In 1960...

In 1960 (the year you were born)

Dwight Eisenhower is president of the US Sit-ins being after 4 black college students in North Carolina refuse to move from a deli counter when denied service A U-2 reconnaissance plane belonging to the US is shot down in the Soviet Union Hurricane "Donna" strikes the East Coast causing over 100 deaths in the US and the Antilles John F. Kennedy defeats Vice President Richard Nixon in the presidential race Cassius Clay (who later took the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight Michael Stipe, Tony Robbins, Bono, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Jeffrey Dahmer are born Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series Philadelphia Eagles win the NFL championship Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is the top grossing film To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published The Beatles make their debut in Hamburg, Germany The Flintstones debut

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

The mom report (hankies required)

It's not good, as I expected. As a matter of fact, I correctly predicted more or less exactly what the doctor said. The weird thing about brain cancer is, you can see the effects plain as day. Art said she was starting to have trouble distinguishing letters and numbers when they were playing bingo. And her motor skills on her right side were getting worse. So to me that said that the tumor was mostly likely growing again, and I was right. And while the chemo she had after Thanksgiving seemed to help a little, it obviously did not have any really dramatic positive effects, and we already knew that that was pretty much the last-ditch effort as it was. So that means that we are out of options as far as any real treatment is concerned, and it's time for hospice. I thought they might keep her at MDA - I'm pretty sure they do have a hospice wing there - but they brought her back to The Pointe, which is where she has been, and that's probably best for all of us. Particularly Art, who goes to see her every day, and doesn't need the strain of the daily drive up to the Medical Center. The Pointe is only a couple of miles from the house. (Mom's, I mean, which is where Art is still staying.) And apparently what they do is they get the hospice people to come in and do their thing there. I don't think it's like with other kinds of cancer, though, where there's going to be a lot of drugs involved, because having your brain eaten away from inside is apparently not a painful process, at least not so far. And I have no idea how long they expect her to live, even now. Her oncologist has never been one to throw out numbers like that anyway, and I bet Art didn't get any out of him today - or at least if he did, he forgot to tell me. The hospice people will probably have a good idea, once they spend some time with her.

I cried some, but mostly I'm pretty calm. Dragging it out for months on end would be much worse than this. Up until a couple of months ago she was still fighting, and I was proud of her for fighting, but now I think she is done with that and ready to go.