The story of the three M's
It’s currently 11pm and I am
sitting at my parent’s house in Mebane, NC typing this post. 14 hours ago my family was told that my
mother has cancer.
If this is the first you are
hearing this devastating news, you now know about as much as we do at this
point. Please do not feel left out or unloved, it has been a very trying week with information and processing for my immediate family...
If this were the whole story, it
would be heart breaking enough, but if you know me or my family, you are aware
that this is not the whole story. As I sit
here trying to process this information, I can’t help but reflect on the story
of me, my mother and malignancy.
I can’t help but think about the past, in some way to try and find
direction and this is why I am writing this post- to try and find clarity for
myself. If you would just like to know
the current situation, please scroll to the end of this post.
September 2001
I am 16. I am a sophomore in high school. I am fully engrossed with classes, marching
band, football games, basketball practice and the daily ins and outs of high
school drama. My mother was also apparently
diagnosed with colon cancer. She had
surgery and subsequently 11 months of chemotherapy. I was not helpful. I was not supportive. I demanded things of her, things she had always
done as my mother and would get angry when she could not do them. I was in denial that my mother had anything
other than strength and normalcy. My
mother did not have cancer. My mother
was not sick. I don’t remember sharing
this news with many people. I do remember
I started dating someone and after a month I mentioned something about
chemotherapy and he was shocked that I never said anything before about my mom
having this illness, this battle that could have killed her. I don’t
think I ever coped with her having cancer.
I got into the only fist fight I have been in that year though, during a
basketball game. Subsequent counseling
visits diagnosed me with ‘clinical depression’ and I started one of the run of
the mill SSRI therapies until I graduated.
December 2005
I am
20. I just completed my first semester
of sophomore year at UNC-Charlotte. A
school I never felt I fit in with and was planning on transferring to Durham
Tech for the spring semester, mostly to be with my newly acquired boyfriend who
lived in Durham as well as my parents. I
always knew I wanted to be in the nursing field so I was eagerly learning about
anatomy and microbiology. My mom and dad
tell me in a car ride that her last colonoscopy showed some lesions of
suspicion and they were awaiting cytology reports. One week later they told me she had
colorectal cancer. No, her previous
cancer did not return because the cells are different. She has a new primary cancer, completely
independent of the first. She has major
surgery in January to remove the tumor and subsequently completed 6-8 months of
even more intense chemotherapy with the addition of radiation.
Now you
would think, being 4 years older and wiser, I would have developed a sort of
compassion and care to help. I had
not. I was equally as apathetic as
before. My mom did not have cancer. When my mom’s hands were so sensitive to cold
due the drugs running thru her veins that she couldn’t get a simple glass of
ice water, I became enraged with her. Why
couldn’t she just get me some cold water?
Why couldn’t she touch anything from the refrigerator? Why was she in bed for 4 days every two weeks
following treatment? I do remember
attending more radiation sessions and visiting her at her chemo appointments
more than I do when I was younger, but by in large I was mostly absent.
February 2009
I am
23. I start working as an RN at Duke
University Hospital on the Hematology-Oncology floor. I begin treating patients mostly with
leukemia and lymphoma. I took many ‘core
classes’ on cancer, what it is, what it does, what treatment is, and what
treatment does to the human body. This
is the first time I began to understand what my mother had been enduring for
those many months. I became overcome
with regret, guilt and sadness for my behavior during those times. I tried to make amends with these feelings by
providing the best care I knew how to of my patients and their families.
December 2010
My mom
takes me to the airport so I can fly to Alaska to meet a man I had never met
before. I man I might by accident on
facebook who had become a dear friend to me over the last year. Many people thought I was crazy. If the show Catfish had been around back
then, I may not have ever gone. Many people told me not to go, that it was
dangerous and foolish. But my mom knew I
needed to take risks and chances in life.
Risks she felt she didn’t have the chance to take. So she drove me to the airport and wished me
well. I had an amazing 5 day trip to a
new place with new people.
February 2011
I
decided to take another chance and made the decision to try and move to Alaska. To work, to explore, to find new people to
take more chances with. I began the
process of looking into grad schools in Alaska and getting my AK RN
license.
March 2011
I am
24. I am still working at Duke. My mom has an abnormal PAP smear. She is diagnosed with uterine cancer. A third primary, a third new cancer that has
invaded her precious body. She has a
total hysterectomy, one that was very complex due to her previous surgeries for
cancer and a third one to remove adhesions in her bowel caused by the other
surgeries. She endures another five months of chemotherapy. This was the
first time she lost her hair. This was
the first time I was painfully aware of what her body was going through. I tried my best to rectify my previous
reactions and support to her previous adventures with cancer. All in all, I feel I did a fair enough
job. I went to treatment with her. I helped my dad manage her medications to
control her nausea, vomiting and pain. I
was present for the first time.
