Saying Goodbye, Part 3: Fighting for Survival

Mom began treatment for her Stage IV metastatic breast cancer at the beginning of May, 2013. Radiation was used to treat a rib, the cause of her chest pain mentioned in the previous post, that had basically fell apart due to the cancer cells inside of it. Other than that, her treatment consisted of chemotherapy. These treatments, as many unfortunately know, fall under the category of medicine that comes on the informational packets on pharmacy prescriptions: 'your doctor has prescribed this medication because the benefits outweigh the potential side-effects.' Both of them are brutal. Mom had experienced radiation before so it wasn't new to her, but she managed to develop a staph infection on her back where they had used the radiation whilst undergoing chemo. My father, my Mom's primary caretaker, lovingly tended to her wound and fortunately the infection healed.

Chemotherapy is a different and much more difficult beast. There are about a million different complications that can arise from treatment and my family was very watchful for signs of potential side-effects that my Mom could have. It breaks my heart to recall the memory, but I remember when I saw my Mom right after the diagnosis, she decided to get her haircut. She said "I will probably lose my hair anyway, but I still want to feel good!" with a smile. Indeed, she did lose her hair. Her body seemed to react to the chemo in a predictable pattern: she felt good the day of treatment, felt great the day after treatment and crashed the next several days until about the week after treatment. Her appetite was greatly diminished. A diabetic, her blood sugar levels were all over the place. However, the lack of appetite contributed to weight loss which, ironically, helped regulate her blood sugar. She was very proud of the weight loss.

As mentioned in the previous post, Mom was bravest out of all of us. However, I think that internally she was skeptical of how successful treatment would be. At the end of August, my parents hosted their annual joint-birthday bash. While the mood was outwardly celebratory, I think most attendees, including my Mom, knew that it would be the last party. A few days later in September, she called me in the middle of the night and asked me to call her back when I got the chance. Of course, I was a wreck when I heard the message and called her back right away. She had called to tell me that the first round of chemo hadn't worked; they would try a stronger medicine. I think she was really calling to tell me that she wasn't going to be around for much longer. I recall her saying something about being worried about my sister, my Dad and myself after she was gone. Of course, I wasn't having any of that and shooed it away with my naive optimism: "I'm sure this treatment will work much better." I even looked it up online and sent her information to reassure all of us that it was going to work this time. I'm not sure who I was trying to convince: me or her.

Around the same time,  Mom submitted to my Father's request for a second opinion and made an appointment at Dana-Farber in Boston. After submitting enough paperwork and records for a small novel, my Mom, my family and I went to her appointment in Boston. It took most of the day for Mom to be checked in; she didn't see the doctor until mid-afternoon. Her doctor both thoroughly and without feeling explained that there was nothing more that she would suggest for treatment than the course prescribed by Mom's local oncologist. Needless to say,  we were disappointed but not surprised. The doctor did express surprise that Mom was not prescribed a hormonal medication after her cancer had gone into remission the first time. Would that have made a difference? We will never know.

Of course, the new treatment didn't work either. However, Mom was feeling pretty good in her last few months. Her hair started growing back; it had the feel of a baby chicken! It made her cautiously optimistic but she treated it as potential sign that the chemo wasn't working. My Aunt was able to visit with her for a week in October. I regret not joining them,  but it sounds like they had some quality sister time when not watching the Red Sox in the World Series. The final qualtity time that I spent with my Mom was around Veteran's Day 2013, which happened to fall around a weekend. We had a "chemo date" and Dad and I went to see my high school football team play in the state championship. It was a glorious Fall weekend, complete with crisp weather and Mom’s homemade pumpkin cream cheese cupcakes. It felt like old times. Unfortunately, it was the last bit of normalcy that we would have together. 

Saying Goodbye, Part 4: The Beginning of the End

My last trip to see my Mom around Veteran's Day Weekend 2013 was really good and, most importantly, Mom seemed to be feeling better. She even wrote to everyone of her "Pink Ribbon Talk" followers, for what turned out to be the last time, that she was at a "turn in the road" and that she seemed to be getting better. Tragically, she was right about being at a turn in the road, but in the opposite direction.

Scott and I went to see my family for Thanksgiving; due to the weather, we weren't able to travel to Vermont until Thanksgiving Day. When I saw Mom that day, I knew something was wrong; I was shocked to see how yellow her skin was, though it seemed that I was the only one who noticed it. Only a week before, she was asking me about what we wanted for dinners and planned a special dinner to accommodate Scott's low-carb diet, but when we got there she did not have energy to do much of anything other than to sleep. For the actual dinner, she wasn't able to eat with us; she only had a piece of pie for dessert. She had had a few "lows" previously during treatment so we all thought or wanted to think that this was just another low and she'd come out of it in a few days. 

That weekend happened to be Scott's 30th birthday and I had made plans for the day so we could not stay in Vermont. Early in the morning of when we were about to leave, we woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of Mom yelling; she had fallen on the floor on her way from her bed to the bathroom just off of her bedroom. This had happened a few times before in the preceding months. We rushed into her room to try to get her up, to no avail. Eventually, we were all up and decided to call the local Fire Department to help. I had to help her change since her nightgown was now dirty; it is a very sobering experience having to change your own mother, as she did for you when you were little. Unfortunately, most of us will experience this, though I would rather do it than have a stranger do it. Help arrived and they were able to help her back into bed; we all went back to sleep. When we woke up later and packed the car to head back to Maine, I went into her room to say goodbye. Probably one of the last coherent exchanges that I ever had with my Mom was this one, where she apologized for all of it. It was heartbreaking.