"The doctor said I have about twenty masses in my liver. They think it might be cancer."
And so begins the maelstrom.
Those words (or similar ones) were told to me by my mother, who has had her battles with cancer in the past decade. In 2006 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, had surgery, went through all the follow-up care (chemo, radiation, pills), and in 2011 was declared to have beaten it. In late 2013 it was discovered that she had bladder and ureter cancer, which led to the removal of a kidney and occasional treatments for her bladder. Then, in early 2015 she started feeling puny and feverish and couldn't shake it, and an examination revealed the liver situation. Now, after some time and effort spent with doctors and the hospital to get her fever under control and improve her overall energy and awareness, she prepares for her toughest fight yet. Chemotherapy begins Thursday the 11th. She will begin with three three-week cycles, during which she will visit her oncologist once a week. Week One, she gets two chemo medicines via IV. Week Two, she gets one (the one I'm told that is the less-harsh of the two), and Week Three, she gets none. After nine weeks her oncologist will run tests to see how effective the treatments have been, and we'll go from there.
That's the basics about Mom. This blog will keep its few followers posted on her condition as events dictate, but my reason for creating this page is for me to have an outlet. I'm living with Mom now so that I can be close and help take care of her as needed, so since she's right here I have to have some place where I can do the journalistic equivalent of screaming my head off once in a while. I'm discovering that the elevator of emotions goes up and down pretty fast and pretty frequently these days. Sometimes I'll feel a sense of control, of acceptance ... and when I'm at work and focused on the job there is an occasional sense of normalcy that helps me deal with things ... but most of the time it's some level of terror. I'm not going through this alone; both of my sisters are helping as well. We're all in this together. Thank God they're so good at the nurturing thing. There were a couple times that I was feeling pretty overwhelmed back when Mom was having spikes of fever. I'm going to have to learn how to be a better caretaker.
For myself as well as for Mom.
