A Poem I wrote when my mom was beginning this journey: Not Without A Fight August 23, 2009 at 9:42pm I hate you today. More than I did yesterday, And more than I did years ago. But not as much as I will tomorrow. I know you, Your coldness, your lack of emotion, Your demands, your ability to go unseen, Undetected until often it’s too late. The taker of life and love, no I wouldn’t call it fate. You have so many names, So many disguises that you wear. But once you’ve settled in, life is never the same. It becomes a struggle, a fight, a war zone, And the body is the battle field you’ve come to claim. There will be many sleepless nights, Needles in the veins, Sweats in the middle of the night, Bodies curled up in pain. Tears from many eyes, But they will try to be strong, and they will try to fight. Some will defeat you in an agonizing fight. They will look death in the face and laugh, For they’ve gone on to live a new life. But some will lose the battle, And they’ll slip
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Fly freely, chase wild dreams, make memories.
Lifes journey is never straight forward and often there is tragedy amongst the beauty we get to experience. In a strange twist of fate, i stumbled back onto this blog while researching other blogs because my sister has recently been diagnosed with cancer, CLL/SLL, which is basically leukemia nd non hodgkins lymphoma in the lymph glands. In the process of reading other blogs, I find myself annoyed at the number of blogs left unfinished, a life story left unwritten. but i also understand that the final pages are often dark and difficult. So perhaps its only fitting that I come back to write about the last days of mom's life, the finishing lines to her story. Its a hard time when the person you've been fighting for so hard takes a drastic turn for the worst. I actually cant fathom reliving those last few months in detail so this is the short version. Once the cancer had spread to the brain Mom was getting severe migraines more frequently, and we were at the ER more frequently. I
So much to say and most importantly, Mom still fights!
I wish i was good at actually getting on here and writing, I know someday this journey will be important and i will want to read about it. But living it and actually finding time to write about it is a whole different story. I'm only going to outline the past year and a half, and actually write the full story a nother time. Mom has been on chemo ever since diagnosed with the lung cancer. A few breaks in treatment where the chemo made her so sick she had to be hospitalized, kidneys shutting down, chemo to strong, etc. Cancer in her arm has broken bone twice, once it was the actual tumor that broke bone. Second time she got a charlie horse, and because the cancer had eaten so much of the bone, what was left just broke when the muscle contracted. Looks like cancer has now metastasized to femur, rib, and just last week we took her to ER for fatigue and severe headaches, which turned out to be tumor in her brain. The brain cancer is where we are at now, and as you can imagine it is the
The Plan, the battle begins.
I'm so random at these postings,so scattered in my thoughts, sometimes not feeling like writing at all. But I think someday I will want to read this, to look back at the journey and remember every detail. Maybe not, if I think back to the first time Mom had cancer, I'd like to forget most of it, except the memories of late night Nintendo playing, random trips to the store for food she was craving, the games she would make for me while I was at school, those things make me smile. It's hard this time, Mom is so far away, 3 hours on a good day. It's a real bummer because I can't just go see here and hang out whenever I want. We can't play Nintendo all night, or go get frozen yogurt for dinner. I have to wonder how is she really doing? Is she ok, is she putting up a front, trying to be strong, when in reality she's sitting there scared to death with nobody to talk to? I hope not, but if I could be there and talk to her, I would feel better. Just to make sure she
Waiting, Processing, Numbing
Time seems to move in super slow motion, minutes taking days to complete. How many times can I look at the time and wonder when it will be a time I actually want to see? Sitting at work, trying to work, I'm not successful at it, but I try. Mom still sits in the hospital, and I wish she could go home. It's such a sad place, not good for the soul. I was trying to think, where did I leave off and these random postings? It was the first wait, the test that we thought would answer all the questions, set things straight, put medicine in motion so to speak. Yeah, right...... things didn't work out that way. But I did call my mom, I usually call early in the morning because her cancer doctor comes in very early to see her. Mom answered the phone crying, not easy to hear, but I maintain a very calm demanor and asking her what's wrong. She tells me the doctor was in and he didn't have good news, which we all knew, but mom was clinging to false hopes. Who can blame her, even I
The Wait
I can’t work! I’ve tried, but it never lasts more than 15 minutes before my mind is wandering back to my mom. Life feels so chaotic, so frustrating, so unfair, so fucked up. I guess I have to recap a little, actually a lot. What the hell, I can’t seem to focus on work anyway. Let’s go back 20 years…….. Mom is on her way to the hospital, severe stomach pain. That’s weird, I wonder what’s going on with her, at the time I’m 17 and living with her and my step dad. I’ll summarize the agony of those days quickly; Mom has non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. When they told us the news, I can only recall how numb I felt, how disconnected. My mom had cancer? It took me back to my mom’s best friend, earlier in life, Judy Magrin. I loved her; she was so damn nice and had a fire about her that drew people in. Anyway, Judy died of breast cancer, and I recall slightly blurred memories of the painful fight. It seemed like we lived at Judy’s house, my mom always trying to make Judy comfortable, while we kids p
Test run
I've never considered myself a blogger, yet lately I find the need to just write. This seems to be a good outlet for now.