Another Angel Along The Journey

TO SHARE OR NOT TO SHARE

None of the articles that I have written over the past month have been easy to write.  At times, I wavered on what I should share and what I should not share. On what my mother would want me to say or not say. Private details that many families choose not to share. But they instead close off from sharing with others (and that is ok too). But I have dug deep, with tears in my eyes as my fingers lovingly tapped the keys on my laptop keyboard. My heart is healing while it is breaking.

After the initial shock of my mother’s diagnosis in early December, I paused writing my book.  But after several weeks of getting back on my feet from the initial shock, I felt the emotional urge to begin typing again. To begin healing my soul. To begin bravely sharing my mother’s journey.

Social media is full of sharing those happy moments in our lives. The moments we are so proud to tell other people about. But for the most part, our life sharing falls short of being able to express all of the life moments that we endure, even in times of pain and grief. But I wanted to be able to share the beautiful moments equally with the moments of sadness. The moments that each of us can relate to in some way, but have trouble expressing.

I feel that sharing, while can be hard to both read and write, can only help us better understand all sides of life.  It can also help us come together as a community. Something small communities like the one that my mother is a part of do so well to help those in need.  Especially when that someone is my mother, Melanie.

Sharing can be difficult for many of us. Sharing our deepest, darkest feelings and being able to express ourselves in a safe space free of judgement is something we have little exposure to and training with. It makes us vulnerable, which is not a feeling we succumb to easily. But sharing can heal. It helps us learn and grow. And it can help collectively embrace each other more effectively.

It’s hard to fathom the profound impact that my mother has made in our small, little corner of the planet.  The thousands of lives that she has educated over the past twenty eight years. The minds that she has shaped. The hands that she has held. The hearts that she has touched. How we are all better as a result of knowing her. But also, when she is in pain, we all are in pain.

There is no cure for glioblastoma multiforme. This disease takes people quickly, which is why we don’t see much about this type of cancer.  You may remember hearing about Senator John McCain’s story, who had the exact same thing as my mother. But unlike breast cancer and some other cancers, funding for glioblastoma is limited due to the very low survival rate after diagnosis.

Those patients that have resections (surgery) to remove portions of the tumor typically have longer prognoses. Unfortunately my mother was not a candidate for a resection. But even with surgery, only 25% of those patients remain living past twelve months after diagnosis. When we found out about my mother’s diagnosis and saw the MRI images, we knew that it wasn’t good. And the tumor already had a six month head start before we were able to react.

Last Friday, after finishing up one of the most upbeat weeks that she has had since she began treatment, we had to take her into the emergency room after she was unable to retain any food or liquid.

After a CT scan, the doctor’s found some infections in her colon and in her lungs. Over the past five days, the care team at Cameron Memorial Hospital in Angola, Indiana, have supremely cared for my mother. They have carefully treated her infections and helped her remain comfortable.

After thorough conversations with the doctors and oncologists over the weekend, we decided to pause her chemotherapy treatment since this most likely was causing my mother’s body to become weakened.  I had read through all of the potential side effects of chemo treatments a while ago but it now appeared that my mother was experiencing most of them.

After a couple days from stopping the chemo, all potential explanations of what was causing my mother’s situation had been exhausted. All causes except one.

After this entire journey with my mother, I felt the need to stay with her the past two nights at the hospital. I have held her hand, calmed her down, watched her sleep, helped the incredible nurses when they need it and had many talks with her. Moments that I will remember forever.

Last evening, the light from the computer monitor on the side of the wall faintly lit up the darkened hospital room and filtered some light over my mother as she was laying peacefully in her bed. The cold winter wind howled making the subzero temperatures feel even colder outside of the long rectangular window that ran parallel to my mother’s bed. Her face relaxed as all of the warm blankets that wrapped around her chest slowly moved up and down with each breath.

After a series of different nighttime nurses over the past four nights, my mother had a new nurse last evening. The nurse’s smile was infectious as she first entered the room in her navy blue scrubs and white Nike shoes. After the daytime nurse transitioned my mother to the nighttime nurse around 8pm, she came back into the room an hour later to take my mother’s vital signs.

As the nurse was wrapping the blood pressure wrap around my mother’s arm, she began to tell me how glad she was to be my mother’s nurse. She looked over at me as I was seated in the chair at my mother’s feet and she proceeded to tell me that her mother passed twenty years ago of the exact same cancer that my mother has. The nurse went on to say that she decided to become a nurse after what she went through with her mother. The nurse explained to me that she not only wanted to take care of my mother but also wanted to make sure I was taken care of because she had walked in my shoes before.

While we shared stories and situations about our mothers, we continued to hear my mother’s deep breathing every several seconds each time she pulled air into her lungs. I could see the tears in the nurse’s eyes as she walked through how she took care of her mother.  All these year’s later after her mother has passed and it doesn’t make it much easier to handle the emotions felt from the journey. We gave each other a warm embrace and I was so thankful she was with us for the evening. She introduced herself as Angie, but as I looked down at her name badge, I read the name Angel(a).

Over the past couple of days, her body has experienced increased drowsiness as we have kept her comfortable and pain free in her more restful state. But after resolving the infection in my mother’s abdomen over the past five days, we were left with only one other cause to my mother’s hospitalization.

After performing an MRI this morning, the results were compared to the initial MRI we took in early December and have proven that the aggressive tumor has progressed. And as a result, our family has decided to stop treatments for my mother’s brain cancer and to bring her home under the care of Hospice later this week.

Our family is immensely grateful for the outpouring of concern and affection from Melanie’s many friends and relatives, and the many thousands of people who are keeping her in their prayers. We could not have made it through this without everyone’s love and support. Each of you have given us strength to carry on.