A lot’s changed
I’m about to talk about cancer, so if this is something you can’t handle reading about, steer clear.
It’s just strange and terrifying when it happens in your own home. You know it’s as common as ever now; almost every family has experienced one form or the other of the disease, but you never expect it to enter your life. My mother was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in January 2023, it had already spread to her lymph nodes and a mastectomy was the immediate solution the doctors proposed. Albeit these news were the worst I had ever had to take in a doctor’s office, we were reassured constantly that her prognosis shows promise. That the biopsy results show that her body will respond to treatment. That she can have a full recovery.
While I’m thankful that she had a fighting chance, I’m inexplicably angry. They don’t tell you just how bad things can get with and after chemo. They touch on it, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the way my mother had to experience it. They don’t tell you she’ll cry because she can’t take the aches in her body, they don’t tell you how you can take away from her pain when her hair starts to fall out, they don’t tell you she might not be able to stand on her own anymore, they don’t tell you about the loosening of the nails, the numbness that runs all the way up to her ankles and wrists, the stiffness. And then she’ll show symptoms of rare side effects that no one would take seriously and we end up in the ICU for three nights. She’s the strongest woman I know - to give up her caregiving status as a mother so we can take care of her instead is, by itself, one of the most difficult things she had to do. She fought and is still fighting like no one else I know. But no one prepares you for how taxing it is to see a loved one like this. It’s painful to see them go from powerful and constantly on their feet and busy, to weak and needing help to get up, to not being able to walk into the doctor’s office and need a wheelchair, to not being able to sleep. They keep telling me that the hardest part is over, the Chemo and the surgery are done. No one really understands how hard it is, when she looked at me after the dressing was off with tears in her eyes and her lips quivering to ask me “how bad is it?”. No one really gets how furious it makes me that I can’t take her pain away. That I don’t know if she’ll ever accept herself the way she is now. That I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same. It changed her. It changed me. It changed all of us as a family. When cancer enters a home, it changes everyone around it. It tests you, it pushes you, it takes away from you, it exhausts you, drains you. Even while we’re trying to kill it, it’s still taking. Constantly fucking taking. And even when it’s gone, it’s still in the back of your head. Biannual screening. Tablets for years to come. Having to get screened yourself consistently. Some people will also have the audacity to tell you “Oh breast cancer isn’t difficult. It’s like getting the flu.” The fuck it is. Yes it’s easy to remove and yes it doesn’t affect bodily functions like other types of cancers, but it’s still a shit show. It’s still cancer. It’s still 16 chemotherapy cycles. It’s still a surgery with major physical impact. It’s still 25 radiotherapy sessions. It’s still fucking cancer. It’s still a life altering experience. It’s still one of the most difficult life lessons anyone has to learn.
All I want now is to get my mother back. The way she used to be. I miss her. I want to hug her and not hear “careful careful careful!”, I want to take her out and not think twice about where I’m going to park to make sure she doesn’t have to walk any more than she needs to. I want her to check up on me in the night rather than the other way round. I want her back.
At this point, you start to accept that all you can do is be there for them and hold their hand through it. Reassure them when it gets tough, love them when they can’t love themselves, take care of them when they can’t do it themselves, and hope they come out of it stronger than they ever were.