Turbo Cancer: Day 104 - September 23, 2022
She Stayed for Me
On this day, last year, my mom wrote:
Drain hole increasing in drainage - trying to find the best bandage. Will try compression today. Feel stronger. Plan for a good week.
Anne Marie has offered to add me to the sick list and get sacrament of the sick at home.
So sad for Kristi. She, of course, is having a very hard time. I try to just be there for her.
On this day, I went back to taking care of my mom.
I was shattered. However, Turbo Cancer didn’t care about me. It wasn’t willing to wait for me. It wasn’t willing to give me time.
It was merciless.
When my mom had gotten so sick, so suddenly, I had said that I would take care of her. Through hell or high water, that was what I intended to do.
My only other option was to sit alone in my house, allowing myself to sink into a hole.
When I lost Steven the first time, my younger children needed me to be strong, so I was strong. When I lost Steven the second time, my mother needed me to be strong, so I was strong.
Being needed by others is a very good thing. In order to meet the needs of another, one must think outside of oneself. If my mom’s disease hadn’t forced me to hold it together, I am certain that I would have fallen apart.
Somehow, God gives us what we need when we need it. It is unfortunate that, sometimes, what we need, hurts.
Surviving tragedy makes us stronger. Pain pushes us to become who we have the potential to be.
It still sucks, though.
I went right back to doing the things that needed to be done. I helped my mom get ready and I helped her move throughout the house. I cleaned, I shopped and I prepared meals. I made phone calls to doctors’ offices and insurance companies. I drove to appointments, carried bags, and pushed wheelchairs.
I did all of the exact same things, but nothing was the same. Everything had changed. I was moving through life, but I was devastated.
Suddenly, out of the blue, I was debilitated by grief.
My mom and I were both living with uncontrollable pain. It wasn’t just me taking care of her anymore, it was us taking care of each other.
Throughout her illness, my mom had been teaching me how to live while suffering. She had been showing me that the intolerable can be tolerated. She had been a living example of the fact that, through prayer, meditation, reflection, kindness, service to others and a strong relationship with God, the human spirit can overcome any attack.
On June 12, 2022, my mom had sudden pain in her groin. I took her to the emergency room.
Due to the Covid-19 vaccine, her immune system had shut down completely. She was diagnosed with three types of cancer. One of the three was a highly aggressive form of pancreatic cancer with its origin in her left inguinal lymph node.
It was Turbo Cancer. It spread like wildfire.
My mom lived with Turbo Cancer for six months. As the cancer spread, her pain increased. It became unspeakable.
If my mom had died sooner, she would have suffered less.
I have questioned God: Why not show mercy? Why not take her before it got so bad? If she was always going to die at the end, why allow the torture to continue for so long?
I know the answer.
She lived because I needed her. I couldn’t have managed without her. If my mom had died before Steven died, it would have broken me, completely.
I wouldn’t have known how to handle it. I wouldn’t have known that I could handle it.
She stayed for me. She suffered for me.
She had always been taking care of everyone else.
Oh Kristi, your entries always wreck me.. This is another beautiful lesson, as most of your entries are. A very healthy and beautiful perspective on these events, that everyone should read. We are all going to face something like this at some point. Some of us have. Some of us are now at this very moment. And some will in the future. But it is a certainty that we all will experience this kind of loss at some point. Reading these accounts give a perspective that would benefit each of us when that time comes.
"So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."
John 16:22
This piece truly resonates with me. When my mom died in 2010, as the result of a catastrophic vaccine injury, I was so busy trying to hold up my dad that I didn’t have time to think about how grief stricken and angry I was. I think having that focus on holding him up was probably a good thing and kept me from bursting with sadness.