Turbo Cancer: Day 144 - November 2, 2022

It Was Not Possible

On this day, last year, my mom wrote:

Turn for the worse. Back pain severe, MRI, left leg very painful. Increasing long acting pain dose. Prescription still not available. Never heard from palliative care.

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My mom had lived with Lumpy pain for five months. It had debilitated her. It had taken her life away. It had chewed her up and spit her out, time and time again.

She had lived with it. She had accepted it. She had suffered, with a smile on her face.

The back pain was different.

The back pain was breaking her. It was tearing her apart.

The back pain was a force of destruction.

My mom was curled up in bed. She looked so small. She was surrounded by pillows, strategically placed, so that her body remained in the most comfortable position possible. One tiny move or bump was excruciating.

The lights were dimmed, and noise was kept to a minimum. Any distraction in the room caused waves of pain. She kept her eyes closed, and with shallow breathing, focused on what was occurring inside of her. She remained in a meditative state. Her energy was centered on her pain.

We had thought that her back was hurting because she was immobile. We had thought that her back was hurting because of constipation. We had thought that her back was hurting because her body had become so twisted.

There was no way that any of those explanations was causing the anguish that she was experiencing on this day.

I called the oncologist, Doctor T. I told her, once again, that something was very wrong. I explained that my mom’s pain was beyond what the current theories could justify.

Doctor T ordered an MRI. She expressed concern about metastasis to the bone.

But that didn’t make any sense.

In July, four months earlier, my mom had had a painful lump removed from her groin. At that time, she was in horrible, debilitating pain that had her confined to a wheelchair.

After the procedure, the surgeon, Doctor M, came to the recovery room. He said that he wanted to talk to me. He said that he didn’t think my mom’s pain was aligned with the size of the lump that he had removed. He said that, to him, it seemed more like the pain of a bone cancer patient. He told me that fast-growing tumors in the bone could cause fractures from within. He said that he had seen that kind of pain before. He said that, when he looked into my mom’s eyes, that is what he saw.

We then went to our oncologist, Doctor T, and we told her the surgeon’s theory. She looked at my mom’s PET scan results and said that there was nothing indicating any bone metastasis. Nothing whatsoever. She said that surgeons shouldn’t say things like that, without first looking at the results, and consulting the cancer experts.

She said that putting these ideas in our head had been irresponsible on the part of the surgeon.

It was good news. We happily let go of thoughts of bone cancer. Immediately, we stopped considering the words of Doctor M.

Since July, my mom had been having chemo. She had been having monthly scans and blood tests, to determine the effectiveness of the chemo. Time and time again, we were told that the chemo was working. We were told that the tumors were shrinking. We were told that the tumors were not spreading. We were told that the tumor markers, which had originally been in the five thousands, now remained low, in the hundreds.

It was not possible that she would now have cancer in her spine.

She didn’t have cancer in her spine in July.

The Chemo had kept the cancer from spreading.

Therefore, it was not possible.

Was it?

No. It was impossible.

There was no way that it was possible.

Was it possible?

Was it?

We would find out. The MRI was ordered. The OxyContin dose was increased. I did everything I could to keep my mom comfortable while we, once again, waited for answers.

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The Next Day:

To know the whole story, start at the beginning: