Warning this is going to be a long one.
I have never been much for blogging. I guess I never thought I had much to say that would be interesting to read. I figure now though that I don't really need anyone to read this and think its interesting. This is mainly for myself, a way to write out all my feelings on what has occurred in my life over the last couple years. This is my form of therapy. I can say what I want to say without having any backlash from the people who know me. I can also tell my mother's story and hopefully anyone who may read this might make some changes in their life to prevent what happened to her from happening to them. Because it was unnecessary, my mother's death could have been avoided, if she had stopped smoking. She had many chances over the years. My grandfather, her father dying of lung cancer should have been the moment that she stopped forever but she didn't and thirteen years later at the age of forty-five she passed away from lung cancer. It has been a little over a month since my mom passed away. It still doesn't feel real. It still hurts every day just as much as it did the day she died. I know a month is not a long amount of time to go by but I honestly can't see it getting much better. When someone you love so much, someone who was such a huge part of your life dies I just think there is never going to be any real healing. The pain might soften as the years go by but never will I not feel the loss of my mother. Sometimes I wonder how I am going to be able to live like this for the rest of my life. I'm only twenty-four so hopefully I have many years a head of me but this pain, this loss sometimes feels so unbearable that I just don't want to exist anymore. And I'm not saying I want to kill myself, I have too much still to live for like my daughter, my husband and my father, but there are times I just feel so sad and lost in the pain that I feel like I can't take it anymore and I'd like life to just stop for a little while. I wish life had a pause button. Maybe that's a weird thought but sometimes life just comes at you so fast that its hard to catch your breath.
The last couple years I have experienced more change than I have in my entire life. I suppose that's normal, you get older and real life hits you and of course there are going to be changes. I have never been good with change. Up until the age of twenty-two my life was simple and uncomplicated. I went to school, I went to work, I saw my friends and I came home to my parents in the house I had lived in since I was five. I had a good childhood. I was truly blessed to have the parents that I did. I saw so many of my friends with families that were broken apart. I saw friends whose parents treated them like shit or chose boyfriends over them. I had a few friends in the foster care system. I was lucky. My life was nothing like that. I'm not saying it was perfect or that my family was the perfect family because it wasn't and we weren't but as far as I could see it was pretty damn close. I am an only child so I have always been very close to my parents, especially my mom. We did everything together. She was my best friend and we had the type of relationship where I honestly did tell her pretty much everything that went on in my life. She knew me better than anyone. My mom played the role of mother, sister and best friend but she wasn't like some mothers that try too hard to be your friend and forget that they are your mother. If she needed to she put me in my place. 2010 was the year that things began to change. At first it was positive change, I met the man who would become my husband and then I graduated from college. A month after my graduation my mother told me she was divorcing my father. At first I didn't think anything of it, they had both said this numerous times in the past when they were mad at each other and they always ended up making up. To end a twenty-three year marriage never seemed like something that would actually happen and though my parents had their issues you could always tell they loved each other. When it became clear that this time was different I was shocked. No matter how many times they fought, or how many times I heard them threaten divorce I never thought it would actually happen and I was not prepared for it. My mom and dad together was the only life I had known for twenty-two years and I kept picturing how weird everything would be now. How would we handle holidays? Would they never want to see each other again? And who would I live with? At that time I had nowhere else to go. I was looking for a fulltime job after graduating and I definitely could not live on my own. Of course both my parents told me I had places with them but I didn't want to live with one of them, I wanted to live with both of them, I wanted them to stay together. My dad was against the divorce. He was sad and depressed all the time. The man who I had only ever seen cry once in my whole life was crying all the time. I felt so awful for him and I was so angry at my mother. I blamed her for breaking apart our family and making my dad so sad. It had always been the three of us so it was hard to imagine it any other way. I know now that it was much more complicated and I knew even then that my dad was far from perfect. I knew my moms reasons for leaving my dad and if it had been me I might have done the same thing but as the child you always want your