Screamin440
10-18-2004, 07:44 PM
I didn't know where else to post this, so I figured I might as well post it on this site since it seems like this will be my new home for a while.
On November 14, 2003 my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. Specifically, she has glioblastomas, which are stage IV tumors, the most aggressive tumor that you can get. They are incurable and there is no surviving them. You can beat them for a while but there has been no successful survivor that has been diagnosed with them.
When she was originally diagnosed with it the doctor said that she had maybe 6 months to live and that was if we did the radiation and the chemo. She chose to do both since she wanted to try and fight it. The radiation did wonders, they shrank the tumors to half of their size and it was like she wasn't even sick. She was walking around the house, cooking, cleaning and just being her normal self. A week after they stopped the radiation my stepfather took my mom down to our condo in the Cayman Islands for one last trip. While they were down there, the tumors came back with a vengeance. By the last day, she was literally hanging onto my stepfather as they walked so that she didn't fall.
When they got back, they started the chemo but it never worked like everyone claimed it would. It never gave her the quality of life that the doctors said it might. In fact, all it really did was take away from the really good days that she did have.
Pretty soon it was to the point where she struggled for even the simplest of words. My mother had always been very articulate and a very intelligent woman and here she is struggling to get out three word sentences. I left for work one day and I said goodbye as I headed out the door. Before I got the door shut I heard two 'goodbyes'. I opened the door back up because I knew my mom's nurse was in the room with her but I didn't know who else was in there. I stuck my head back in the doorway to the room and looked around. My mom kind of smiled and said "I guess I can talk today. Have a good day at work."
She had quite a few setbacks including one day when she fell and broke the pelvic bone in her hip. They pinned that back together and it healed remarkably well. A couple of months later she tried to walk when no one was around and she fell fracturing a vertebrae in her back. That healed and then a couple of months later the fracture opened back up making her completely bed ridden. She was never able to walk again after that. The only time she's been able to get out of the bed is when we would pick her up and set her in the wheelchair so she could go outside for an hour or so.
She has put up one heck of a fight but it is getting towards the end. As of last night she isn't able to swallow liquids or any type of food. If the swelling doesn't go back down in her throat to where she can start swallowing again then she won't make it through the week. When she first got sick she made it perfectly clear that she did not want any IVs in her nor did she want any tubes that would keep her alive. As hard as it is we are honoring her wishes and we are not going to keep her alive artificially.
She can no longer speak or move any of her limbs. That only sort of communication that we can receive from her is if she bats her eyes. To have someone look directly through you with glazed over eyes is the weirdest feeling that you could ever have. I was just upstairs telling her I love her and I thought she was looking directly at me. When I moved away from her bedside she kept staring in the same spot that I was. I really don't know if she even saw me, I think she just knew where I was.
I really don't know why I posted this but I just felt like I needed to talk about it but I didn't want to burden someone in a person to person talk. All I can say to everyone here is please don't take life for granted. I've read those cheesy chain letters that you get in e-mail that are really along the same lines as this post. I never really took into consideration what those forwards meant until this happened with mom. It really is true that you never know what life will have in store for you so everyone should live for each day. When you think you are having a bad day think back on this post. She will be missing the birth of her second grandchild by 2 months as well as everything that she should have been enjoying as she was only a few years away from retirement. She would have been 50 on Christmas day this year.
This is all I can handle to type tonight.
-Tanner
On November 14, 2003 my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. Specifically, she has glioblastomas, which are stage IV tumors, the most aggressive tumor that you can get. They are incurable and there is no surviving them. You can beat them for a while but there has been no successful survivor that has been diagnosed with them.
When she was originally diagnosed with it the doctor said that she had maybe 6 months to live and that was if we did the radiation and the chemo. She chose to do both since she wanted to try and fight it. The radiation did wonders, they shrank the tumors to half of their size and it was like she wasn't even sick. She was walking around the house, cooking, cleaning and just being her normal self. A week after they stopped the radiation my stepfather took my mom down to our condo in the Cayman Islands for one last trip. While they were down there, the tumors came back with a vengeance. By the last day, she was literally hanging onto my stepfather as they walked so that she didn't fall.
When they got back, they started the chemo but it never worked like everyone claimed it would. It never gave her the quality of life that the doctors said it might. In fact, all it really did was take away from the really good days that she did have.
Pretty soon it was to the point where she struggled for even the simplest of words. My mother had always been very articulate and a very intelligent woman and here she is struggling to get out three word sentences. I left for work one day and I said goodbye as I headed out the door. Before I got the door shut I heard two 'goodbyes'. I opened the door back up because I knew my mom's nurse was in the room with her but I didn't know who else was in there. I stuck my head back in the doorway to the room and looked around. My mom kind of smiled and said "I guess I can talk today. Have a good day at work."
She had quite a few setbacks including one day when she fell and broke the pelvic bone in her hip. They pinned that back together and it healed remarkably well. A couple of months later she tried to walk when no one was around and she fell fracturing a vertebrae in her back. That healed and then a couple of months later the fracture opened back up making her completely bed ridden. She was never able to walk again after that. The only time she's been able to get out of the bed is when we would pick her up and set her in the wheelchair so she could go outside for an hour or so.
She has put up one heck of a fight but it is getting towards the end. As of last night she isn't able to swallow liquids or any type of food. If the swelling doesn't go back down in her throat to where she can start swallowing again then she won't make it through the week. When she first got sick she made it perfectly clear that she did not want any IVs in her nor did she want any tubes that would keep her alive. As hard as it is we are honoring her wishes and we are not going to keep her alive artificially.
She can no longer speak or move any of her limbs. That only sort of communication that we can receive from her is if she bats her eyes. To have someone look directly through you with glazed over eyes is the weirdest feeling that you could ever have. I was just upstairs telling her I love her and I thought she was looking directly at me. When I moved away from her bedside she kept staring in the same spot that I was. I really don't know if she even saw me, I think she just knew where I was.
I really don't know why I posted this but I just felt like I needed to talk about it but I didn't want to burden someone in a person to person talk. All I can say to everyone here is please don't take life for granted. I've read those cheesy chain letters that you get in e-mail that are really along the same lines as this post. I never really took into consideration what those forwards meant until this happened with mom. It really is true that you never know what life will have in store for you so everyone should live for each day. When you think you are having a bad day think back on this post. She will be missing the birth of her second grandchild by 2 months as well as everything that she should have been enjoying as she was only a few years away from retirement. She would have been 50 on Christmas day this year.
This is all I can handle to type tonight.
-Tanner