I don’t know why this date always sticks out, because I don’t recall the exact day I found out I had cancer. However, I do remember it was April, I’d just come back from an expo with my sons, my mother had died of brain cancer in January, I was selling my house in Southern California, I was finishing up my lengthy divorce that had taken over six years, and I was very, very sick. I couldn’t breathe. It was a Wednesday when I got in to see the doctor. On Thursday I had x-rays, on Friday I went in for a biopsy…I was awake for the surgery where they removed the lymph nodes in my neck…it was gross because I could see the entire procedure on the shiny light above me, I couldn’t move from the anesthetic paralysis they had put me in, but they wanted me to talk to them, you know, in case they hit my vocal chords?
I’d been sick for a year, I knew it, as a woman, as a mother, and as someone who feels things very intrinsically. I ignored it. Why? I was trying to raise two boys. They were, when I found out my prognosis, aged twelve and ten. I was also trying to run two businesses, one of them internationally and it was growing exponentially. I was also trying to maintain two households. I had a house in Huntington Beach, CA and another that I was renting in Los Osos, CA. Then, my mother started behaving oddly. She was living in our house in Huntington Beach and I was ‘home’ for the weekend. I remember the first sign vividly in October of 2000 as it still hurts, even though she didn’t mean it, and it was so out of character for her.
We were watching some TV and a commercial came on about abuse. A woman of about forty was yelling. You would assume by what she was yelling that she was saying it to kids, abusing them. Then the camera panned out to show a little old lady, practically cringing away from yelling woman. I was horrified. I turned to my mother and told her how much that commercial upset me. Not that it was okay if it was children she was yelling at, neither was it okay to yell at a defenseless older woman. My mother looked at me almost blankly for a moment and said, “Well, what do you think you do to me?” I stared at her in the same horror that I had felt at seeing that commercial. I gasped. I also defended myself. I said, “I would never speak to you in that manner!” She had raised me correctly and she knew I would NEVER raise my voice to her. She subsided after that. I, however, realized something was wrong. My wonderful, kind, and patient mother was behaving irrationally, that was the ‘first’ incident that I was aware of.
In November of that year, I bought another house, this time in Los Osos, CA, across the bay from Morro Bay, CA, so we could all live under one roof again. It had to have a fenced in yard since we had two dogs, five cats, two growing boys, and my mother and I, as well as near enough to my warehouse in Morro Bay. We were all elated as I signed the paperwork. I had told no one as I didn’t want to jinx it until it was complete, good thing too as a week after I signed the seller changed their mind. I felt horrible as my mother was so excited about us living together again. She adored her grandchildren which she had helped me raise once I became a single parent. I firmly believe that with her help they turned into better human beings than they would have it I had been completely alone for those years.
At Thanksgiving, I arranged to have someone else cook our dinner, I was too busy with work and picked it up. We really enjoyed the meal and my mother was behaving oddly. I kept asking her if she was okay the whole weekend before I had to get back to my other home and work up in Morro Bay. It was a four-hour drive.
My mother knew my 1-800 number (it’s a free number to call businesses to those of you who don’t have that in your country) by heart and called me at least once a day, or I called her to check in. A week or so before Christmas I couldn’t reach her. I tried for days. I had the police go do a ‘wellness’ check where they go pound on the door and ask the occupant if they are ‘okay.’ There was no response. I finished up my Christmas rush of orders as fast as I could and headed down as soon as the boys were out of school for the day. No one answered the door, my key worked, but the door was bolted. I could, however, hear the dogs barking. I had to lift my boys, one by one, over the back fence. My biggest worry was that she had died in the house and they would find her, there was nothing I could do. They went through the dogie door. I went around to the front of our town home and they let me in. My mother was sitting on the couch and was like, “Hi there!” I was not amused, but I was relieved.
Fortunately, across the common area of our townhome complex lived my friend Jill. She had been a nurse for years and I went to see her after we visited for a while at mom’s. I asked her what I should do and she recommended I take my mother to the E.R. and tell them about her altered state, just as I had told her. With that course in mind I went home and asked my mother when was the last time she had bathed. Clearly, she could no longer take care of herself and this altered state of mind worried me. Was she taking her meds? Was she feeding the dogs? I had regular orders of groceries delivered, part of our phone calls so I could just arrange that all the time. Everything ‘seemed’ fine but I knew something was wrong. She asked me if she stank, I assured her that she didn’t, but wondered if a bath would make her ‘feel’ better. It did. We had a delightful evening together, just like always. The next morning, I took her to the E.R., she would never return home.
