This article is part of the series “One Moment At A Time” about my family’s journey as we help my mother fight brain cancer. Feel free to subscribe below to receive periodic updates about our journey in your email inbox. Thank you for your continued support during this challenging life moment.
This article is a continuation from the previous post “The News You Need To Know But Don’t Want To Hear”
REMEMBER TO BE PRESENT
As the hospital shift leader walked away from me and down the long corridor leading to the oncology unit, I sat motionless in the cushioned chair trying to digest the news she delivered just moments earlier. I stared out of the window into the hospital parking lot filled with empty cars. The dark gray sky softened the daylight and blocked the clear blue skies above. All I wanted at that moment was to be out on the lake with my mom driving the pontoon boat and wearing those silly sunglasses that she always wore. One side had a funky, glittery palm tree popping up above one lens and the other side had a sparkly pink flamingo popping up. I could just see her now carefree and relaxed in her favorite place in the world.
I held back my tears as I had just been forced into a dark unknown place. Questions began to swirl around in my exhausted mind. Unwanted scenarios flashed through the back of my head. An emotional spiral quickly playing out in real time at a hyper-fast pace of what was occurring before my eyes. My breathing became deeper and reminded me to pay more attention to the moment. To be present in this moment of sadness. And to remember that it is ok to be sad and to feel what I was feeling.
After sitting for five minutes in stillness, I stood up and slowly walked back through the hospital corridor passing the nurses staging area and into my mother’s room. As I turned the corner, she turned her head to look at me and flashed a beaming smile. A lump began to form in my throat seeing her look at me and knowing that she was completely unaware of what I had just learned. A tingling sensation covered my face and I walked over to give her a huge embrace.
ONLY FOR A MOMENT
Mike and I waited with my mother during each moment anticipating some sort of new news. We clung on to the edge of our seats with each test, each conversation, and each moment someone entered the room. Our adrenaline kicked in each time. And then our bodies flushed a needed release once we learned it was only a routine check up.
And information sharing at the hospital was all done in real time. There were no formal meetings to discuss anything as I was accustomed to in the corporate world. All of the information was just thrown at us on the fly.
Later in the afternoon, the daytime doctor stopped by unannounced. Like she was coming in for a routine check up. She was probably around the same age as my mother. A sincere, caring mother of three children who realized that she could easily be the person across from her that she was speaking with. Sensing the care and concern in the room, she eased into the conversation with my mother asking closed-ended questions that my mother could easily answer.
Her soothing voice allowed our hearts to calm as she went on to explain that the CT scan did not show any other masses in my mother’s chest area nor did they show anything conclusive in her abdomen. The only area they wanted to take a closer look was her colon. Her colon was enlarged so they wanted to perform a colonoscopy, however they believe that her system was simply backed up causing no reason for alarm. Also her previous colonoscopy several years prior was fine which meant there was most likely nothing to worry about.
My head dropped and my shoulders hunched forward as I placed my hands over my face. All of the muscles in my body softened and became limp when I heard the news. It was one hurdle crossed. While I knew we had many more hurdles ahead, my body could release the tension it held onto so tightly. For a moment, we could celebrate some good news.
JARGON TORPEDO
While my heart was celebrating, a taller man with very dark skin juxtaposed with short white hair and a white mustache dressed in a long white robe meandered into my mother’s room. He introduced himself as Dr. William Young, the neurosurgeon at Parkview Medical Center.
With a deep voice, Dr. Young jumped right in without much emotional concern for my mother’s situation. In much fewer, fact-based words as the previous doctor had described, he confirmed everything we had just heard and said that we would need to perform a biopsy to understand what type of mass was on my mother’s brain.
It all happened so quickly that I was caught off guard by the invasion of my mini-moment of celebration. I just wanted to linger a little longer in the positive news my ears had heard moments earlier. But the moment was stripped away and my brain had to abruptly readjust to the medical jargon that was being torpedoed at me.
I quickly scrolled through my mental notes and asked the neurosurgeon about her mental state. And why her words were obviously garbled. Dr. Young robotically replied without missing a beat, “The mass is located in the left frontotemporal lobe of your mother’s brain, which is impacting both the front and temporal lobes. This is creating aphasia and impacting her ability to communicate and to find the right words to speak. Any more questions?”
