Easter Weekend

My mom has lung cancer, have I mention that here? She was diagnosed in the fall of 2016 after complaining to her doctor for years about waking up in the middle of the night with shortness of breath (he told her it was panic attacks and prescribed anti-anxiety medication). When she got a terrible pain in her side they decided she needed her gallbladder removed. It wasn't until they did a pre-surgery x-ray that they discovered the cancer.

She quickly contacted a friend with a doctor-friend and got an appointment with an excellent doctor in California who ran a lot of tests and found that she had stage 4 non-small cell carcinoma. It's the kind of lung cancer that people who don't smoke get. People, apparently, who exercise regularly and and make sure they eat lots of veggies. It was such a horrible shock. I googled the diagnosis and everything online said that she had weeks or months to live at the most. I pulled over my car to cry more that once that week. My mom. My best friend.

Thankfully, they also discovered that her particular cancer has the kind of DNA that allows them to treat it with gene-therapy. The doctor said that if she had been diagnosed even five years prior, the outlook would have been completely different. They transferred her care to the Hunstman Cancer Hospital, started her treatment, and within just a couple of weeks it seemed like she could beat it! It was truly a miracle. The medication made her very tired and she lost a lot of her hair, among other side effects. But she was going to live.

After about a year the first medication they gave her stopped working, but there was another. After a few months that wasn't working. Once she was out of gene-therapy options, they decided to try radiation.

Then the radiation wasn't working. Her lung started filling with liquid sometimes. She kept getting it drained, but that was very painful. They decided to try chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The immunotherapy is pretty new, but people are living for much long with it, some people are still alive after five years, and they just started using it around that time. So it still seemed beatable.

She finished her first round of chemo, but soon after her lung filled with fluid and they had to put in a permanent drain and start another round of chemo. Between infusions, her blood levels weren't returning to normal. So they had to postpone the infusions so she could get blood transfusions to bring the levels back up. She went on a trip to St. George at the end of March this year and came home with horrible pain in her groin. The doctos said it was probably just a pulled muscle from hiking and not to worry about it.

A week and a half ago she went for another round of chemo, and instead was sent to the hospital for another blood transfusion. When she got all checked in, the plan was to get a port put in, so she wouldn't have to keep getting poked, and do a cat scan and an MRI. Everything kept getting mixed up and postponed, and they had to sedate her for the MRI because of the pain of laying down, so she was there four nights instead of the intended one night. I was able to visit her a couple of days and spend a night in the hospital with her. I haven't had a lot of one-on-one time with her lately, so that part was actually kind of nice.

Then finally, the Saturday before Easter, they sent her home. She had been planning the holiday far in advance. The eggs were filled with candy and coins, and the kids painted piggy banks to put their coins in. It was really a beautiful day. Because of course it was. If there is one thing my mom never does half-way, it is holiday parties. She makes purposefully makes everything as fun and beautiful as it can be.

For Easter the kids each got one little toy (LOLs, PJ Masks, and Beyblades) and some candy. We visited Tim's parents and relaxed.

Then on Monday my mom said she could feel the rushing in her ears that lets her know that her blood levels are low, so a friend took her to the hospital. They got the MRI results and it showed that the cancer has metastasized to her pelvis and spine. Tuesday she called and asked me to come early, so Tim got off work early and I went to the hospital to be with her. She was just getting all bad news and didn't want to be alone. My dad got there an hour after me and we went and picked up dinner downtown and came back to eat with her, and then I went home.

I went back early Wednesday morning so I could be there for all of her doctors meetings. My dad got there not long after, again, and filled out his FMLA paperwork so that he wouldn't have to go back. 

The doctor and his team came in and gave us the clear, final news, after days of sort-of thinking there might be some options.

Adults produce nearly all their blood in their pelvis, and her cancer is preventing that process from happening. Even though they pumped her full of blood on Tuesday, by Wednesday her levels were right back down. Platelets live in the body about 3 days and red blood cells a few weeks, so they expect her to live somewhere in that range.

She was discharged on Wednesday afternoon to the care of hospice.

So. We've been spending as much time with her as we can. Either just me or some combination of me and my family have been to see her 5 out of the last 6 days. Kelson and Lexi were in Utah for her baby shower, and we were supposed to go down to Hurricane but the trip was cancelled and they came here instead. Her brothers flew in to say good-bye. There have been people at her house constantly to let her know how much they love her. She's been trying to get us to plan her funeral.

My mom has been pretty incredible through the whole thing. Her faith is so strong. She got a blessing last year that said that she would be healed and I have been clinging to that. But she's not afraid to die. She said that she knows where she's going and she's not worried. She even said it's all kind of exciting. Dying...a new adventure.

She just worries about us. About leaving us. And I don't want her to leave. I need her to be here with me to show me what to do with these kids. To listen to the things that only my mom would understand. I need to be able to call her for a recipe. I need my kids to get to really know her and have her precious influence in their lives.  I feel like so much of how I think about myself and who I am is tied up in her and without her I'll just float away. Like she's my tether to the good parts of me.

They gave her days, and so far it has been 6. There is still a slim chance that one of the gene therapies she was using before will give her some relief, so that's what I am hoping for. I'm hoping for a few more months. But right now and I'm just going to go through each day and spend as much time with her as possible and be grateful that I came to her.