I want my mommy.
I had never seen my dad cry.
In April of 2004, I was walking back to the dorm after the Math Dept banquet and found my phone had about 20 missed calls. I checked my voicemail to find my dad telling me to call, and Chad, my then boyfriend saying that we were driving to El Paso that weekend.
My mother had cancer, colon cancer. They had operated and taken out two large tumors. It hurt so much to see her in the hospital, she looked so frail. She gave me a white gold and emerald ring for my birthday which was a few weeks away. She said she was sorry for the birthdays she had forgotten, which I hadn't noticed.
From then she faught. She had chemo and radiation, and she was fighting with a sense of humor. She had a pair of scrubs she wore to her treatments, decosated with pics of the radiation symbol, palm trees, and her radiation "dates."
She came back from that. Her goal being a trip to France with me that January. It was her carrot leading the way. She was good, we went to France and had fun counting hurds of cows, visiting cemeteries and cathedrals, going to Rocky.
In March of 2006, my parents came to see the Eastern Star dinner theater fundraiser I was in. Right before the show, she come into the bathroom to tell me that the cancer is back. Great timing, right before a show. I got through that, then she wanted to go to Rocky. We went, and I remember going to Leah, asking that although I was there when I had asked the night off, I wouldn't be doing anything for the show, and I told her why. I remember trying to hide my tears from my mom, she had enough to face. I think that was the last time she came to the show.
She had multiple pea sized tumors in her abdomen. They were probably remnants from the surgeries, they just hadn't gotten all of it. She did chemo and radiation again. And in March of 2007, she was declared cancer free.
In mid-August or early September, she went in to the doctor because a hernia from the last set of surgeries was startng to be more painful. They took her to sergury that day to "fix" the hernia. The tissue from that was biopsied and showed "abnormal cells." She had been told back in March that because of all the chemo and radiation she had had, she would always have abnormal cells on a biopsy.
In mid-September, she went to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing. They found a blood clot in her lung, along with lots of fluid. They removed the fluid and gave her clot medicine and then put her on blood thinners.
Last Thursday (Oct 4), at 2:30 in the morning, my dad took her into the ER. She felt something was wrong and thought she was bleeding internally. She was, they stopped in and admitted her.
She was having more problems breathing, so they were going to remove more fluid on Friday, but found that there was none, she had lost most of her lung capacity. Her right lung and been compromised (the air sacs had collapsed) as had over half of her left lung.
My dad called Josh, and he bought a ticket and put me on plane home. I landed around 8 and we went to the hospital. We talked for a bit, about an hour and a half. She seemed ok. A little drained, but decently ok.
My dad and I went home and to bed. At 8:30 the next morning, the hospital called and asked us to come down, that she wasn't doing well. We get there and as we walk up to the nurses station, her oncologist gets up and tells us she didn't make it.
I had never seen my dad cry before. I didn't seem real.
The doctor said that the cancer had returned. It had gone into her lungs, destroying the right lung and most of the left. When they had talked about options, he had said the only thing he could do was put in a tube with some talc to help with the fluid, and she had asked if it hurt. When he said it did, she said no, she was tired of hurting.
The oncologist had come in that morning to set up a morphine drip for her, but she was already gone. The nurse had helped her back from the bathroom, she was sitting on the bed. The nurse had turned away for a second, and when she turned back, my mother was falling back on the bed. She was gone.
It was wierd to walk in the room and see her there, I kept imagining she was breathing. My dad took off her weddign ring, which took some tugging, and gave it to me, he said she had wanted me to have it.
We gathered up her stuff, called a funeral home to pick up the body, and left for home.
It doesn't seem real, I can't believe she's gone. She seemed ok when we saw her in Friday night.
It hurts, it sucks.
I want my mom.
************
Whoever said winning isn't everything, never had to fight cancer.
Harriet Louise Marvin
Jan 13, 1946 - Oct 6, 2007
In April of 2004, I was walking back to the dorm after the Math Dept banquet and found my phone had about 20 missed calls. I checked my voicemail to find my dad telling me to call, and Chad, my then boyfriend saying that we were driving to El Paso that weekend.
My mother had cancer, colon cancer. They had operated and taken out two large tumors. It hurt so much to see her in the hospital, she looked so frail. She gave me a white gold and emerald ring for my birthday which was a few weeks away. She said she was sorry for the birthdays she had forgotten, which I hadn't noticed.
From then she faught. She had chemo and radiation, and she was fighting with a sense of humor. She had a pair of scrubs she wore to her treatments, decosated with pics of the radiation symbol, palm trees, and her radiation "dates."
She came back from that. Her goal being a trip to France with me that January. It was her carrot leading the way. She was good, we went to France and had fun counting hurds of cows, visiting cemeteries and cathedrals, going to Rocky.
In March of 2006, my parents came to see the Eastern Star dinner theater fundraiser I was in. Right before the show, she come into the bathroom to tell me that the cancer is back. Great timing, right before a show. I got through that, then she wanted to go to Rocky. We went, and I remember going to Leah, asking that although I was there when I had asked the night off, I wouldn't be doing anything for the show, and I told her why. I remember trying to hide my tears from my mom, she had enough to face. I think that was the last time she came to the show.
She had multiple pea sized tumors in her abdomen. They were probably remnants from the surgeries, they just hadn't gotten all of it. She did chemo and radiation again. And in March of 2007, she was declared cancer free.
In mid-August or early September, she went in to the doctor because a hernia from the last set of surgeries was startng to be more painful. They took her to sergury that day to "fix" the hernia. The tissue from that was biopsied and showed "abnormal cells." She had been told back in March that because of all the chemo and radiation she had had, she would always have abnormal cells on a biopsy.
In mid-September, she went to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing. They found a blood clot in her lung, along with lots of fluid. They removed the fluid and gave her clot medicine and then put her on blood thinners.
Last Thursday (Oct 4), at 2:30 in the morning, my dad took her into the ER. She felt something was wrong and thought she was bleeding internally. She was, they stopped in and admitted her.
She was having more problems breathing, so they were going to remove more fluid on Friday, but found that there was none, she had lost most of her lung capacity. Her right lung and been compromised (the air sacs had collapsed) as had over half of her left lung.
My dad called Josh, and he bought a ticket and put me on plane home. I landed around 8 and we went to the hospital. We talked for a bit, about an hour and a half. She seemed ok. A little drained, but decently ok.
My dad and I went home and to bed. At 8:30 the next morning, the hospital called and asked us to come down, that she wasn't doing well. We get there and as we walk up to the nurses station, her oncologist gets up and tells us she didn't make it.
I had never seen my dad cry before. I didn't seem real.
The doctor said that the cancer had returned. It had gone into her lungs, destroying the right lung and most of the left. When they had talked about options, he had said the only thing he could do was put in a tube with some talc to help with the fluid, and she had asked if it hurt. When he said it did, she said no, she was tired of hurting.
The oncologist had come in that morning to set up a morphine drip for her, but she was already gone. The nurse had helped her back from the bathroom, she was sitting on the bed. The nurse had turned away for a second, and when she turned back, my mother was falling back on the bed. She was gone.
It was wierd to walk in the room and see her there, I kept imagining she was breathing. My dad took off her weddign ring, which took some tugging, and gave it to me, he said she had wanted me to have it.
We gathered up her stuff, called a funeral home to pick up the body, and left for home.
It doesn't seem real, I can't believe she's gone. She seemed ok when we saw her in Friday night.
It hurts, it sucks.
I want my mom.
************
Whoever said winning isn't everything, never had to fight cancer.
Harriet Louise Marvin
Jan 13, 1946 - Oct 6, 2007