Incurable...

On Friday, December 14th at approximately 2:30pm the Oncologist walked into the exam room where my mother and I sat waiting. The look on his face said it all. The three years that mom had been cancer free were over. She is no longer that incredible woman who fought her Breast Cancer with grace and dignity, who endured the endless needles, surgery, chemo therapy {I assure you there is nothing theraputic about it!} and radiation, followed by hormone blockers. She is now considered "incurable".

I can't possibly describe the gut wrenching feeling when a doctor tells you that time is no longer on your side. Apparently incurable is the new word for terminal. Well let's face it doctor, although you won't say it out loud [which causes me to wonder if you're the right doctor for this], the reality is that she will very likely spend the rest of her all too short life in treatment and this cancer will eventually be what takes her from this world all to soon.

My mother has been diagnosed with Stage IV Hormone Positive Metastatic Cancer. It has spread to her bones. The signs have been there for months. I questioned her weight loss, but she was "eating healthy portions" and insisting it was intentional. I questioned her complexion, she shrugged it of. I let her. I failed her. I was her person. I went to every appointment until she was well into remission. I knew better than anyone. I let her wait months until her next cancer check up and I knew better.

I suppose if your reading this you might be thinking hindsight is 20/20, give your self a break. Looking back I see that all the signs were there. When the time comes and she is lost from this world, one of the 40,000 nameless, faceless, ordinary but incredible mothers, sisters, daughters and best friends that are lost to breast cancer every year, I will be left wondering. What if I pushed harder? What if I continued going with her even though she was adamant that it was not necessary to go to her check ups, after all she beat the cancer right? Would I have seen the signs that her primary care ignored and pursued as anything but a recurrence? I would have right? I was asking her the right questions. I had the right concerns. I let her wait months until her scheduled cancer check up.

I guess that's it right there. I didn't let her do anything. The most difficult thing about being her person, her daughter, the cancer free one, is that is not up to me. That is very hard to accept and clearly as you read this you'll see that while I acknowledge that this is not my cancer and my role is not to make all the decisions, I am very far from accepting that.I spend half of my conversations with her coaching myself to share my insight, offer my opinions but help her to own her cancer and support her decisions once they are made. 

There is quite literally nothing I wouldn't do to save her. To know that doesn't really matter because I can't is excruciatingly paralyzing. I want so badly for this Christmas to be one of many and for my son to share in her wisdom for as long as I have. 

Here' s to hope.
And to the writer of www.butdoctorhatepink.com who is my inspiration for taking a chance on this idea that there are others who may benefit from my blog and that includes me.