Turbo Cancer: The Beginning
June 11, 2022
Dear reader,
I do not believe that one can live to be my age without having had one’s heart broken. My heart has been shattered into a million tiny shards. Before the year 2022, I had not known that I was strong enough to withstand severe trauma and profound loss. While I am not the same person who I had been before that year, I did survive. I am still here, and I have a story to tell. To write it, I had to tear my heart out and throw it across the page, over and over again. My pain is a gift that I give to you.
I promise you that, if you have a heart, it will break. It will force you to feel the ache of the loss that we have all sustained. What the world needs right now is less comfort and more genuine, frank, heartfelt, unfiltered, uncomfortable emotion. As it turns out, ease is the most dangerous addiction of them all.
We were sent to this magnificent planet to spend our life preparing, spiritually, for our death. The earth is an exquisite, glorious paradise, but it seems that, sometimes, we must first see the ugly before we can truly appreciate the splendor. And there is a great deal of beauty to be found here. Pain and suffering exist, but joy and laughter exist, as well. There are so many reasons to keep fighting.
My book is about the American medical system and the ethical implications of its significant financial gain being dependent on the general ill health of the population. However, it is also about something far more important than that. It is a true story about pain, suffering, family, friendship, community, faith, love, transcendence, God and heaven.
Preface
I am not a doctor, a scientist or an investigative journalist. I am a daughter, a mother, a teacher, an artist and a storyteller. The events which took place in my life in the year 2022 provided me with the authority to write this book.
On June 12 of that year, I took my, otherwise healthy, mother to the emergency room, for pain and a small lump in her groin. Five days later, after being subjected to a wide array of tests and procedures, she was sent home. Her pain had become so severe that she was unable to walk unassisted.
Having found no explanation for her symptoms, the doctors diagnosed her with constipation and a possible hernia. That diagnosis was incorrect. In July of the same year, my mom was diagnosed with Stage-IV pancreatic cancer growing in her left inguinal lymph node, B-cell lymphoma, and melanoma. Her immune system had failed. The fast-growing tumors soon spread to her spine, breaking the individual vertebrae from within. She suffered horribly. She needed help to complete even the simplest task. I became her caregiver and accompanied her while she sought empathy and effective treatment from the American medical system. She found neither.
On September 21, 2022, I received a call. A voice informed me that my son Steven had died of a Fentanyl overdose. My mom was dying. My son had died. I was suffering. I needed my mom, and my mom needed me. We took care of each other for three months.
I lost my mom on December 13. I became disoriented, trapped in a loop of chaotic memories that had hijacked and inundated my brain. I was afflicted by gruesome visions of my mom when her pain was at its worst, and I was in agony over the loss of my son. I felt confused and disoriented. I needed to put my shattered memories back into their proper order and then boil them down to what was fact.
On June 11, 2023, I wrote a sentence on Facebook. It read: "On this day, last year, my mom was healthy." The sentence became a paragraph. The paragraph became a page. The page became a book. For six months, I continued to write the story of what had happened each day during that same period in the previous year. Using my memories, photos, text conversations, medical records, my journal, and my mom’s journal, I created a forensic document. It is a timeline of the progression of my mom’s symptoms, her unimaginable pain, the failed medical response and her unnecessary suffering, which was the direct result of said medical response. To the best of my ability, I tell the story as it happened, with special attention being given to my mom’s experience, my own experience, my mom’s faith and her unbroken spirit.
In my book, I challenge the system, I demand an explanation, and I request an apology. The establishment is fueled by profit. It fosters cruelty and disregard for the needs of the suffering. Caring for the sick, the vulnerable and the dying is a profession which, in its very essence, ought to be defined by compassion.
While my book is about the American medical system and the ethical implications of significant financial gain being dependent on the general ill-health of the population, it is also about something far more important than that. It is a true story about pain, suffering, family, friendship, community, faith, love, transcendence, God and heaven.
Before the World Turned Upside Down
On this day, last year, my mom was healthy. For decades, she had eaten only organic food, engaged in daily water aerobics, volunteered at the local food pantry and had a rich, full, active social life. Tomorrow will mark one year since the day on which I took her to the hospital for a small lump that had appeared in her groin and the pain that accompanied it. She would be sent home, with a diagnosis of constipation and a possible hernia. That diagnosis was incorrect. Within two weeks, my mom’s groin pain became so debilitating that she lost her ability to walk. She needed round-the-clock care. As the lump grew visibly each day, her pain and suffering increased. We were suddenly thrown into what became six months of fighting against an invisible enemy.
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If only we had known about Ivermectin and Fenbendazole.
I wonder, Kristi, I wonder.