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.
just want to hug you right now.
I like hugs. 🙂 Seriously, thank you. It’s good to know someone has read this and knows the fucking amazing thing my mom did. Because maybe, just maybe, her story, though it didn’t end the best, can inspire someone else to fight. It can be beaten. Her doctors told us repeatedly that if Mom had started out healthier, without her history of medical issues, she would have lived. They were convinced beyond any doubt. It just takes force of will and people who love you.
It’s me that should be thanking you. I watched a truly great woman’s life being drained from her this weekend. Two months ago she was up giving us hell laughing and joking as we visited her and her son, now he sits by her bedside talking to her shell. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was leave yesterday knowing it would be the last time I would see her.
I got a word that she has less than 24 hrs to live.
This post could not have come at a better time. Though I am sorry that you had to go thru it, I am glad you wrote of this experience. It reminds me she may lose this battle but her strength is an inspiration I will take with me forever.
~ Lord bless those who stood in the halo of her radiance.
Give them peace as that light dims, and the knowledge that in never fades completely but is carried with all she touched.~ Amen.
For Phyliss Barton and your Bad Ass Mom
*hugs right back* Cause you deserve them, too. I’m sorry you lost her. Channeling our dear Aunt Becky here: cancer is bullshit. But every person that fights it teaches us more, so in the end we can win the war.
What an awesome, oddly uplifting story.
It’s people like your mum who make me proud to be a woman.
*hugs* from someone else who likes hugs 🙂
What an awesome, oddly uplifting story.
It’s people like your mum who make me proud to be a woman.
*hugs* from someone else who likes hugs 🙂
Your mom sounds like a truly incredible woman and you sound pretty damned amazing too. Lots of {{{hugs}}} coming your way.
Thank you, from both of us. 🙂
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Your post brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing about your mother. I bet she’s proud of you too…
I hope she is proud of me, because I’m very proud of her
Here is a *hug* because I suck at finding the right words.
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I wish I knew you when it happened so I could give you that $300 bucks!! Thanks for sharing.