22

She was 36 years old when she felt a lump in her breast. She was a busy woman; her alcoholic husband was disabled, so she worked a 2nd shift factory job and took care of their two teenage daughters. She was beautiful, intelligent, and frazzled. She put off making an appointment, and when she finally did go, the doctor told her it was a cyst and tried to drain it. This was unsuccessful, but he told her to come back in a few months for a follow-up visit, that the cyst would probably go away on its own before then.

By the time she went back, the cancer had already metastasized to her brain. There were days the headache was so bad that she couldn't get out of bed, except to run to the bathroom to vomit. She was weak. This beautiful, healthy, athletic woman was wasting away.


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A couple of months ago, I sat in an exam room at a radiology imaging center, waiting for my mammogram. Thank goodness my sister works there, so I didn't have to wait for an appointment, nor did I have to spend any time in the waiting room. At 41 years old, this would be my 7th mammogram, and it is always nerve-wracking. I end up rescheduling several times, my palms are sweaty, my heart is racing, and I have nightmares for weeks. The mammogram itself is fairly anti-climactic; pick up the breast, place it on the piece of plastic, clamp it, squish it as flat as possible, reposition, repeat, and done. The hard part is waiting for the results. Waiting to find out if I've made it one more year.


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The doctors recommended a mastectomy, surgery to remove the brain tumor, radiation, and chemotherapy. Even with all that, her prognosis wasn't good. Her daughters were shocked and devastated. This was their mother. She wasn't even old. How could she have cancer? That didn't make any sense. Her husband responded the best way he knew how. He drank. Not that he wasn't supportive; he was. But he was crazy in love with her, and there wasn't anything he could do to make her better. So he drank. He took her to her radiation and chemo appointments, and sat with her, stroking her head as she sat on the floor next to the toilet, retching her insides out, sick, miserable and scared. And he drank. There were nights their oldest daughter had to go out looking for him, searching the local bars to bring him home.

She lost weight. Her hair fell out. She had always been beautiful, and not only was she sick, but now her vanity was suffering. Her husband tried, he really did, but all his jokes about how one-boobed bald women were his favorite didn't really help. Then she had to start taking steroids which made her swell, so she looked like she had gained weight. And deep down she knew how sick she was, though she fought it as hard as she could.


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A few days after my mammogram, my sister called to tell me that the radiologist wanted to get my previous films for comparison. Which meant that she saw something that she was unsure about, and needed to see if it was a new finding, or if it was stable.

Great. Another couple of weeks of waiting, dreading the word "biopsy", knowing that it's coming, knowing what the result will be. It's my turn now.


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The doctors told her she had 6 to 9 months to live. She and her husband decided to make the best of the time she had left and started spending more time together and with their families, when she wasn't too sick. They went on a couple of trips together. Their daughters struggled. They were known in school as the girls whose mother was dying. Their teachers cut them a lot of slack, too much, probably. They cried a lot, and acted out in different ways. The oldest daughter had a sexual relationship with a much older man, and started hanging out with a different crowd. She drank a lot and was promiscuous. The youngest daughter went through one "serious" boyfriend after another and started smoking pot. If their parents noticed, they just didn't have the strength to deal with it, and never said anything.

She managed to live two and a half years, long enough to see the oldest daughter graduate high school and celebrate their 20th anniversary with her husband, even though she was in the hospital at the time. Two weeks later, they were all at the hospital when she died. She had been in and out of consciousness for days, and her breathing was labored, her lungs rattling and wheezing. Her mouth was drawn in pain. They all took turns visiting her alone, holding her hand and talking to her, kissing her, saying what they needed to say, not knowing if she could even hear them, but praying that she did. It was midafternoon when she opened her eyes, smiled at them, took a breath, and was gone.

She was 39 years old.


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As it turned out, I didn't need a biopsy. Once the radiologist received my previous films, she decided that a six month follow-up would be enough. So I wait, relieved, but still waiting for the other shoe to drop. To be perfectly honest, I think there's been a part of me that never expected to live to see 40. Almost like I've been waiting to die. And that needs to stop. It's funny, until I started writing this, I didn't see that about myself, but it's true.

Tomorrow, the 22nd of August, marks 22 years since my mother died. And I still cry when I think of her. I still think I can hear her voice saying my name, or her hand on my back when I'm sick in bed. She was the most beautiful, wonderful woman I've ever known in real life, and I know this blog entry hasn't even begun to do justice to her memory.

This is my favorite picture of her, taken when I was about a month old. She was 20, only a few months older than I was when she died.

Mama, I love you. I miss you.