Mom's Last Year

     Mom and Dad went on the road trucking right before my husband and I got married.  They had been driving together for nearly 11years when Mom got too ill to stay on the road with Dad.  I got a call from Mom in an emergency room in some state they were passing through to make a delivery, Mom’s heart had begun beating so fast that they had to stop and restart it, if my mind is remembering events correctly.  I was very angry at my father, because it had been several months since I had seen my mother.  I told my mom that if she died on the road,and I didn’t get to see her, I would never forgive my father.

     Doctors in each state they passed through could not give mom a definitive answer on what was wrong with her, but in the back of her mind I think she knew.  She had been living in fear of it for years.  “I have cancer and the doctors aren't telling me so that I won’t be upset”, or "Did you tell the doctors not to tell me that I have cancer?" are the things she would often say; to the point where it drove everyone crazy.  It was as if she believed we all had a big secret we were keeping from her, that she was ill and going to die of cancer.  It wasn't until she stopped accusing us of hiding an imagined illness from her that she began to get sick.  I thought that she may have claimed that she had it so much, and truly believed we were lying to her that she ended up having what she so feared.  It was almost like she got it because of her intense fear and belief that she had it.

     Mom and Dad moved in with us in Milton, Florida around the new year of 2005. Dad quit his job with the over-the-road company, and got a local job driving a concrete truck.  Mom had health issues, still yet unknown, and appointments to go to; he had to be around.  They had their own room, because we had our new house built with an extra room with the thought of having them move in with us in mind. 

     It was just months before Mom died that her own grandson gave her an eerie warning from down the hall.

“Grandma, you need to stop smoking”, Christian said while playing his video games in his bedroom. Mom was in the bathroom fixing her hair, because she always had to look beautiful, and she told him that she knew she needed to quit.  Mom finished her hair and walked out of the bathroom and into the hall.  She collapsed onto the floor in severe pain and was unable to move from the pain in her ribcage area.  She thought it might have been a gallbladder attack, but was in fear that it was more.  She immediately quit smoking after that incident.  We found out later that it was possible that her diaphragm had been paralyzed by the cancer. And it was at that moment when she collapsed in the hallway from pain that would have been when the cancer damaged a nerve that caused her diaphragm to no longer function properly. The cancer had damaged the nerve that caused the diaphragm to move up and down causing it to no longer be able to move, it was stuck in the up position beneath her lungs.

     Mom had two biopsies, one in which they accidentally biopsied her diaphragm and the other they successfully removed lung tissue for the biopsy.  Mom called the doctor’s office to get the biopsy results and they told her she had to make an appointment to come and get the results.  That can’t be good we thought.  Huck and Dad both had to work that morning, and Christian was in school, so Elijah went with Mom and I to the doctor’s office for whatever news they had for my mom.

     I could see it in the face of the doctor when he came in the room, I knew it wasn’t good news.  He explained to us that Mom had Non-small Cell Adenocarcinoma, she had lung cancer and it had metastasized in her lymph nodes and to her shoulder region and her liver.  A later PET Scan would reveal that she had a mass wrapped around her aorta.  It was very serious.  But we all had hope, and we all prayed.  At night I would talk to my husband about it,and then when I thought he was asleep I would cry myself to sleep.

     About two months before mom’s diagnosis, we all took a trip to Disney World.  The doctors who couldn’t yet diagnose her told her not to go and to take it easy. At the very last minute Mom and Dad made the decision that they would accompany us to Disney World.  It was my children's first trip to the Magic Kingdom, and at the time we didn’t know that it would be Mom’s last.  We took a lot of pictures with Mom and the kids, in my heart I knew something was wrong, and I wanted to make sure we had pictures of our memories made together.  Even though Mom was in pain, she enjoyed riding the rides with the kids, their first time on The Haunted Mansion ride,and Pirates of the Caribbean, and her last. Mom happily and very ‘grandmotherly’ would push Elijah around the park in a stroller because at four years old kids get worn out at a park pretty fast in the Florida summer heat.  We stayed all day long, and ended the night watching the fireworks around the castle.  It was a tiring but memorable day.  It was a first and a last that will be remembered and cherished for years to come by me and my children.

     While in the doctor’s office Mom called my dad, and my mother tearily told him the news over the phone.  I called my sister while Mom was talking to Dad, I told my sister the news; it was in Mom’s lymph nodes…all the bad news.  My sister realized rightaway that Mom was going to die; I had not yet accepted that stark realization,I was still hoping for a positive outcome. My mom cannot die. 

     It was late August of 2005 when we received the grim diagnosis or D-day as I called it then.  Mom had many doctor appointments,got on a health food kick, anything to try for a ‘natural’ cure.  About two weeks, give or take a few days,after the diagnosis, Mom had a heart attack. She was taken by helicopter from the one hospital we had taken her to,to another one more equipped to handle her heart condition.   I was on the phone telling my sister the seriousness of it, which she didn’t believe until I told her they were taking her by Life Flight.  She and her husband packed up almost immediately to head to Milton, Florida to spend time with my mother.

     The last couple of weeks of her life she got weaker and weaker, she was diminishing fast, and we were too blind and in denial to see how fast we were losing her.  She didn’t want to get chemotherapy at all,but I wanted her to fight harder.  It was all happening way to fast.  It was only a few weeks prior that we found out she had stage 4 lung cancer.  (to be continued...)