parents together. Now that time has gone by and I can think about that situation with a clear head I see where my mom was coming from. Back then though my anger towards my mom was clear and we began to fight all the time. Our living situation was unbearable. For the first time I hated going home. My parents fought all the time, my mom and I fought and I was constantly listening to my dad talking about how his life was over. My mother started to go out a lot and was hardly ever home which made me even more mad. I think she was going some sort of mid-life crisis, she was in her forties and had a severe fear of getting old. I couldn't stand to be around her anymore and I couldn't stand to live in that house. It kills me now to say this but it's the truth and my mother's death doesn't change the facts, it doesn't change what happened that year. At that point I decided to move into an apartment with my then boyfriend (who is now my husband) which was not something I would have normally done after only six months of dating but it seemed like the best option for me. Once I moved out I found out my mom was seeing some other guy and I my anger towards her intensified. I hardly ever saw my mom and at first I didn't care much because not seeing her was better than fighting with her. There were some days where it bothered me because I missed the relationship we use to have but she wasn't the same person anymore so seeing her was even worse. Soon after another huge change, I found out I was pregnant. I was stressed out enough between dealing with my parents, trying to live with a guy for the first time ever and searching for a fulltime job with no luck and on top of that I was pregnant. I thought I was going to lose my mind. This was a time when I really needed my mom and our relationship was almost nonexistent. That was when I really felt the effects of not seeing my mother. When I called and told her I was pregnant she actually took it better than I thought she would. She did say she wished I had been more careful and waited until I had found a better job but she also said at least I graduated college and that my boyfriend was a good man and would be a good father. She told me it was my decision on what to do and that she would support me. We decided we wanted the baby and I thought this might bring me and my mother closer together again. Unfortunately my mom continued to put her "man friend" and her friends before me and I still hardly ever saw her. It was even harder dealing with that while I was pregnant. I missed her, I was mad at her and I cried a lot. My dad was good for the most part and we actually became really close through everything that was happening. He came over to my apartment all the time and we would have dinner. We talked every day on the phone. My dad and I had a good relationship before but we were never close like that, that spot was always filled by my mom. So about the only good thing that came from their divorce and my mother and I barely talking was forming a very close relationship my dad. However, my dad felt like he had no one to lean on so I was the one who had to hear him talk about killing himself and being so depressed he didn't want to go on. How I was the only reason he was still alive. That was strange to hear, my dad was never like that and certainly would never had told me if he was feeling like that. But I felt bad and I tried to be supportive and let him talk. This all added to my stress though and I was just waiting for the time when things would get better. And they did, when my daughter was born in May of 2011 things started to look up. My mom was at the hospital with me and I think seeing her granddaughter made her realize what was really important again. I started to have my amazing mother again. We saw each other and talked all the time again and it was almost like the last year hadn't happened. My parents had even started talking again and had spent some time together. I was hopeful that they would work things out. The birth of my daughter had also given my dad a reason to smile. He was so happy to be a grandpa. My daughter was really what pulled our family back together and for a few months I was happy again. Then in July of 2011, my mother began feeling sick. She went to the doctor and they told her she had pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics and everything was going to be alright. Then a month or so later it still wasn't gone, she still had spots on her lungs, now we were all nervous but the doctors then said she had some other type of infection and that she needed more antibiotics. I was relieved. By mid to late September though she was still not better. They decided to do a biopsy and on October 5, 2011 my mom got the results back that she had cancer. When they were first talking to us about it the doctors said it might not be lung cancer it could be lymphoma. Obviously I didn't want my mom to have either type of cancer but lung cancer scared me more than lymphoma. My grandmother, my moms mom had lymphoma. She was diagnosed the same year my grandfather died of lung cancer and she had chemo and it went into remission. It came back, more chemo and back into remission again. I know this is obviously not always the case with that particular cancer but to me having watched my grandfather die from lung cancer and seeing my grandmother beat lymphoma twice made me hopeful that if