I couldn't find the Odie Maid cards

I had a mini breakdown a few nights ago because I couldn't locate the Odie Maid cards. I knew where they should be, where they've lived since 1997 but they weren't there. And it was crucial that I had them, right? I'm not being dramatic, am I?

The Odie Maid cards were a small but meaningful success contributor of our Mom's first cancer fight in Houston. They were an anxiety reducer during times of waiting for medical tests or procedures and made post-op pass more quickly. Medical staff would walk by and be delighted by the silliness of Garfield and friends cast as characters in Old Maid. They always made Mom smile and we didn't really care who won or lost.

So now 25+ years later, I'm trying to apply the lessons I learned through that experience to Dad. I knew what the central line insertion was going to entail, I needed the Odie Maid cards. No Odie Maid to be found. So I kinda lost it.

Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on August 8. The last 7 weeks have been tests, more tests, an endoscopic biopsy, surgeon appointments, oncologist appointments, admitted into and rejected out of a clinical trial in less than 24 hours (FFS!), and yesterday finally the insertion of the port so that he can start chemo.

Surgery isn't an option. It's aggressive. It's already metastasized. It's incurable. We're looking at balancing treatment with prolonging what life he has remaining. He's already lost so much weight and eating/digestion is difficult before he's even started chemo. Your pancreas does some important stuff yall.

I'm more than a little frustrated that it has taken this long to get the ball rolling, I feel like we've wasted at least 3-4 weeks during which he could've already started treatment. Did we need to go to the surgeon twice when we knew after the first appointment that it was inoperable? Did we need to go to the oncologist 2 weeks in a row for the same exact information? Methinks not. Everything in this county health-related is so much slower than Houston was.

In retrospect, it was not unreasonable or overdramatic for me to have a breakdown over the Odie Maid cards. They would have been very useful yesterday when Dad got impatient/anxious during pre-op. I took some regular playing cards but that didn't work; they didn't carry the silliness with them and obviously lacked the Mom connection. It's not about the game itself, it's about the distraction.

I'll keep looking. New ones won't be as effective. We need the "Mom" ones.