Me and Mom. My favorite Picture of us
So, I guess everything started to fall apart when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer on March 23rd, 2006. It was a small mass on her right breast.
I was 18 at the time, living the "adult" life. It shocked us both. Thankfully, that diagnoses wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was a very mild form. They did some radiation, removed the mass and some lymph nodes and my mom was onto a speedy recovery. Afterwards, we basically put it behind us. No harm done, right?
I put it into the back of my mind and now realize I don't know if she ever did.
Even now looking back, I realize I was selfish.
Some might say, "Well, you were young and had other things on your mind!" And that may be true, but i never stopped to think that someday that "C" word may come back to haunt us.
She was my Super Woman, my hero.
Nothing could touch her.
She was always there and in my mind, she always would be.
She did as a mother does and always put me first and I took it for granted.
As time went on, my health took a turn for the complicated, and she had some issues going on as well. So we started trading off doctor appointments. She went to the many appointments i had for my multiple hernia surgeries, then through me fracturing my back. I went to her check ups with the Oncologists, regular doctor and heart doctor. So the years went by and our relationship grew stronger.
Then, July 19th, 2009, I got a call from my Mom from the Sunoco where she was working. She was having trouble breathing and her chest was hurting. Fearing a heart attack (she had stents put in in 2005), I went and picked her up and took her to the hospital. After 3 days of being admitted, the doctors revealed they had found a mass in her chest on her bronchial tubes.
So we made our first appointment with and Oncologist at UPMC Cancer center near our house.
His name was Dr Kane, and after our first visit with this horrible man, I yanked my Mom out of there and switched her to a different Doctor. I won't get into details about our visit with him, but anyone who feels it's ok to talk to a patient and their family like he talked to us, should not be in the medical field. If i would've left my Mom under his care, she would've succumbed to the cancer a lot sooner.
My Mom's new Doctor, Megaludis (Who i will refer to as Dr M from now on), was a blessing to both of us. She was patient, answered all of our questions, and gave us hope that we could beat it.
Then, the day before Thanksgiving, 2009, we got the results back from 2 different biopsy's on the mass.
It was Stage 4 Small Cell Lung Cancer.
Very high mortality rate
Very high risk of metastasizing.
I can't remember if we went to my Aunt's for Thanksgiving that year or not.
I called off work and took my Mom Black Friday Shopping for the first time. She had never gone and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Her Chemotherapy was set to begin Mid-December. She would be going through Chemo through Christmas and into the New Year.
She would go 3 days a week. Her longest day was the first day. She had 2 different medicines to be administered. Her last 2 days only bag on of medicine had to be administered. Friday's we would go in to get her NuLasta shot to keep her white cell count up. Then for 2 weeks we go once a week to check her blood count. She had 6 sessions of Chemo to go through.
That's enough for today. The next post will be about Small Cell Lung Cancer to help you understand what we were faced with.
I was 18 at the time, living the "adult" life. It shocked us both. Thankfully, that diagnoses wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was a very mild form. They did some radiation, removed the mass and some lymph nodes and my mom was onto a speedy recovery. Afterwards, we basically put it behind us. No harm done, right?
I put it into the back of my mind and now realize I don't know if she ever did.
Even now looking back, I realize I was selfish.
Some might say, "Well, you were young and had other things on your mind!" And that may be true, but i never stopped to think that someday that "C" word may come back to haunt us.
She was my Super Woman, my hero.
Nothing could touch her.
She was always there and in my mind, she always would be.
She did as a mother does and always put me first and I took it for granted.
As time went on, my health took a turn for the complicated, and she had some issues going on as well. So we started trading off doctor appointments. She went to the many appointments i had for my multiple hernia surgeries, then through me fracturing my back. I went to her check ups with the Oncologists, regular doctor and heart doctor. So the years went by and our relationship grew stronger.
Then, July 19th, 2009, I got a call from my Mom from the Sunoco where she was working. She was having trouble breathing and her chest was hurting. Fearing a heart attack (she had stents put in in 2005), I went and picked her up and took her to the hospital. After 3 days of being admitted, the doctors revealed they had found a mass in her chest on her bronchial tubes.
So we made our first appointment with and Oncologist at UPMC Cancer center near our house.
His name was Dr Kane, and after our first visit with this horrible man, I yanked my Mom out of there and switched her to a different Doctor. I won't get into details about our visit with him, but anyone who feels it's ok to talk to a patient and their family like he talked to us, should not be in the medical field. If i would've left my Mom under his care, she would've succumbed to the cancer a lot sooner.
My Mom's new Doctor, Megaludis (Who i will refer to as Dr M from now on), was a blessing to both of us. She was patient, answered all of our questions, and gave us hope that we could beat it.
Then, the day before Thanksgiving, 2009, we got the results back from 2 different biopsy's on the mass.
It was Stage 4 Small Cell Lung Cancer.
Very high mortality rate
Very high risk of metastasizing.
I can't remember if we went to my Aunt's for Thanksgiving that year or not.
I called off work and took my Mom Black Friday Shopping for the first time. She had never gone and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Her Chemotherapy was set to begin Mid-December. She would be going through Chemo through Christmas and into the New Year.
She would go 3 days a week. Her longest day was the first day. She had 2 different medicines to be administered. Her last 2 days only bag on of medicine had to be administered. Friday's we would go in to get her NuLasta shot to keep her white cell count up. Then for 2 weeks we go once a week to check her blood count. She had 6 sessions of Chemo to go through.
That's enough for today. The next post will be about Small Cell Lung Cancer to help you understand what we were faced with.
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