my mom had to have cancer maybe it would be one that was more treatable. My mom was too young to die. She was forty-four when she was told she had cancer and in my mind there was no way that she wouldn't beat it. When they told us she definitely had lung cancer I was scared, it was not the news I wanted to hear but I was still hopeful that they had caught it early enough and she would treat it and get better. Unfortunately everything was against my mom from the start. Not only did she have lung cancer but she had a type known as small cell lung cancer. I had never even heard of that before then. The doctors told us that type of lung cancer is very aggressive but if its caught early enough responds very well to chemo. They also told us that the majority of the people diagnosed with small cell don't find out about it until it is at the extensive stage, meaning it has spread outside the lungs. Again we were all hopeful that my mom would be in the minority not the majority. Again we were disappointed. We found out her cancer was not only in both her lungs, but also her lymph nodes and brain. That was the point that I became terrified. That was when I thought for the first time that I might lose my mom. It still seemed impossible but all this bad news was making it seem much more real than I wanted it to be. I didn't want my mom to suffer, I didn't want her to die. I felt awful that we had missed out on a year together right before this all happened. That still bothers me now. It is something I deeply regret and though it was not only me who played a part in us barely speaking for that year I still wish it had been different and that I had been more understanding and tried harder to keep our relationship the way it was before. You can never get that time back. If I had known my time with her was short it would have been different. But that's the thing, we all take each other for granted, we never think about how short life is and how limited time can be until someone gets sick or passes away, when life forces you to open your eyes and see how precious time is and how every moment with someone you love should be cherished. I'm trying to live that way now, because I know how quickly everything can change.
Soon after we got the news that my moms cancer had spread my mom began chemo. I still had hope. I never lost hope until the day she went into the hospital I had hope, even then when she was lying in the hospital bed dying I had little sparks of hope, not that she wouldnt die from her disease because by then I knew it was inevitable but hope that she would come home and I could take care of her and spend more time with her even if it was only for a couple of weeks. Throughout her treatment and pretty much from day one she was amazing, so brave, and so strong. I was and am still truly inspired by the way she acted when she was so sick and always getting bad news. She was always so positive and would tell everyone she was going to fight. She said she would keep on fighting because she was a momma tiger and she needed to be around for her cub (me) and her cubette (my daughter). And she did fight. She fought so hard to get better, to stay with me and the rest of our family. In fear of my mom being to sick to enjoy my wedding I moved it up from September 2012 to February 2012. That day was one of the happiest days of my life. My mom was in the middle of treatment but she was doing so well. She walked me down the aisle with my father and during the reception she never left the dance floor. My mother loved music and loved to dance and that entire night you couldn't even tell that she was sick, she was so happy, smiling, dancing and laughing. She was always so full of life. I am so glad that I decided to move up the date because if I hadn't my mom would not have made it to see me get married. I was lucky also that even though she was in the middle of treatment at that time she was doing good and was living a mostly normal life. That was the thing about my mom, she never moped around, she didn't want anyone feeling sorry for her. My mother worked up until two weeks before she passed away. She was not going to let cancer change her life completely. For a few months after my wedding my mom continued to do well, at least as far as our eyes could tell she was doing well. Inside however the cancer continued to spread and we found out that though the chemo had gotten rid of the cancer in her lungs and radiation had helped stop the tumors in her brain, it had spread to her liver and her spine. So a different chemo was prescribed and back to the hospital we went. In May my mom celebrated her forty fifth birthday. This was a day she had been dreading for a while, half way to fifty. Forty five did not scare her anymore though, she was happy to turn another year older. Getting sick made her see that every year you get older is a gift not something to be upset about. My moms birthday is the day before my daughters, so my mom was able to see her granddaughter turn one. My mom continued to work, she continued to go out and live her life, most of the time it was hard to believe she was so sick. Then reality would set in and her doctors would tell her the cancer was continuing to spread. It was unbelievable. Someone who seemed to be doing so well was really getting worse every day. Finally some positive news, my mom was told she could be apart of a clinical trial