The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that controls important cognitive skills in humans, such as emotional expression, problem solving, memory, language, judgment, and sexual behaviors. It is, in essence, the “control panel” of our personality and our ability to communicate (Wikipedia, January 2019).
The temporal lobe is involved in processing sensory input into derived meanings for the appropriate retention of visual memory, language comprehension, and emotion association (Wikipedia, January 2019).
I looked around the room at Mike and then at the daytime oncologist who remained in the room during Dr. Young’s bombardment. I was trying to get a read to see if I was the only person who thought this guy was extremely rude and felt like we were being dismissed. I calmly shook my head. Then he told us that he would perform the biopsy next week before leaving the room.
THE PRESIDENT, AGAIN
Mike and I had some time to process all of the news, but the rollercoaster of emotions continued. About an hour later, a tall woman in her late twenties with long brown, straight hair dressed in green hospital scrubs slowly entered the room. She introduced herself as a speech therapist and wanted to run a baseline assessment of my mother’s drastically-altered communication abilities.
I was seated on the long couch that ran parallel to my mother’s bed as she sat up for the assessment. Mike was standing at the foot of her bed with a cup of black coffee in his hand nervously watching my mother as the therapist began her testing.
As the test began, I could see Mike clench his empty fist with each question she would answer correctly. It was like he was hanging on to each question and answer in an attempt for my mother to have a perfect score, thus rendering her mental ability completely fine. But I knew that these questions would become more difficult.
“Ok, good job Melanie,” the therapist congratulated as my mother was able to answer questions about her name, birthday and occupation. I softly closed my eyes and exhaled preparing myself for what I thought was about to happen. “Now, can you tell me who the President of the United States is?” the therapist continued.
My mother’s eyes narrowed and you could see that she didn’t know the answer. Mike’s head dropped and he let out a large exhale. My mother could hear him exhaling and looked over as she tried to think hard. But it never came to her. We badly wanted to help my mother but we knew we could only be observers to this heartbreaking moment.
ONE HUNDRED MINUS SEVEN
As the therapist continued with her assessment, she asked my mother to subtract seven from one hundred. We could see my mother focusing on doing the math in her head. After a short pause, my mother said “ninety three”. Mike jolted his clenched fist like he was her personal cheerleader celebrating her correct answer.
“Ok, now I want you to subtract seven from that number,” the therapist calmly continued. My mother looked back at the therapist with a confused look on her face. The therapist had to explain that she subtracted seven from one hundred. And now she wanted her to subtract seven more. My mother understood what she was being asked to do and began thinking about the math problem in her mind. The silence was deafening as we all wanted her to just blurt out the answer.
Mike began to slowly pace back and forth realizing that she wasn’t able to do the math on her own. My mother shook her head in frustration knowing that she should know the answer, “I am a math teacher. I should be able to do this.” I could feel my heart sink. After a few minutes of encouragement from the therapist and then awkward silence, the therapist helped her out by telling my mother the answer, but then asked her to subtract seven more from that new number.
Mike shook his head in disbelief. His pacing, exhales and movements began to stress me out. My mother looked up and could see that he was upset which made her even more frustrated. She cared so deeply for him, just as much he cared for her. And while her mental capacity had somehow suddenly changed, she was able to sense emotions and feel how we felt.
The therapist moved onto a new exercise after it was apparent my mother wasn’t going to be able to figure out the math in her head. “Ok, now I’m going to tell you a brief story. And after the story, I want you to tell me as much about the story that you can remember, ok?” My mom nodded her head in agreement and the therapist proceeded to read aloud a simple story about a girl with a dog who needed to borrow money from a boy to buy a new bike.
After the therapist finished the brief story, she looked up at my mother sitting next to her and asked her to recite as much of the story as she could. I could feel the pressure on my teeth as my jaw clenched together. A pain in my head began to throb and I closed my eyes trying not to watch what was playing out in front of me. But it was unavoidable. It was unimaginable. And the hardest part was that it was uncontrollable.
… To Be Continued. CLICK HERE to continue.
One moment at a time.
I plan to continue to write about this new life journey. It is a tough topic to write about but I feel writing will be a great emotional release for me and could help others along the way going through something similar. If you would like to receive a weekly update, feel free to enter your email and sign up below.
