo glad to see us.

Thank you, Lord, for seeing us safely through our journey. And thank you for allowing me to feel so good.

Grandma Helen lived in a very simple single mobile home in a park in Desert Hot Springs, California, very similar to the one pictured above. She lived there for many years with her husband Al Richardson after selling the home in Pacoima where they had lived their entire marriage and where my mother grew up with Grandma Helen and Grandpa Jerry. Grandpa Jerry died in 1954 of lung cancer. Grandpa Al died in his sleep in 1986. Grandma outlived both husbands and her daughter by several years, but her health deteriorated as she reached her mid-80s. She enjoyed being independent and having her own home to do as she pleased. She enjoyed being able to drive herself around. She lived very simply on her social security check. Once she was unable to take care of herself and started having health problems, my Uncle Gene and Aunt Cathy put her in an assisted living home situation. Grandma Helen hated losing her independence. She passed away at the ripe old age of 89, still young compared to her mother, my Great-Grandmother Johnson who lived to 101.

I love the way Mom thanks the Lord for seeing them safely home and for giving her good health during their journey. I have talked to other people who have experienced a life-threatening illness and it was told it made them appreciate their blessings all the more, not knowing how much time they had left.