by Band Back Together | Nov 12, 2010 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Chronic Illness, Coping With Cancer, Grief, Health, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Help A Friend With Chronic Illness, Loss, Parent Loss |
In August of 2006, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I was at the movie store with my boyfriend and our 4 month old daughter when I got a phone call from my aunt. I had to stand outside because I couldn’t hear her inside. As I stood in the wind with one ear plugged, huddled so she didn’t hear the gusting through the line, she told me my mother was in the hospital fighting for her life. I couldn’t believe it. In shock, I think, I asked her question after question.
My most important question: “What happened?” She went to the ER with abdominal pain, which turned out to be a tumor pushing on her internal organs. She was in multiple organ failure and had to be wheeled into surgery immediately. They only had time to get contact information for my grandparents before she was under and being cut open. They had removed what they could, put her on dialysis and a colostomy bag, and told my grandparents to come as soon as they could. They were 4 states away.
Against the odds, my mother survived the massive surgery which left her with no large intestine, no reproductive organs, and one barely functional kidney. My grandparents packed her home up, leaving behind precious memories and beloved family pets in the process, to try to get her back to their home before another rent payment was due. A few days after they finished packing, my mother was declared stable enough to transport and made the several hour flight away from the only state she had ever called home.
Practically an invalid for months, she relied completely on my grandparents for everything. I was unable to get down to see her, despite impassioned pleas to everyone I could think of, including my and my mother’s previous employer, for a loan. I just needed a plane ticket. A simple fucking plane ticket. $300 that our family couldn’t afford without shutting off the gas in the middle of a Michigan winter. What if she had died in that hospital? Or the months just after? The doctors hadn’t given her much chance, and I couldn’t get a lousy $300 loan to go see her.
How could things get so fucked up so fast? I’d just seen her! She came up after our daughter was born, twice, because soon after she left the first time I needed gallbladder surgery. She may not have been a poster-girl for perfect health, but she wasn’t DYING! How could two months make such a difference? And why the hell couldn’t I get someone to give me a fucking hand up so I could go see one of the most important people in my life when they were practically one foot in the grave?!?!
By the time I finally got to see her, she had mostly stabilized and was started on chemo so the tumors wouldn’t start growing again and really do her in this time. It was a calculated risk: if they started it too soon, and she couldn’t handle literally injecting poison into her body, she died. If they waited too long, the extremely aggressive tumors could grow right back and totally kill her internal organs, if they didn’t starve her of essential nutrients first. Rock, meet hard place. Fuck me.
But she survived. Against all odds – and often stupefying her doctors – she lived. She bulled through that surgery, her recovery, chemo, and eventually radiation as well. And in the end? She kicked cancer in the balls, hard. Her very last oncologist appointment gave her an official diagnosis of remission. Three months later, she died. The treatment(s) had left her with an inability to absorb vital nutrients.
But even as she lay dying, she had the satisfaction of knowing she had won.
She might be dying, but she’d taken the big C with her, kicking and fucking screaming. I’m proud of you, Mom.
by Band Back Together | Nov 11, 2010 | Coping With Losing A Partner, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Partner/Spouse Loss |
The thing about my husband was that he was very talented. He was an actor/voice-over artist and a writer. He had some success in the real world. He also was an amazing singer. There are videos/recordings with him or his voice in them, and episodes of TV shows and movies that come on arbitrarily that he wrote.
Almost 5 years in, I still get blind-sided by these things. I lie on the couch on a Saturday night, watching a movie and am startled to hear his voice; I forgot he did voice-work on that movie. Or I’m flipping through the channels and, OMG…there’s a movie he wrote, or an episode of a television show. Often I just smile, sometimes the effect is a bit more disturbing. Tonight I was on FB, just trudging through, checking in, and there was a post by my (well, his) nephew.
He had found and posted a VERY old video by David Lee Roth (OK, Just a Gigolo, for those older than a minute). His comment was only, “miss you Tom.” Tom does a voice-over on it and appears in one scene. I had forgotten about it. It was really goofy. In the moment…it made me laugh, so hard.
BUT, I’ve been crying off and on all night. That’s the way grief works. It catches you unaware and knocks you for a loop. I can make it through his birthday with aplomb; show me a stupid video, surprise me with his voice..I’m a wreck.
