As I have recently been told not to mention staff’s names in my blog anymore, I promise I will not in this message. However, there’s something going on in my life that I think everybody here should know although most people here do know already. I’m going to ask a little favour from everybody here. Though the following message may seem like a threat, it is more of a warning of a possible impending situation which may result in me being a little more short than usual in terms of my patience with staff. With this in mind, please do your best to consider it a warning and not a threat as once again, it is not intended to be one.

As many of you must know by now, my mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Today was the day of her surgery and as a result, she will need to remain in the hospital for about a week as she recovers. Now going into this surgery, it was indeed hit or miss as there was a chance she would not make it. In the three years since I’ve been here, everybody has become aware of the great relationship I have with mom and sometimes, this even results in problems between me and the staff as they unintentionally find themselves intercepting calls between her and I which in turn has lead to some fights between staff and I. I know I’ve claimed to not need your help in the past but trust me in saying that I absolutely do otherwise I would not be living here. However, as much as I need your help, I need mom more. This is why I put off/cancel my showers and my calls in general if I have not spoke to her. I want to make it clear that I’m not doing this because I don’t need the help nor do I want to insult anybody here. I do it simply because there are more important people in my life who I’m currently speaking with. Face it, mom will always come before anybody here in terms of priority and importance in my life.

With all this is mind, you may be wondering how I’m dealing with her being in the hospital with a deadly disease of all things. Most people might think I sat in my room all day and cried and screamed and even found myself in a war with the staff. As I have been known to exhibit that behaviour for seemingly no reason on any good day, I can see why people may think this applies to this situation especially since someone who I’m so close to is going through what mom is going through.

I’m not going to lie. I actually thought as I was going to bed last night, (I did not sleep well,) that I would have cried like a baby and left puddles of water from my tears as well as broken furniture and staff who at one point had some level of respect for me only for that to go away as a result of an argument over one thing or another. However, I actually shocked myself by having a good enough day, (at least given the circumstances.) I relaxed today and even went as far as to call this a mini vacation from having to do what’s expected of me. I slept most of the day and even resolved to not have a bedtime, (at least at a set time,) where I would watch movies and even do more blogs. I have also made it my mission to eat all of my meals upstairs as my mental state can go from really good to depressed easily, as it did today. I would find myself ok one minute only to be depressed the next when I thought of all the good times I’ve had with mom. Despite my relaxed demeanor in this situation, I cannot allow other clients/staff to be be present if and when I revert to depression as this is considered by mom and myself to be a private matter, one which should not involve other people here.

However, as mom’s current status is a lead in to my warning, I will divulge it. It was a long enough surgery but it was a success and the cancer has been removed from where it was on her body, (I believe this is even more private.) So with this in mind, it leads me to believe she may be in remission from her cancer diagnosis as they removed it completely, though this is not confirmed yet. I am totally illiterate when it comes to medical procedures and what needs to be done before a person is clear of it, ETC. Even though she is supposedly clear of her cancer, she must remain in the hospital for the above mentioned length of time. Also, she is nowhere near the status of having enough energy to be herself. She is groggy in her speech and sleeping all of the time. Therefore, she may not be out of the woods yet.

Despite all of the good news currently surrounding her, it’s not lost on me that death from the disease may still occur. As I said before, I’m illiterate in terms of my knowledge about cancer and therefore, I could be overlooking some important aspect of this. As it stands now, everything I know about her current status was given to me from other people.

What I’m going to do right now is evaluate the staff’s performance in helping me through this difficult time. Given that things are going well for her at the moment, I have to say that my evaluation for staff have been so far so good. They have been supportive of me to a great degree. However, this will all change if the worst happens and this is where my warning comes in.

‘Throughout my 34 years, a lot of people have come and gone. However, most of those people, I didn’t really care about therefore I have not showed much emotion upon hearing of some people’s time coming to an end. There have also been countless celebrity deaths even recently which have resulted in me just saying it’s sad before turning the other cheek. Now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s been one death I’ve experienced where I’ve showed emotion. Well, if and when mom dies, that will change significantly and I know that staff here have unfortunately become accustomed to my behaviour on a bad day if I think I’m being mistreated ETC. Well, I’m just going to say right now that it’s would be in the best interest of staff to find me my own group of people to do my care as I would not be able to handle any stress from having to deal with them coming early or trying to stick up for themselves like one of them did recently, (as promised, I did not mention names.) The point is that everybody knows how calm I have been today and that has been for two reasons:

1. It’s only the first day and everything went well enough
2. Mom is still alive

Once again, THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A THREAT BUT RATHER A WARNING….but I will pull a complete 180 if number two no longer applies at any point. I will be unapproachable by anyone and will just want to be left alone. The last thing I would want is to be awakened by staff for my morning calls let alone have to fight with half of them for something stupid like where my lunch is. Despite my overall laid back demeanor, this is not a good time for me to be around clients which is why I have decided to remain upstairs unless I have a para booked.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter

Jeff