Turbo Cancer: Day 158 - November 16, 2022
It's One or the Other
On this day, last year, I wrote:
Today, we went to the hospital for my mom’s bone scan. The scan images will show any tumors growing in the bone. With this information at his disposal, the doctor can pinpoint and eradiate every bit of bone cancer.
My mom got through the test, but it was too much for her. She is suffering now. After she was injected with an isotope, we hung around the hospital for another three hours. Having endured the long wait, she had to lie on the table, on her spine, for another hour.
The metastatic cancer pain in my mom’s spine is intense. Today’s test was torturous.
We are home now, and she is just waiting for the pain meds to kick in. The time spent waiting for relief is agonizing.
Hopefully, the doctors have all the pictures they need. My mom cannot suffer through another day like today. One of these procedures, designed to relieve pain, needs to start working soon.
I cannot think of a word strong enough to describe the experience of my mom’s bone scan. It was awful.
An outpatient bone scan, for a human being in my mom’s condition, was wildly inappropriate.
Is it possible that the doctors didn’t recognize the severity of my mom’s situation? Could the trauma of their profession have caused their brains to be so far removed from reality that they could no longer relate to the human condition? Had they become one with the machines that they have come to depend on for their medical practice?
Or are they a congregation of full-blown satanic ghouls?
It’s one or the other, isn’t it?
When I spoke to the scheduler for this test, she gave me the instructions. She said that we would go to the hospital in the morning, so that my mom would be injected with the isotope. We then had to wait the three hours for the isotope to spread.
She said that we were welcome to go home during the time in-between the injection and the test.
I said to her that we couldn’t go home. I said that the hospital was forty-five minutes away from it. Due to my mom’s severe illness, the entire ninety remaining minutes at home would have been spent getting her out of and back into the car.
She suggested going to a restaurant during the wait.
I said to her that we couldn’t go to a restaurant. I explained to her that my mom would be taking huge doses of various narcotics and other drugs. I said that she had a drain coming out of her thigh, that was constantly being filled with the lymphatic fluid. I told her that my mom couldn’t walk, due to the heavy fluid that engorged her legs. I said that she was in too much pain, was immuno-compromised, and couldn’t sit up at the table for the length of time that it would take to eat a meal.
I asked about the possibility of using a hospital room with a bed during the three hour wait. I repeated my words about my mom’s condition and her extraordinary pain. I described the aggressive, accelerated, fast-growing tumors that were fracturing her spine.
The scheduler told me to have my mom take a pain pill one hour before her scheduled procedure was to take place. I told her that the drugs were not effective.
She told me that, unfortunately, insurance would not pay for a room during a bone scan.
I said that we would not require nurses or meals. I offered to bring my own bedding, and clean up when we were done.
She said that, unless I wanted to admit my mom to the hospital and pay the out-of-pocket cost, it would be impossible to have the use of a hospital room.
We were not in a position to pay the out-of-pocket cost.
We had been told that, within in a matter of days, radiation would provide seemingly magical pain relief. We had been told that, by suffering through one more test, my mom would be rewarded with her old life being given back to her.
One more procedure, and she would have hope for a tolerable future.
To receive radiation, my mom had to withstand the bone scan.
From within the system, we were not able to see any other options. We believed that my mom needed the bone scan. She needed to be able to get through it. We had to figure it out.
We planned our day. I packed my mom’s bag. We would spend the three hours at the hospital. We decided to do a jigsaw puzzle in the radiation oncology waiting room, to visit the gift shop, and to have lunch in the cafeteria.
My mom, with her forever positive attitude, said: “I’m tired of hospital rooms, anyway. It will be fun to visit the gift shop and the cafeteria.”
We arrived at the hospital, and my mom was injected.
As planned, we sat at the puzzle table. After a few minutes of moving a few jigsaw pieces around with her fingers, my mom put her head down on the table. She said that she needed to be quiet and rest for a while.
The pain pill was not working. It was already too much.
The three hour wait was excruciating. After she had rested, I wheeled my mom around the hospital, attempting to keep her distracted from her pain.
She tried to be cheerful. She tried to enjoy travelling down the long corridors, looking at knick-knacks in the gift shop, and eating in the cafeteria. Over and over, she attempted to rally, but it was exhausting. Her energy faded, and she slid down and drooped in her chair. With her head in her hands, she looked small and defeated. The cancer and the drugs had won.
I wondered at the strength of her will and spirit.
By the time it was all over, my mom’s pain and suffering was beyond belief.
I got her home and into her bed, where she lay very still, quiet tears rolling down her cheeks.
Where there once had been a full head of hair, there were tiny patches of soft peach fuzz. Where there had once been flesh, there was bone protruding through the thin, translucent skin. My mom was on her side, twisted into a self-protective ball.
In that moment, my love for her was beyond description and beyond comprehension.
I sat with my mom and rubbed her arm. I spoke to her with a soothing voice. I tried to help her relax. She looked at me, silently, with huge, round eyes. She was pleading for release from the torture of her disease. From the cruel, unfeeling, irresponsible individuals clad in a white coat, posing as experts, authoritatively displaying their credentials on their exam room walls.
I looked down at her. I knew what she was asking. I said: “I’m thinking that we should tell the doctors: “No more tests.” No more MRIs, X-rays, Cat scans or bone scans. Just, no more. No more tests.”
My mom looked at me, relieved and grateful. She repeated my words back to me: “No more tests.”
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This all makes me so angry! Bless you for sharing this story. The truth needs to be seen.
You are correct- no word will suffice.