up, down, up

Every time I try to describe what life has been like since my mom's fall on August 12, the words 'roller coaster' pop into my head.

"It's been a roller coaster."

I haven't put up a post saying it's been a roller coaster, however, because It's been a roller coaster is fantastically clichéd - and seems oddly discordant under the circumstances.

Turns out it's not:

Patients with end-stage heart failure^* have a trajectory of illness characterized by an overall gradual decline in function punctuated by periods of symptom exacerbation followed by a return nearly to their baseline. These exacerbations are not predictable.

Trajectory of End-Stage Heart Failure | Nathan E. Goldstein and Joanne Lynn

You can say that again.



Trajectory of End-Stage Heart Failure
Nathan E. Goldstein and Joanne Lynn
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
winter 2006 | volume 49 | number 1
p. 12


^* I don't know what stage my mother is in.