My Uncle Pood

Another Relative Gone Home

My mother's brother died Friday morning.  He had been on hospice care at home since last fall.  My heart aches for his children and their families and his wife of 50 some years.  My heart aches for my mother, who is the last surviving sibling of her family.

My mother came from a very large family.  The oldest children in the family were enough older that they could have been my mother's parents.  My mother and her younger sister Retta and her younger brother Pood were very close.  Raised during the Great Depression they knew what hunger was like and sometimes went days without food or with very little food.  Pood never forgot what it was like to be a hungry child.  I think this is why he always had hard candy or a candy bar stashed away in some pocket ready to give to any child he might run across.

Pood (real name Ralph Allen) had a wonderful sense of humor, something all his children have in common.  He could see any situation in a way that seemed funny but his comments often were thought provoking in addition to being amusing.  He was a veteran of the Korean War - going into the Army just out of high school and leaving it as a sergeant.  He didn't speak of the war often, but I think it was a heavy weight he carried with him all the time. 

Music was a passion for Pood.  He had a wonderful singing voice which his children also inherited.  He has grandchildren that are passionate singers also.  I think Pood knew the words to thousands of songs.  He was especially fond of country music.

Pood had a nickname for everyone.  Snake and Fox and Head (after Edith Head the fashion designer) were his children at home and his wife.  I was Sissaroo and my younger brother was Grinder (as in tougher than a mull grinder). 

Pood was a 5 year survivor of metastasized colorectal cancer before his body said no more.  I hope anyone reading this starts getting screening colonoscopies at the recommended intervals/ages.  Colon cancer is very curable if caught in the earliest stages.  Don't put having a colonoscopy off!

My bosses were fantastic as usual since I will be taking my Mom up "home" to the funeral on Monday, the day I was supposed to be flying to Michigan.  They redid my tickets so I can leave Tuesday instead!  I have the new guy some literature to take with him so hopefully he will be prepared for questions.

I am hoping for a great drive up there (the town is about four hours northwest from here) and a great drive back, then I will be hopping a flight to cold cold Michigan the next day.  I am very sad today; everyone who knew Pood is very sad today.  My mom doesn't travel well, but she is determined to go and I am glad she feels well enough to go!  As for my health problems I am just going to suck it up and go.

Get A Screening Colonoscopy

A Night Away From Home

My brother John, who babysat my pets while Mom and I went to Aunt Nadine's funeral, said Augie sat and cried and howled most of the time we were gone. He said if Augie thought you were looking at him howling or trying to make him feel better, the Augster would hide and cry quietly in his hiding place but wouldn't stop.

Augie is my dachshund, my sweet patootie, and was a gift from my Mom for my 45th birthday, the year I was diagnosed and treated for cancer. He's been my guardian angel every since, and became my Mom's a couple of years ago. He switched from sleeping on my bed to sleeping on hers about the same time Mom started "feeling bad" before she was diagnosed with cancer. I think animals can tell when someone is sick, especially with cancers that upset your metabolism and probably change your body odor in subtle ways.

When The Headache gets really bad at home, Augie comes and curls up beside me, trying to do everything he can do to help, even if it is just being snuggly. If I have to be so medicated I am knocked out, Augie will stay by my side until I am no longer under the influence. He is maybe just a little bit spoiled but is a very good boy most of the time, and he just doesn't know what to do when both Mom and I are gone at the same time.

Thinking of cancer, I want to urge everyone reading this blog to have a screening colonoscopy after the age of 50, sooner if colorectal cancer runs in your family.

My mother and my uncle both have had colon cancer, and it is very curable if you catch it early enough. My Mom was told that she had probably had cancer in that spot for FIFTEEN to TWENTY years! If she had had a screening colonoscopy when she was in her mid to late fifties, they might have found it at a much easier to treat stage and the surgery would have been much less extensive. My uncle had an even harder time of it, with two rounds of chemotherapy and two rounds of radiation and extensive surgery, but he is cancer free five years later!

I have had two colonoscopies (because my prior endometrial cancer puts me at a higher risk) and my brother Phil just had one a couple of weeks ago - he is 53. You don't remember a thing, it doesn't hurt, and the only bothersome part is taking the purging laxatives the night before. I've had biopsies during the procedure, and didn't feel any pain from it at all, and the peace of mind is priceless.

I go tomorrow morning for a MRI of my lumbar sacral spine. Apparently the MRI I just had a few weeks ago for the pelvic region is not the same as this MRI. Who would have thunk it??? The Headache is being unpleasant this evening, but considering I have driven quite a few miles this weekend I am not surprised. The Headache did behave itself this weekend for the most part, which I was very grateful for. My Mom was sad and stressed enough without having to put her through The Headache rigamarole.