SHE FADED AWAY
The tumor in my mother's right lung was first discovered last December 22nd, when she had had a heart attack. It showed up on a routine chest x-ray in the ER. Back then it was approximately an inch in size. The biopsy results -- three "good" samples -- were benign. The pain in her back began sometime around April, followed by (in no particular order) loss of appetite, weakness, fatigue, breathlessness, and numbness in the right side of her chest. But above everything else was the pain in her back, which had become increasingly severe. Not even pain meds helped, so the doctor finally ordered an MRI in August which revealed that the once small benign tumor was now massive -- about the size of a soft covered book -- and malignant. This was not a "primary site" tumor; it had metastasized from some place else in her body, most likely the cancer from a couple of years ago which everyone thought was cured. They began daily radiation therapy immediately to shrink the tumor in order to alleviate the pain.
My sister-in-law, Nurse M, and I would talk endlessly of when and how, as the doctors wouldn't even give us their gut instincts. I began scouring the Net for info on spindle cell lung cancers for anything that might help. Everyone seemed to agree that Mom's life would no longer be measured in years. Little did we know how little she had left.
I think it was August 29th that she told me her right leg gave out. She didn't say that she tripped (with her walker) or that she was tired or (abnormally) weak. She said, "I don't know, it just gave out." And it was numb. That was a Tuesday. By Friday her other leg gave out. The doctor ordered a scan for that night and discovered that despite fourteen radiation treatments, the tumor had been growing. It had needled its way into her spine causing spinal cord compression, pressing on the nerves which controlled her body from the chest down.
She wanted to die at home, but since she was rendered bedridden, that was no longer possible. So she was transferred to the nursing home. She was probably one of a very select few who had daily visitors there, lots of visitors. And I called every day I couldn't visit. Nurse M and I continued to hold our when'n'how talks, referencing her good days and her bad days, noting her extended abdomen and her hoarseness.
Mom had asked us to pack up her old clothes for the church rummage sale this month, so Tuesday Nurse M and I did that. We began by pulling just the "old" clothes. I even separated her sweaters by whether they had pockets or not. Mom liked pockets, so the plain sweaters would go to the sale. In the end, we boxed up everything, including her purses, and delivered the lot to the church. It was done in such a flurry that we didn't have time to choke up.
Afterwards, Nurse M and I sat and chatted with my mother as I surreptitiously took notes -- for the obit. The fate of the one writer in a family full of medical personnel. However, what could have been a morbid process turned into an amusing and interesting afternoon. I began by asking her about her bedroom when she was sixteen, which somehow became the starting point for all her answers. Nearly every question we asked, she went back to the beginning, when she was sixteen, and ticked off the events on her fingers in chronological order.
Let's see, you went to Wellesley and then to William Smith. When did you graduate?
Now, when I was sixteen ...
What degree did you get from Syracuse University?
Now, when I was sixteen ...
How did you meet Dad?
Now, when I was sixteen ...
The paralysis from the spinal cord compression seemed like an unusual cruelty. It was the reason she had to go into the nursing home -- the warehouse, as she called it -- knowing she would never return home. In the end, however, the paralysis was a blessing in disguise because, although the tumor was painful in her back, she was spared the added pain from the metastasis every place else.
Yesterday morning Nurse M called to say it was time. Nurse G and I rushed a two+ hour drive in two hours. My brother, who had gotten there first, was the last one to speak with her. He told her everyone was on their way. When we arrived, she was already in the final throes, unconscious and barely breathing. We all took turns saying good-bye, kissing her forehead and caressing her arm. I told her that we loved her and that it was okay to go. I was holding her arm when she took her last breath an hour later. After the better part of a year in and out of hospitals, treatments, medicines, therapies, what seemed like forever, in the end she just faded away.
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