I’m heading into what I call the “horror” months, because the holidays were his, our, favorite time of the year. Especially Christmas; the music, the activities. We always had a huge party. We went to many other ones. He loved carols; each year we’d make a CD for friends and family, with a theme, of Christmas carols. We have a lot of talented friends, so each year we’d include a friend singing on our CD.
Tom died in January 2006. For Christmas 2006 I decided to make one last CD. It is so beautiful, but one of the most precious parts of it was that I was able to add 3 songs that Tom sang on it. Every year I look so forward to – and dread so much – playing the CD. I know that I will listen to it Thanksgiving weekend as I decorate our Christmas tree; that’s when the CD’s come out.
I want to hear it, I dread it. I want to watch those movies, but I dread hearing his voice, remembering. The pain and the joy and the dread and the amazing gratitude that I have because i DO have these reminders…well. It’s hard to describe.
Grief sucks; life keeps moving ahead. And with it, I have to deal with the good and the bad. Tonight, though I’ve been crying most of the night, I’m clear on that. Maybe not tomorrow or Christmas Eve, but I don’t know. The way that this video surprised and delighted me even as it made me sad and feel my loss really points to the way that my grief, all grief, is a living, changeable thing. I will never not feel the pain, but as time goes on, I hope that initial jolt will be more often, one of delight and gratitude rather than pain and loss.
by Band Back Together | Nov 5, 2010 | Adoption, Breast Cancer, Coping With Losing A Partner, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Partner/Spouse Loss |
The day Tom died, I lost more than a husband. I lost a family. From the moment I turned on CNN, the family I loved, enjoyed and belonged to began to fracture, as if the second the plane crashed, it became more than tortured steel and shredded rubber.
Tom was from a large, German, Catholic family, where he was the baby of seven. There was quite an age difference between the oldest and the youngest. I’ve always believed Tom was the favorite, the golden child, because he was most like his father and was the last child his mother could ever have.
He loved his family, but they exasperated him. He was closest to his father and endured his mother. He once told me he loved his mother, but he didn’t like her. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised when they turned on me. There were signs over the years that I didn’t measure up. When we got engaged at graduation, she was planning a celebratory family dinner. I wasn’t invited, until she found out we were engaged, and then she felt obligated.
Tom’s first job took us to Fargo, ND. There was never any question I wasn’t going, although the wedding was 10 months away. The night before the moving van came, we moved my boxes to his house. As my boxes sat in their living room, his mother told Tom if I intended to live together, and then have a large “white” wedding not to bother sending invitations to the family, because none of them would come. Tom stood up against her and she finally backed down. She never apologized to me.
Years later, his family was incredibly supportive when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. They flew in for my surgery and sat by my bed. Seven months later when I ran the NYC marathon, they were wearing sweatshirts with words of encouragement.
But, when we announced we were adopting, his mother wasn’t happy. The rest of the family was ecstatic. Weeks before Tom’s death, one of his brothers call to try and convince him not to adopt, but hire a surrogate instead. I was the problem after all, and with a surrogate, the family genes would be passed on. Tom hung up the phone in anger. It was the last time he ever spoke to his brother.
If these memories of the past didn’t raise a red flag, how they treated me during the funeral should have woke me up. Tom’s memorial service was held in the church we were married. His family wanted to memorialize the child Tom was. I wanted to celebrate the man he became. They wanted to have the Stations of the Cross; I wanted to toast him with Scotch and cigars.
It didn’t stop there. His brother insinuated himself into the investigation of the crash, claiming I was overcome with grief and he was acting on behalf of the entire family. He was notified of official information before me, such as the recovery of Tom’s remains. When he knew about the recovery of Tom’s wedding ring before me, the shit hit the fan. My attorneys took on the Nova Scotia government and I tackled the US State Department. But, as soon as all of his remains were identified, I closed the door on his meddling family. They wanted Tom’s remain repatriated and buried in their small town cemetery, I intended to have him cremated and his ashes scattered over the crash site. They tried to manipulate me by playing the church card, but I stood firm.
The day I scattered his ashes, his family was absent. They didn’t know. They would have turned it into a three-ring circus, but I made it about Tom. I informed his father in a very difficultly written, heartfelt letter. His family never forgave me for that, but if I had to do it all over again, I would change nothing.