that had a lot of doctors very excited. She was going to Boston and meeting with doctors with a ton of experience and I started to feel like maybe things would start looking up. A few days later she went in for tests before starting the clinical trial. When she got the results back it was of course news that we did not want to hear, the cancer was back in her brain and she would need a different treatment to take care of it and this would make her unable to participate in the clinical trial. For the first time I saw my mom look defeated. It was heartbreaking and everyone in my family was so upset. It didn't take long though for her positive attitude to come back. She started a third chemo but this time the outlook was bleak, only about a five percent chance that it would do anything. Her cancer spread to a bone in her hip and her adrenal glands. In July we moved into a two family house that my husband and I bought with my father. My parents lived upstairs and my husband, daughter and myself lived downstairs. It was nice having us all together again. My mom was able to spend time with my daughter and I was there to help take care of her when she needed me. In August she started to not do as well as she had been, it wasn't anything so bad that would clue us in to the fact that she would not make it to September but there was a definite change. She began having a little trouble walking and she was put on an inhaler to help with her breathing. One Saturday night my mom bought tickets for a comedy show in Boston for her, my dad and myself to go to. This would end up being the last time I would ever go out with my mother. That night was so much fun. My mom had some trouble walking but she held my dads hand and did surprisingly well. She laughed so much, it was good to hear her laugh. When I think about that last week with her that night is what I try to focus on because everything after it was horrible. We drove home laughing and making jokes about how the comedian reminded us so much of my husband. When we got home my mom was tired but nothing too abnormal and we all went to sleep. The next day she did not feel well but we figured she might have just over done it the night before. On Monday my mom was still feeling sick and her breathing was a little worse but she had a doctor's appointment that day so I figured if something was very wrong they'd catch it. I guess I was wrong. Turns out my mom had pnemonia. Monday night my dad was at a football game so I stayed upstairs with my mom until he got home. She was in an out of sleep but when she was awake we talked about the trips we were going to take within the next month. We were planning to go away for a weekend just us and my aunt, my moms sister. The sad thing is when my dad came home from the hospital after she had passed away and turned on his computer she had left it on and it was on a travel website, looking up different places for us to go. Eventually our conversation led us to talking about her cancer and I was crying telling her how I didn't know how I would live without her. I told her I needed her and I loved her so much. She hugged me and told me she was going to keep on fighting and that she didn't want to leave me. I know I probably shouldn't have said that to her. I know that if I told my family that we had that conversation they would probably get mad at me and think I was being selfish. That I was making her upset or putting pressure on her with things she couldn't control, but that was not my intention. It's just what do you do when the one person you always go to when you are upset is the person that you really shouldn't be going to anymore? That night I wasn't thinking. Usually I kept a tight leash on my emotions around my mom because I never wanted her to know that I thought she might die. My mom also felt horrible enough about being sick because she blamed herself since she never stopped smoking. I will admit that I am a little angry at her for never fully quitting after she saw how her father died from smoking but no one ever thinks it will really happen to them. She didn't ask for cancer and she certainly never thought she would get it at forty four years old. So I don't blame my mom and I never did. That was another reason why I tried to act as normal as possible around her, I didn't want her to know how lost I'd be without her because she felt bad enough. Tuesday morning my dad went to work and I went upstairs to sit with my mom because she still wasn't feeling well at all. As the afternoon approached I was supposed to take my daughter to the doctors and was planning on cancelling but my mom told me not to, my grandmother was on her way to stay with her and she would be fine. I went downstairs to get myself and my daughter ready for her appointment. My grandma and my mother in law arrived and stayed upstairs with my mom. Before I left I went upstairs to say goodbye and walked into the apartment to hear my mother screaming. I will never get that sound out of my head for as long as I live. I've never heard cries of pain like that. She was sitting on the couch doubled over in pain screaming that her stomach hurt. I didn't know what to do. I started crying. I asked her if she was ok and if she needed to go to the hospital. I had actually been asking her all day if she needed to go and she kept telling me no. This time she said she needed to go. I almost passed out. Luckily