Turbo Cancer: Day 146 - November 4, 2022
Turbo Cancer: Day 146 - November 4, 2022
Folly
On this day, last year, I wrote:
We are home from the MRI. It was a very long test. So, it was decided that chemo will now be on Monday. Now, we just wait for results.
My mom was a fighter.
No matter how bad things got, she woke up every morning, smiled, and faced the day.
Nothing that we were doing made sense any longer. Still, we kept doing it.
Going out for these medical tests was beginning to feel impossible. Things that had once been easy and light became incredibly heavy.
With every movement that she made, my mom carriedthe burden of her pain. Every step she took had to be delicate. The slightest bump or jerk sent shockwaves through her body.
I, too, carried the burden of her pain. I was the one moving her. I was the one transporting her to all the tests and treatments. I was the one enabling her to continue down this path.
In retrospect, I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why, from inside of the situation, I couldn’t recognize the absurdity of our actions.
I wasn’t thinking. I had lost that ability. Everything was moving too fast. I was following the doctors’ orders, and doing what they said was necessary. They said that they needed the test results to find the answers. With each and every test and treatment, they made empty promises of pain relief. It was all a lie, but we believed it.
We thought that the doctors were the experts. We trusted them.
I was not rational. I simply did what needed to get done to get my mom to her next appointment.
On this day, my mom was scheduled for an MRI of her spinal column and vertebrae.
As I had done dozens of times over the months, I went to my mom’s house early and got everything ready for our outing. I packed a bag. In it, I put healthy snacks, water, pain pills, bandages, her wallet, her insurance cards, her iPad, her journal, her calendar, and her pencil. I put the bag in the back seat of the car, and I put the wheelchair in the trunk.
Then, I got my mom.
I helped her to get out of bed by wrapping my arms under her armpits, around her torso. I lifted her up into a sitting position. I then picked up her heavy, swollen legs, and used them to pivot her body, until she was on the edge of her bed, with her feet on the floor. I folded my arms in front of me, like a genie, bent my knees, and squatted. My mom held my forearms and we both stood up together. She then held my shoulder with one hand and the furniture with the other. We slowly navigated our way to the nearby bathroom.
In the bathroom, she had a tall chair with handrails. She sat down, to get ready for her day. While she was sitting, I washed her thin, frail body, her kind face, and her bit of peach fuzz hair. Then I helped her dress.
It was a cool November morning. Once my mom was wearing her jacket, hat, and shoes, we began the long journey to the car. I brought her walker to the bathroom doorway. With it, she slowly made her way out of the bathroom, around the bed, out of the bedroom, and down the hallway, to the top of the stairs.
I stood two stairs below my mom, facing her. She put her left hand on the rail and her right hand on my shoulder. I walked backwards, with her following, and very slowly, we descended.
Once we reached the bottom, she grabbed her second walker, which was already in place. She managed the short distance to the front door. She put the walker through the door and used it to take one step down, out of the house. She then turned and took a second step down. Finally, she was able to sit in the wheelchair, which was already there, waiting.
For a few minutes, she sat still, and we both took a deep breath.
Once she felt ready, we continued. I pushed her down the short walkway to the car. The car was running, and it was warm and cozy inside. The passenger door was open. I held the door steady, while she was using it to pull herself up. As she was standing, holding the door, I quickly tossed the wheelchair out of our way. I helped her pivot, and then sit on the edge of the passenger seat. I squatted in front of her, lifted her heavy legs, turned her body, and put her feet into the car.
She put on her seatbelt. I shut the passenger door. We were ready to drive to the hospital.
Altogether, to travel from my mom’s bathroom to her car, one needed to take twenty-six steps. It was ten steps from the bathroom to the stairway. There were six stairs. From the bottom of the stairway, it was only ten more steps to the car. On this day, the short journey took ninety minutes. We were both exhausted, and we hadn’t left the driveway yet.
None of the doctors ever mentioned hospice as an option. None of them told us that it was probably time to stop the treatment. None of them pointed out our foolishness.
None of them saved us from our folly.
With every ounce of energy she had left, my mom kept right on fighting.
Visit my Ko-fi site for one-of-a-kind wearable art or to make a one-time donation:
Until people are ready to see the truth, they continue to live in a lie.
She won’t forget the conversation you had with her. The seed is planted.
Over the last several days, I read every one of your posts about your mom. It's a heartbreaking story, but thank you for writing all this down, so we can remember your mom, and so we can't forget the criminals and the system that killed her.