The whole story about my Mom
January 24th, 2011 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunadelcorvoI'm putting this here as much for me as for anyone else. It's long and awful, and I don't expect anyone to want to read it. I just...needed to put it here, because it's part of my story, ya know?
My mother is dying. I can't believe, even now, that I am typing this, but it is the reality. If we are very lucky, she will see the winter turn to spring. She will likely not see the leaves turn, and it is almost impossible that she see another Christmas.
Back up to last summer. She was diagnosed with lung cancer, a very small, slow-growing mass in her right lung. Despite her disability, and lingering kidney problems, we decided surgery was the best option. Brutal, yes, but she's tough, and chemo would have been far worse. So, mid-August, she had a lung resection, and she recovered faster and better than anyone (except me) had expected. As her surgeon said, she's tougher than she looks.
Then in September, she noticed a lump in her right breast, a pretty significant one, maybe walnut-sized. Because the home where she lives, and most especially the idiot doctor that prances through sprinkling prescriptions about as if they were holy water all suck royally, it took until Late November to get a biopsy done. Then, for weeks, no one bothered to order the results. After three weeks of this, I finally raised a stink. By then the holidays were on top of us, so the soonest we could get her to an oncologist was early January. Two more weeks, and half a dozen tests and scans later, we know there is nothing we can do.
The mass in her breast is now fist-sized, and the cancer is in lymph nodes in her chest and abdomen, in the adrenal glands above her kidneys, the muscles of her legs, hips, and back, and in her bones, most notable her right femur, a few ribs, and possibly her skull. Chemo would certainly tear her apart, as would radiation. It is possible this cancer originated in the breast, as the cancer there is distinct from that in her lung, but even if it is all breast cancer, it is not of a type that would respond to hormone treatment.
So she has a few months. She has spent her last Christmas with us. She will not see my son finish elementary school, never mind high school or college. The last remainder of my family will be gone. There will be no one left who witnessed my childhood, who will remember me as a baby, who will recall Christmases at our house.... There is only me left of the family I knew.
She is now under the care of a palliative care specialist, who will do whatever it takes to help her feel better for as long as possible. With changes in her medications, we hope she will feel substantially better for a while, and be able to get out and live a little while she can, and spend time with her grandson while she can. I have promised her I will show her a great time as best I can, but that when she is ready to lie down and rest, to crank up the morphine and sleep, I will support her in that, too. She has earned both some good times, and the choice of when to lay it down.
She's been through so much. In her late 30s, she had multiple surgeries, the fourth of which resulted in a massive stroke at 40 from which she never recovered. A painter, a crafter, a creative and energetic woman who loved to run and have snowball fights and laugh with me lost the use of half of her body. Carelessness on the part of medical staff destroyed the stability of her paralyzed ankle, ensuring she would never again be able to walk without a cane and leg brace, and a wheelchair for anything father than a room's length. And their denial of the injury, and pain from the untreated sprain put her in sufficient depression during the first crucial months of rehab that she never regained any use of her left arm. With years, she finally managed to regain her sense of self, her sense of humor, finding ways to live day to day. She's always been stronger than she looks.
When my grandparents had died, I brought her here with me, and we struggled, but we managed. When I went to California, though, she couldn't keep up and got herself evicted. Everything she owned was lost, from family heirlooms to things I had made her; everything. From there (because I had no way to get back to help her) she went to a shelter, and then to a slum where her coke-head 'roommate' sold her to a street thug dealer to settle a drug debt. She never told me about the assault; she didn't want me to worry. I got her out though, finally, and brought her to me again. She loved California, where we would go to wine tastings and watch for sea otters off the Monterey coast, and she lived for a long time in Carmel, and could spot eagles in the pines on the hills.
When I got settled back home, I brought her back here, and she lived with us as long as we could manage, giving her over two years to see my son every day. But we were never home, and I worried about her falling down when we were gone. So we tried to find the best place we could. After a year on a waiting list, she got in, and had her own apartment with her own things, and could come and go as she pleased. She didn't have to worry about cooking or cleaning up, but she could paint, draw, read, do whatever she liked. She did well there, until a series of kidney lithotripsy procedures, a surgery, and sever arthritis in her back forced her to shift into nursing care.
Most of them do really try there, but the building is so old and gloomy, and the doctor is utterly useless. I think it weakened her just to be there. But I kept on taking her out once a week at least, shopping, lunch, over to the house, whatever. The last few months though, her back has been hurting more and more, and she's been getting weaker and weaker. She hasn't taken a step in over a year, and now I have to lift her from her wheelchair into the car. She's been happiest when she can sleep, though she's been in constant and growing pain. She had a great time this Christmas, though, and I am so happy for that.
So now, with serious pain management (because long-term effects don't matter now), anti-inflammatories and steroids, we hope she will perk up for a couple months anyway, so she can have some good times for a while, before it gets too much, and she needs so much medication that she sleeps all the time. And when that point comes, I hope it doesn't make me evil to say that I hope once she sinks below awareness, she slips free quickly and quietly. We have amended her records to ensure she is allowed to do so. At that point, letting her go will be the last thing I can give her.
So there it is. The whole, long, awful tale. I know I am far from the first to be in this horrible place in between, nor will I be the last. Honestly, I always knew that someday the aggregate of all she's been through would catch up to her. But I wasn't ready. Women in my family live into their 90s; they have for every generation back as far as my grandparents knew. I wasn't supposed to have to do this yet. She's only 68; I should have had a good twenty more years to get ready for this....
My mother is dying. I can't believe, even now, that I am typing this, but it is the reality. If we are very lucky, she will see the winter turn to spring. She will likely not see the leaves turn, and it is almost impossible that she see another Christmas.