my mother in law was there because my grandmother and I were not handling the situation well. My mother in law called the ambulance. While we waited my mom asked me to get her dressed so I helped her get into a t-shirt and pajama pants. She was yelling at me to get pants that would fit over her butt and kept saying "I don't care what it looks like just cover my ass" she was trying to be funny, even in pain while waiting for an ambulance to come and get her she was making jokes. When the ambulance came for her I felt like I was in a dream. I rode in the ambulance in silence. I was scared but even then I did not think I only had a couple of days left with my mom and that she would never come home again. The hospital was a blur. She was in the ER forever, hours and hours, pretty much the whole day and I was constantly getting pissed off by their lack of care for her. Finally my mom was moved to the ICU and in there she got the care she needed and was much more comfortable. The next day her doctors talked to me and told me she was dying, and that she would probably not leave the hospital. They told me she had a maybe a week left. I have never cried so much in my life. How do you explain the pain? Pain doesn't even seem a sufficient enough word. I was going to lose my mom. It was actually happening, it wasn't something in the future anymore it was happening right then. I was always at my moms bedside. I didn't want to leave her for a second. Every so often I had to though to let other people come in and see her. Everyone wanted to say their goodbyes. My friend since we were eight flew in from out of state and came to the hospital. My mom was like a mother to her and she wanted to see her one last time. I am very thankful for her presence because it helped me so much. I had a very strong support system from my friends and family which helped even though it didn't take the pain away. One thing that I will never forgot and wish I could was the things my mom said in the hospital. It was horrifying and torments me when I think about it which is often. She told my father and I to not let them let her die. She said she didn't want to leave her daughter and she wasn't ready to go. She had pneumonia so we told her she was just be treated for that and it would be ok even though we knew it wouldn't, we didn't want her to be scared. She kept saying that she wanted to come home or that she wanted to go outside. Then she would say "I'm ok" over and over and I wondered if she was comforting us or herself or if she was asking us am I ok? She was a little out of it but she had moments of clarity. My aunt was making a joke about how I was supposedly a devil baby and I was of course telling her how that was not true and asking my dad to side with me. My aunt asked my mom if I was in fact a "devil baby" and my mom opened her eyes and said "yup" and laughed a little. I told her I loved her I don't know how many times and she always said I love you back. I would ask her can I hold your hand? Can I give you a hug? And she would open her eyes and say yes. While I was in the waiting room letting some other people have time with her I spoke with one of her doctors who told me she thought it would be a good idea to let my mom know that if she was tired she didn't have to fight anymore. She said that my mom would hold on for me because she wanted me to be alright and that if I told her it was ok and I would be alright my mom could stop suffering and be at peace. At first I was a little pissed by this. I told her I wasn't going to tell my mom that I was basically giving up on her but then when I was back in the room with my mom and was looking at her struggling to breathe, hooked up to all the machines and knowing that no matter what the outcome was still going to be the same I changed my mind. I sat holding my moms hand and cried quietly so she wouldn't hear me. Her eyes were closed but she wasn't completely asleep. I thought about how whether she passed away then or a week from now I was going to lose my mom, the only difference was she would suffer less if she let herself go then. I didn't want her to let go. I wanted to be selfish and tell her to hold on but seeing her like that I loved her too much to not try what the doctor said. I didn't really think that by telling my mom it was ok it would really change anything but if it could end her suffering then I'd say it. So I hugged her and said to her "Mom, you have fought so hard, you have done so good but if you can't fight anymore that's ok. I will be alright mom. I don't want you to suffer." I was crying and trying so hard for her not to be able to tell. She didn't open her eyes she just nodded. I wasn't sure if she really knew what I was saying but I felt like I had just done the least selfish thing I could have ever done for her. It was very late and I was so tired but I had no plans to leave the hospital. My dad told me I should go home and get some rest, maybe see my daughter who I hadn't seen all day if she was awake. I argued for a while. I didn't want to leave my mom and I didn't want to leave my dad alone at the hospital but he told me I should go home and sleep then come back in the morning so that he could go home and sleep. I decided to go. I went home and tried to sleep which took me forever and I planned to go back to the hospital around 8am. At 6am my phone rang, it was my dad and he was crying. All