New Year’s Eve

.: Mother
My mother’s cancer has been in remission for over a month now, and we were all very happy with that. Due to this she’s no longer on painkillers, and the little aches and pains that she always had to endure have slowly come back. Unfortunately, what seemed like an old ailment to her shoulder seemed to be getting worse and worse, the pain intensifying to unbearable levels. For those of you who know my mother, know that she has the highest pain tollerance on any person I’ve ever met, and it came to my surprise when I was told that she had moments where she was walking around the house, crying from pain. It got so bad that on new year’s eve, she was admitted to the emergency room, where they gave her morphine and did a scan of her body, revealing an abnormality in her pleura visceralis, the fleece that wraps around your lungs. The doctors concluded that their were two possibilities; 1) it was scartissue from the localised radiology that she had received, or 2) it was cancer. My mother was transfered to a hospital that was better equiped to handle her case, and also the hospital she was treated at before. There they concluded that further tests were necessary and she was released with morphine patches against the pain. On thursday she’s going to be examined. So, with a morphine patch slapped on her shoulder she went to her new year’s eve celebration. My mother is hardcore.

It’s a big disappointment to all of us that this has to happen right on the threshold of the new year. We were all hoping we’d leave all this trouble behind us and start the new year afresh. When I talked to my mother on new year’s day, she broke down to me and told me how disappointed she was, too. How relieved she had felt when it was finally behind her and how disappointed she was that despite the effort she put in that it wasn’t enough. I told her that even though she’d have to do the lion’s share of the work, we’d all soldier on and beat this thing.

.: Danika
During the last couple of days Danika, a good friend of Moulsari from NYC, has been visiting us, which was great. She’s been great company, with a great sense of humour. She’s one of those people that can tell you the biggest nonsense with a straight face, and I fell for that more than once. Good times.

.: New Year’s Eve
My mother kind of ordered me to have fun during New Year’s Eve, and so I tried. It was probably the quietest NYE celebration I’ve had in a long time, spending some time at home with Danika and Moulsari and around 23:00 we went up to the Dam, which I haven’t ever seen so busy. It was wall-to-wall people, which was uncomfortable and annoying, until it was time for the countdown. I’ve never seen a crowd go from annoyed to festive, doing a complete 180, in such a short time. It was amazing to be surrounded by such vibrance and energy. We decided not to stay for too long, since the music wasn’t so fantastic, not like last year, and we slowly walked back, through the nine streets, home, where we spent another hour watching the fireworks from my apartment window.

Danika thought the whole town had lost their minds, she couldn’t believe the fireworks and the craziness. I think she did have a good time, though, because she was really happy and buzzed by the end of the night, trying to intimidate and impress me with her karate-chop action. :)

I wish I could’ve made a collection of all my favourite people and spent NYE with them all, but even though that didn’t happen, I had a pretty good NYE. For all those people I’ve not spoken to, yet (Sorry for missing your call, Ed!), I wish you all the best for 2008, health, success and happiness.