Anguish… Despair…Anticipation… Apprehension…Weariness…. Tears and Sorrows… Questions for Tomorrow….. Incomprehension….Bewilderment… Abandonment …Wavering Faith …
My only consolation is that trials have only come to make us strong. Cancer is a malicious, merciless disease that not only attacks the body of the sufferer but the psyche of the victim and everyone who cares for and loves them. I have found that there are different levels of dealing with death and dying. This summer my 85 year old grandmother had a heart attack and died. This was a shock to me and my family. Still, 2 months later, we forget that she is gone. We think we can pick up the phone to call and she will answer…We miss her. Yes, it was a shock, but she did not suffer. She did not have the anticipation of dying. Some may think that it would be better for those left behind to have known that their loved one was going to leave this earth, so that they could say good-bye. That may be true, but when your loved one has been given 6 months to live, how do you live those 6 months? How does she live her last 6 months? The uncompromising truth is that every decision that is made in her life now becomes a life and death decision. My mother is at a place with her disease where she has to choose to continue to medically battle her callous condition, or relinquish to living her last few month’s comfortably, without fight. She’s been informed that her chemotherapy treatments have been ineffective and will not prolong her existence. A few weeks ago there was conversation about putting a stint in her distended kidney, but currently that will not happen as it is expected that the cancer will kill her before the kidney would need to be alleviated. Even though the cancer has now extended to her kidneys’ and liver the chemo has relieved several other symptoms associated to her illness. The irony of the past few weeks is that my mother is feeling better than she has for a long time, but the CAT scan says otherwise. As I am sitting here typing, I am periodically glancing over to my mother who is asleep on the couch. When she woke up this morning she got dressed in black, comfortable shorts and a light blue, faded jean shirt with the family business logo opposite her left pocket. Her black, thin, modicum hair was combed to the side. We all went out to the porch after breakfast, as it was still a tolerable temperature at that hour. My mom swung on the porch swing as we talked. We just sat and I talked, she listened. It has been getting progressively harder to engage my mom in conversation. Our dialogue has been mostly one sided these days but I am getting accustomed to this new relationship. I anticipate enlightening her on my life each day that I converse with her. Now, her eyes are closed, with her glasses still delicately resting on her face. Occasionally I can hear a soft, subtle snore coming from her open mouth. My sister is quietly, innocently sitting cross legged on the floor next to her watching SpongeBob Square Pants not recognizing that her mother is so sick that she is going to perish. This family has gone through the imperative, necessary modifications that are required to sanely cope with her last few months. One adaptation is the implementation of the family vacation. Last summer, without trepidation, my parents bought a Time-Share on Englewood Beach. This year, over Labor Day weekend, I will be coming back down here to take my mom, step-dad and sister to their vacation spot for 5 days. This will most likely be my mother’s last vacation, and we want to create enjoyable, unforgettable, treasured memories. This has been a long weary road and we are relentlessly walking beside my mom no matter what undesired twists and turns are in her path. Please keep my mom in your prayers as she continues to grapple with her last months.