Getting her to the hospital alone was a nightmare. I had one of those extended vans and she couldn’t get up in it. I tried to lift her, but as we were about equal in weight and height, that didn’t work. Then, her colostomy bag broke and we had to clean her up. It took two HOURS to get her out the door and to the E.R. which was about ten minutes away. I felt so bad as though I had failed her as a daughter. I hadn’t, but I felt that way.
They kept her because based on my description of her behavior, they ran a scan and found a brain-tumor. The doctor was eager to operate. I could imagine my mother’s horror at the idea. She was a very conscientious and particular person…about the way things should and shouldn’t be done. She was very classy, very dignified. She’d already survived thyroid and colon cancer, she would not want her head shaved and them digging into her brain. The tumor had metastasized already but not from her other two cancers. I have a theory that when she went in for her regular checkup in June, that they found out about the tumor, and she chose not to tell me. She chose to let it go. I decided then and there, knowing my mother, that she wouldn’t want the brief amount of time the doctors would have given her with such a surgery. She would want to go on, she was tired of fighting, she was tired of living, she would want to die with dignity. We’d talked extensively over the years about her two cancers, her three strokes, and I knew her well enough to know what she would want and the decisions she would make if she could. I refused to allow the surgery. I told my mother who was lucid, but had short-term memory loss, my decision. I wasn’t sure she was nodding because she trusted me or because she agreed with me. After telling her three times that weekend that she was dying of a brain tumor, I was done, I wouldn’t tell her anymore. It hurt too much. This was Saturday when I admitted her, by Monday she was in a coma. They said she would never awaken again and probably be dead by Thursday. This was right before Christmas 2000.
My mother not only woke up again, she recognized me, my boys, and my brother when he visited. Nothing like making a liar out of the doctors. During the last days, she had a stroke. She always thought she would die of a stroke since her mother had, so when she tried to ask me what was wrong with her and I couldn’t tell her again that she was dying of a brain tumor, I told her she’d had a stroke. THAT she could understand and comprehend and it seemed to give her comfort. She even tried, during the last days, to comfort me when I was crying about her dying. She told me I would be okay, patting me on the stomach. She was right, I would be okay. When she slipped back into her coma a few days later, I told her to go on, don’t hang around for me, I would be fine, she raised a strong woman, and I loved her. She died the next day on January 4, 2001.
Four months later in April I was dealing with my own prognosis and possible death. It was terrifying for my two boys. I tell you, if they didn’t exist, I probably would not have fought so hard. The doctor told me if I did nothing that I would live maybe 4-5 months…and it wouldn’t be a very pleasant death, choking to death. I became a human guinea pig.
You might wonder why I tell all this, part of it is to remember because I need to, to exorcise it from my psyche. Part of it is to tell others that no matter how bad things are, you can do it, you can deal with it. I write about strong women in my books because I am a strong woman, my mother was a strong woman, my grandmother was a strong woman, my great-grandmother was one too…so I come from a long line of strong women and that is what I know and write about. Here’s a bit of trivia, I am the youngest daughter, of the youngest daughter, of the youngest daughter, of the youngest daughter…how is that for a legacy? I have no daughters, lol
No matter what you go through, what you may go through, you can do it…I firmly believe that the fates, that a higher power, God if you believe, doesn’t give you ANYthing that you can’t handle. So, celebrate with me that it’s been SIXTEEN years since that long-ago prognosis. I’m here, I’m still publishing stories that I hope you all enjoy, AND there is more to come.
If you wish to read more about my cancer story, please click here, here, here, and for the first mention, here.
AND, as always, check out my website to look at all my amazing books! (Click on the picture to be taken to the site)
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And, after 30 some years of traveling (I lived out of them for a couple of years) they really have stood the test of time.
for my graduation from high school gift…and, I think because it was free on his credit card statement (remember when they used to do that to entice you to spend MORE money) and also, because it didn’t arrive in time to give it to my SISTER for Xmas. My sister is definitely more domesticated than I. Mine is beige and has lots more room for spools of thread on it than the one shown here. I’ve rarely had to replace any of those spools that came with it, because there was so much! And, although it really was one of those HUH moments of why someone would give you such a thing, I have kept it for the last 30 plus years. Used it, and slowly added to it. Grandma, a champion sewer, had a beautiful sewing basket that I have kept out of nostalgia and I added her shears and some of the other things from it to mine, after all, needles and safety pins never fade away in their apparent value.