An uncertain truce was called after I adopted Elliott. Although they attended her christening and showered her with gifts, they were sharpening their knives. I sued the airline after Tom’s death. I was the only person who had the legal right, but they effectively counter sued me. They seemed to have forgotten at the moment we said, “I do” all rights shifted to me. They claimed our marriage wasn’t solid, Tom wasn’t Elliott’s father, and they disclaimed Elliott as family, and claimed breast cancer wasn’t an excuse not to have children.
By the end, his mother said Tom married beneath him, it was my fault we didn’t live near home, and if I read between the lines, she wished it were me on the plane rather than Tom. One of the very low points during this difficult time came when a brother told me “they” had decided it was harder to lose a son than a husband.
My attorneys tried to protect me from the worst, but the damage was done. I became so paranoid I feared they would have me followed by a private investigator. By this time I had met Colby and I wanted to move on with my life. The amount of fear and anger this family was causing me was overwhelming. The hardest part of it all was I thought they loved me, I thought they cared, but to discover how they felt about me rocked me to the core.
Four years after Tom’s death, we were summoned to federal court in Philadelphia. The judge clearly took my side, but he went through the meditative process. In the end, an agreement was reached. The lawsuit was settled and I could move on. I exchanged “pleasantries” with his parents on leaving the courtroom. His mother was not warm and welcoming, his father was in pain. He hugged me a long time and I could feel how much he missed his son. He asked after Elliott and I gave him a picture. It was the last time I ever saw them.
I remember getting in a cab bound for the airport when I turned to my parents with tears streaming down my faces and said, “I can finally marry Colby.”
I lost more than a husband the night Tom died. I lost a family I loved, a family I enjoyed, and family I felt I belonged to.
How naïve I was…
by Band Back Together | Oct 27, 2010 | Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Miscarriage |
When I was 18, I miscarried twins. It still hurts. It hurts even more that my husband doesn’t seem to understand. They were his babies too. I don’t know if he cares and just doesn’t show it or if there’s something wrong with me that I just can’t let it go. Should I still cry at baby product advertisements and while writing these posts?
I wish I knew.
We’ve been married for almost four years now. We decided early this year, around my husband’s birthday, that after Christmas 2010 we’d start trying for a baby. We had a house, we were both settled in our jobs and had a stable income, and the time felt ‘right’. I’ve wanted a baby so badly since the miscarriages that it hurts.
So a few weeks ago, I made an appointment with my doctor (who seems to be perpetually on vacation) for next week, to discuss removing my IUD, going on the pill and to find out if I need to find alternatives for any of my current medication.
Last week I lost my job. Cutbacks. Laying off those of us making barely minimum wage while they give the executives five-figure bonuses and hire six-figure middle-managers. I work – worked – in payroll, I see the numbers.
No job means barely enough money to pay the bills.
No job means no baby.
It feels like my husband doesn’t care.
It feels like my heart is breaking all over again.
by Band Back Together | Oct 26, 2010 | Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Parent Loss |
Today, my mother would have been 55. She passed away on my 17th birthday. She was very ill and she fought bravely right until the bitter end. That doesn’t mean that I was never angry at her for dying. I needed her at that age. Hell, I still do. I have several aunts and an awesome mother-in-law, but that’s not the same.
As I get closer to becoming the age she was when she died, I notice that I am a lot like her. I am afraid of what happens once I get past the age she was when she died. She was no angel by any means, but she’s irreplaceable. She brought me into this world.
I miss my mother a lot today. I miss her everyday.
by Band Back Together | Oct 25, 2010 | Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Miscarriage |
Tonight, I was sitting in my room, sick with the flu watching the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy with my husband. I love this show. I was so excited to watch it.
What I forgot, of course, was the way last season ended. I hate that I have to brace myself for these things, that I have to avoid this – but tonight I was unexpectedly punched in the stomach. I was blind-sided by seeing a woman lying in a hospital bed with her legs up in stirrups on television about to get a D&C.
I lost it.
I cried.
My husband held me without me having to say a word.
He knew.
I hate that I know I am going to have nightmares again tonight. I get them often and tonight I know they will come.
Painful.
Real.
Nightmares.
I hate that something as silly as a television show triggers them.
I have not healed from these 10 miscarriages. I don’t know if I ever will fully. I am tired of the pain but I know I have to feel it.
I just wish it wasn’t so hard.