September 2011
I move
to Alaska. My mom was one month out from
completing her chemotherapy with a clean bill of health and no traces of cancer
remaining. Many people felt and advised
me that I should not go. I am sure many
other felt I was being selfish for leaving so soon after treatment and for
leaving at all after my mom could have potentially died three times in the last
ten years. But not my mother. Not only did she drive me to the airport, she
insisted that she come with me and my dad to help me move. Her blood counts barely recovered, she made the
12 hour journey to Alaska and spent a week helping me get situated in this
foreign place. We enjoyed seeing Alaska together. They even came three months later to spend Christmas
with me there. She spent the next year
or so recovering her body from the trauma of chemotherapy and the trauma of her
youngest child moving 4,000 miles away, but never wavering her support in my decisions.
July 2013
I am
27. I am working in Alaska at an
outpatient chemotherapy infusion center.
I had been accepted in the Family Nurse Practitioner program at the
University of Alaska Anchorage and was slated to start in August. My mom had been having debilitating back pain
and leg pain for several months which led to her having a laminectomy of her
L1-L4 vertebrae. I returned to North
Carolina the day after surgery to spend 10 days helping her recover from
surgery and the assumed road to recovery.
She was in pain and very weak. I
made a medication record spreadsheet for my dad to help organize the ever
evolving need for pain medications. I
was her nurse and tried to be a mentor to my father who would be in charge of
her care. I returned home, hopeful for a
speedy recovery.
December 2013
I am
recently 28. My mother has lost 45
pounds. My mother now uses a walker to
move around the home and a wheelchair outside of home. Her pain is still unbearable. Her anxiety and depression, equally as
debilitating. I return home for three
weeks to, again, try and expedite her recovery with my constant care. I help her buy Christmas presents on Amazon because
she was unable to go shopping. I help
decorate the home with Santas and Christmas décor. I help
my dad cook meals with my mom’s guidance as chef. We enjoy the holidays in a new way that was
at times insufferable. I take my mother
to physical therapy where the therapist reassures us that things like this just
take time. A few people said what I am
sure many others felt, that I should not be in Alaska at a time like this. That I was unequivocally needed to help. I struggled with this for many months
prior. The remarks cut my soul. But again, my mother said I needed to be in
Alaska. She said if she felt she needed
me and that she was dying, she would want me there. She said “and I don’t think I’m dying”. She said I needed to go to school. I needed to continue to live these risks and
adventures that she felt she never got to take.
So I return home, again, still unsure if what I am doing is the right
thing.
January 7, 2014
My
father texts me at work and says they’ve taken mom to the emergency room, that
her weakness and pain have escalated since my leaving and she needed to have
further work ups. An MRI of her back
shows areas of inflammation. We wait
another day and have an abdominal CT performed.
I am driving to my first day of school when I call my father to hear any
updates. He tells me it’s not good
news. He tells me as I drive through the
ice and falling snow that there are suspicious areas on her scan that they are
worried about. I don’t remember much
from that first class. That night I purchase
a one way plane ticket home to be there when more worrisome results come. Luckily my job and school are very supportive
and sympathetic to my sudden departure and become one less thing I need to
worry about at the present time.
This
morning we find out that there is cancer in my mother’s body again. We do not know what kind, but most likely a
form a lymphoma. Another primary. A fourth new cancer that has found its way
into the woman I most cherish. I
immediately feel the familiar tones of apathy.
I immediately feel fear because the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ does not
apply to me this time. My mom doesn’t
have cancer. Her back is hurt. That is why we are here. She can’t have cancer, because that doesn’t
make any sense. I look around the room
at people who love me and whom I love.
At times I can’t understand why they are crying. Other times I can’t understand why everyone isn’t
crying.
I am in a building where I was
always the caregiver, comforting others with bad news, providing a tissue and
steady shoulder. I know the tests, I know the results, I know the way of hospital life. I get frustrated when doctors speak to me as a lay person all the while not wanting them to know my profession, my craft, my too deep depth of understanding of what they are saying to me. I don’t know what to be
now. I don’t know if I need to be the
removed caregiver, always pushing forward with the next plan, the next goal, and
the next step. I don’t know if I need to
be the weeping daughter making everyone feel uncomfortable because they don’t
know what to say to me. I don’t know if need
to be strong for my dad or show him it is ok to cry and hold each other up in
the process.
I do know I am better than I was 13
years ago. I know I can provide more to
my family than I have ever been able to.
I know I will do my best to help guide them through this process I know
very well. Too well. Too well to differentiate between being the
consoler and being consoled. I know this
journey of me, my mom and malignancy too fucking well.
Thank you for reading this, for helping me work through my own troubles as I begin to try and work through an entirely new set.
-Steph
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| Night we shaved her head 2010 |
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| Facial Fun |
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| Lake Fun |
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| Christmas in Alaska with mom's mohawk |
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| Hokies game Fall 2012 |
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| Christmas 2013 |