I've a bad habit of opening tons of tabs as I research topics, then forget to close them as I move on to new knowledge pastures. I was yesterday greeted by a loud motherboard alarm as it was overheating. Normally, I just dump them into my various Tumblr blogs, but today, as I close my tabs, I'll dump them into this article.

Foremost on my mind is the news that my last surviving (grand)parent, my Bucovina grandma, had pancreatic cancer and some sort of jaundice (“icter mecanic”) and was dying. Here’s the email I got from my uncle:

Buna Z
Ce mai faci nepoate. Nu ai mai dat nici un semn de viata.
Dupa cum stii astept inca instructiuni. Daca ai timp mai scrie si tu cum o mai duci.
Mama a facut icter mecanic pe fondul unei tumori pancreatice maligne si nu cred ca o mai duce mult.
Cu bine,

At first, I missed the last part. My Android phone gives me a quick preview of important emails, and in reading the first few lines, I assumed my uncle keeps asking me about some money thing that keeps coming up in our correspondence. I postponed replying to it, among other things, because I’m darn annoyed with my family’s propensity to think that it’s me who has to write. It’s like they are the mothership or something, and I’m a scout (“iscoada”) sent deep into enemy territory to find out if the terrain can sustain the larger invading army. In the end I got to the part about my grandma.

Trying to figure out what is “icter mecanic” (something with orange, I thought), I hit the Romanian Wikipedia. I find there a link to “icter.org” added by someone calling themselves “Saxonul” (2013.06.15). I guess I shouldn’t get angry over stupid little things like that, but..

Anyways, now I was able to get some idea: my grandma’s jaundice was most likely caused by the pancreatic tumour obstructing the biliary tract, leading to a high concentration of bilirubin in blood. This is worrisome – as I recall, pancreatic cancer has some of the worst 5-year survival rates (around 10%) and my grandma is over 90. I fire up an email asking for more info and I get this from my uncle and learn that she’s in a hospital in Bucharest, that she’s aware, but not altogether independent and she needs help with basic daily survival things, such as going to the washroom. I called him a few hours later in Brasov and talked to my aunt – he was still in Bucharest. My aunt played down what happened, told me that at first they thought the tumour is benign, then it turned out it’s malignant, and finally she had surgery and a stent to prevent the biliary tract flow constriction was inserted. My grandma doesn’t want to go back to Brasov because she’s thinking that if she dies she wants to be buried in Bucharest, next to her second daughter.

That leaves me with some tough decisions. Do I go to see her right away? If I do, the main thing she’ll ask me is if I finished something I haven’t finished and promised her I was going to look into last time we spoke. Should I take steps in that direction? If I do something about that, should I do it for her – shouldn’t I do it for myself when I’m ready? Unfortunately, I’ll never be ready – this is a better reason than most.

I’m also the next to get married – all my older cousins are married with children. Holding her hands is no longer enough to make her happy.

As I know my family, everybody is upside down and with little or no time, but I kind of miss them too. I do want to see them, but not for a long time, and I’m also busy with a bunch of other things, and am quite sure they feel similarly.

I’ll just sleep over it and call them again tomorrow.

Sources / More info: Wiki-jaundice, Wiki-pancreatic, Wiki-Stent