This is the saddest, most heartbreaking post I have ever made, I think. I just need to get it out and write about it.
My mom has cancer, and I think it probably won’t be long. She’s had a series of health problems all year that were misdiagnosed as chronic pain conditions, but they figured out about three weeks ago that it’s actually cancer that originated in her breast (from a tiny bit of leftover cancer that she’d had 10 or 11 years ago), and had spread to her liver and bones by the time it was caught.
She’s been taking care of herself at home with some help from friends. Ordinarily I’d have flown out at some point this year to help, but haven’t because of COVID. She’s an extremely upbeat person and not one to complain about anything, so it was hard to get a good sense of how sick she was or wasn’t. She saw an oncologist a couple weeks ago, and seemed to take away from that meeting that she had a lot of treatment options as it’s a fairly treatable type of cancer. She decided to go to RI to stay with my aunt while being treated so my aunt can take care of her. She flew out there Sunday, but then was taken to the ER almost immediately after getting there because her legs were swollen, and she spent the night in the hospital.
My aunt called me yesterday to talk about it. She told me that my mom is far sicker than she realized. They did a CAT scan on her at the hospital, and said that the treatment options on the table are obviously up to her oncologist, but given how far advanced the cancer is in her bones, they didn’t know how realistic it was to expect that much could be done.
My gut is telling me that they and my aunt are right. The first appointment with the new oncologist will be Friday, but I’d honestly be shocked if any promising news came out of it at all. She’s deteriorated so quickly.
My aunt wants me to fly out there soon to see her, which I guess I am going to have to do. I’m so scared to see her like this.
I’m so, so heartbroken. My mom is the best person I know. She’s just amazing. I love her so, so much, and I’m so heartbroken at the thought of not having her anymore. I feel like I’ve spent half of my awake hours since I talked to my aunt yesterday crying.
I know I will get through it and someday life will feel happy again. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, actually, to have this happening during COVID - COVID has certainly made things more complicated, but on the other hand, this feels like a good time to have the kind of year where you just crawl under the covers and sulk for six months, which is what I feel like doing right now, because at least I’m not missing out on anything too amazing in the meantime.
Also, right after she got diagnosed, I got a prescription for Zoloft to manage my anxiety. I’m starting out on the lowest dose they prescribe, and I’m honestly STUNNED by how different I feel. “Life-changing” does not feel like too strong of a term for it. I still feel stress. I feel pretty wretched right now, to be honest. But I don’t feel stressed when there’s nothing to stress about and that’s kind of incredible. It seemed to kick in for me around last Wednesday. I have woken up feeling deeply uneasy every single morning since COVID started, even during times when life was relatively stable. Wednesday morning, that was just…gone. Well, for five whole days, anyway, until my mom got to RI and everything went to shit again. But my brain has stopped getting stuck obsessing over and not being able to let go of what-ifs that aren’t even happening or likely to happen. After years of living with this and trying SO, so hard to address it mentally, I had concluded that I do have a slight brain chemistry or neurological issue. My prescriber said it might be something as simple as having a higher than normal number of stress hormone receptors in whatever part of the brain does that. So I’m REALLY glad I did this, and should honestly have done it decades ago.
It’s especially good right now because I feel like it has freed up my brain to just focus on actual things that are happening, things that are changing, feelings that I’m feeling that aren’t stress or panic. I have a lot that’s going to need to be worked through in the next…period of time, and I’m so grateful that I have medical technology at my disposal to address it, especially right now. So that’s a thing that’s happening that’s a tiny bit okay.
I think it probably helps to write about this. So maybe I will come back and write about it more.
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