I heard was my name and then his phone died. Soon after the hospital called me and told me to get to the hospital as soon as possible. I knew she had died or she was about to. I cried as I hurried to get ready. When we got to the hospital I ran straight to the ICU and to my moms room. When I pulled back the curtain and walked in my dad was there crying with two nurses beside him. He told me my mom had passed but I already knew from looking at her. I fell to my knees and screamed which is not like me at all. I am not the type of person that shows my emotions in front of strangers but seeing my mom lying there, knowing she was gone was more than I could take. I didn't want to be in there. I got up and kissed my moms cheek. I hugged her and told her I loved her so much and would miss her forever. Then I turned and left the room. I went to the waiting room where my husband and friend were waiting and again I fell to the floor crying and they knew. My friend and I cried for a while, I'm not sure how long. I eventually got off the floor and sat on a loveseat. My dad came in and told me mom had passed away around 6:30am so when they called me my mom was still alive, I took too long. That made it hurt even more. My dad told me it wouldn't have made a difference that my mom never woke up again after she fell asleep hours before so she wouldn't have responded to me anyway but I still felt awful. I never should have left the hospital the night before. Everyone has since told me that my mom probably wouldn't have allowed herself to pass away with me there. I don't know if that's true but it does seem like my mom, she was always trying to protect me. I then felt guilty that I had told her it was ok for her to let go and then the next morning she was gone but I just tell myself that if my saying that to her did allow her to let go then I helped keep her from suffering for an extended period of time. My mom spent two days in the hospital, some people spend weeks like that and I would never have wanted that for her.
So now here I am a month after and it still hurts the same. I miss her every day. I physically ache with missing her. I feel like a part of me died with her and what no one wants to hear is that sometimes I wish I could be with her. Sometimes I wish it was me and not her. It's not what she would want but it's just how I feel. Of course I wouldn't want to leave my daughter without a mother and that's why everyone gets so mad at me for saying such things but I'm being honest. I'm saying how I really feel some days. I have put up tons of pictures of my mom around my house. I want to see her face every day and I want my daughter to grow up and know who her grandma was. My mom loved her so much, she wanted to be around to see her grow up. It's so hard knowing my daughter will not remember my mom, at least she won't have her own memories of my mom. I will always keep my mothers memory alive though. My mom recorded a book for my daughter, I have videos of my mom, so many pictures and I have many stories to tell. Memories are a poor substitute for the real thing but its all I have left. I was so lucky to have had the mother I had. I always felt so loved growing up, my mom always put me first. She was the person I went to for advice, when I didn't feel good or when I needed a hug. We may have had one year that was rocky but that in no way takes away the twenty three years I had with her where she was so loving and caring, where she was my best friend. I know this is a lot to read and I'm getting tired of typing so I am going to stop here but I just wanted to share my mother's story because for anyone who smokes don't think that it won't happen to you or that when it does you will be elderly. Small cell lung cancer typically affects people ages thirty five to fifty five so think about that the next time you light up. Also think about that my mom found out she was sick and then died ten months later. How would you feel if you had ten months left to live? I also want anyone who has lost someone they love to know that there is no right way to grieve and don't let anyone tell you differently. I have been told many times that I should be acting a certain way, especially because I have a daughter but you know what my daughter is not suffering because of this. I have not neglected her because of my sadness but that doesn't mean I am not going to have my bad days. It should actually be expected that I will have bad days. Its been a month, no I am not over it. In a year I won't be over it and I can almost guarantee I won't be over it the day I die. So much has changed in past two years, I graduated college, moved out, my parents got divorced then back together, I had a baby, got married, found out my mom was sick and then lost my mom. It's too much change. It doesn't matter if it wasn't all bad it was just too much in a short period of time. I sometimes look at my life and I don't even recognize it. But I am happy with most of it. Losing my mom is the one thing I can't get over and will never get over. I am going to keep taking it day by day and keep on living my life because there is no other choice, you have to keep on moving forward. Life doesn't stop even when you think it should but I will carry my pain with me always and I will never stop missing my mom or wishing life could have been different.
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