Back up to last summer. She was diagnosed with lung cancer, a very small, slow-growing mass in her right lung. Despite her disability, and lingering kidney problems, we decided surgery was the best option. Brutal, yes, but she's tough, and chemo would have been far worse. So, mid-August, she had a lung resection, and she recovered faster and better than anyone (except me) had expected. As her surgeon said, she's tougher than she looks.
Then in September, she noticed a lump in her right breast, a pretty significant one, maybe walnut-sized. Because the home where she lives, and most especially the idiot doctor that prances through sprinkling prescriptions about as if they were holy water all suck royally, it took until Late November to get a biopsy done. Then, for weeks, no one bothered to order the results. After three weeks of this, I finally raised a stink. By then the holidays were on top of us, so the soonest we could get her to an oncologist was early January. Two more weeks, and half a dozen tests and scans later, we know there is nothing we can do.
The mass in her breast is now fist-sized, and the cancer is in lymph nodes in her chest and abdomen, in the adrenal glands above her kidneys, the muscles of her legs, hips, and back, and in her bones, most notable her right femur, a few ribs, and possibly her skull. Chemo would certainly tear her apart, as would radiation. It is possible this cancer originated in the breast, as the cancer there is distinct from that in her lung, but even if it is all breast cancer, it is not of a type that would respond to hormone treatment.
So she has a few months. She has spent her last Christmas with us. She will not see my son finish elementary school, never mind high school or college. The last remainder of my family will be gone. There will be no one left who witnessed my childhood, who will remember me as a baby, who will recall Christmases at our house.... There is only me left of the family I knew.
She is now under the care of a palliative care specialist, who will do whatever it takes to help her feel better for as long as possible. With changes in her medications, we hope she will feel substantially better for a while, and be able to get out and live a little while she can, and spend time with her grandson while she can. I have promised her I will show her a great time as best I can, but that when she is ready to lie down and rest, to crank up the morphine and sleep, I will support her in that, too. She has earned both some good times, and the choice of when to lay it down.
She's been through so much. In her late 30s, she had multiple surgeries, the fourth of which resulted in a massive stroke at 40 from which she never recovered. A painter, a crafter, a creative and energetic woman who loved to run and have snowball fights and laugh with me lost the use of half of her body. Carelessness on the part of medical staff destroyed the stability of her paralyzed ankle, ensuring she would never again be able to walk without a cane and leg brace, and a wheelchair for anything father than a room's length. And their denial of the injury, and pain from the untreated sprain put her in sufficient depression during the first crucial months of rehab that she never regained any use of her left arm. With years, she finally managed to regain her sense of self, her sense of humor, finding ways to live day to day. She's always been stronger than she looks.
When my grandparents had died, I brought her here with me, and we struggled, but we managed. When I went to California, though, she couldn't keep up and got herself evicted. Everything she owned was lost, from family heirlooms to things I had made her; everything. From there (because I had no way to get back to help her) she went to a shelter, and then to a slum where her coke-head 'roommate' sold her to a street thug dealer to settle a drug debt. She never told me about the assault; she didn't want me to worry. I got her out though, finally, and brought her to me again. She loved California, where we would go to wine tastings and watch for sea otters off the Monterey coast, and she lived for a long time in Carmel, and could spot eagles in the pines on the hills.
When I got settled back home, I brought her back here, and she lived with us as long as we could manage, giving her over two years to see my son every day. But we were never home, and I worried about her falling down when we were gone. So we tried to find the best place we could. After a year on a waiting list, she got in, and had her own apartment with her own things, and could come and go as she pleased. She didn't have to worry about cooking or cleaning up, but she could paint, draw, read, do whatever she liked. She did well there, until a series of kidney lithotripsy procedures, a surgery, and sever arthritis in her back forced her to shift into nursing care.
Most of them do really try there, but the building is so old and gloomy, and the doctor is utterly useless. I think it weakened her just to be there. But I kept on taking her out once a week at least, shopping, lunch, over to the house, whatever. The last few months though, her back has been hurting more and more, and she's been getting weaker and weaker. She hasn't taken a step in over a year, and now I have to lift her from her wheelchair into the car. She's been happiest when she can sleep, though she's been in constant and growing pain. She had a great time this Christmas, though, and I am so happy for that.
So now, with serious pain management (because long-term effects don't matter now), anti-inflammatories and steroids, we hope she will perk up for a couple months anyway, so she can have some good times for a while, before it gets too much, and she needs so much medication that she sleeps all the time. And when that point comes, I hope it doesn't make me evil to say that I hope once she sinks below awareness, she slips free quickly and quietly. We have amended her records to ensure she is allowed to do so. At that point, letting her go will be the last thing I can give her.
So there it is. The whole, long, awful tale. I know I am far from the first to be in this horrible place in between, nor will I be the last. Honestly, I always knew that someday the aggregate of all she's been through would catch up to her. But I wasn't ready. Women in my family live into their 90s; they have for every generation back as far as my grandparents knew. I wasn't supposed to have to do this yet. She's only 68; I should have had a good twenty more years to get ready for this....
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no subject
Date: January 24th, 2011 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 24th, 2011 04:36 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry. So hard to know what to say, but I'm here to hug and sympathise.
My mum is close to her end as well, and it's terribly distressing to have to come to terms with it.
no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 24th, 2011 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 02:01 am (UTC)Thanks for your thoughts... *hugs*
no subject
Date: January 24th, 2011 08:05 pm (UTC)I don't have words enough for this. I am so sorry :(
*more hugs*
no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 24th, 2011 09:24 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry you're having to face this right now. You have my sympathy and my hope that things down the road are as easy on you and your mother as possible.
no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 26th, 2011 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 24th, 2011 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 25th, 2011 01:18 pm (UTC)Don't forget that I love you and I'm here, whatever you might need.