My Magical Mother

Friday, October 6th - 1:10am

To the very few of you I’ve been able to talk to in the past 36 hours…thank you so much for your incredible words of kindness and support. I feel like you are holding me up right now. And to those that I haven’t been able to talk to yet, please forgive me for telling you this way…I have reached the point where I cannot bear to say the words out loud any more.

My mom’s in serious trouble. She has lung cancer.

She had her heart procedure a few months ago and that went really well. She was taking tests and doing labs in preparation for hip surgery when she came down with what seemed like a chest infection.

She works for an amazing cardiologist who has been hand picking amazing specialists to help manage her care. He sent her to a Pulmonary specialist who did some tests a little over a week ago and then did something called a bronchoscopy last Thursday. By Friday, they had a good idea that she had lung cancer (they had identified a tumor of about 3” in diameter) but she wanted to do more tests so that she could have all of the information sorted out before she told us kids. She had an MRI and a PET scan scheduled for today. Her plan was to get all of the facts, figure out a plan and then sit down and tell Buzz and Maura in person while Aunt Jane (her best friend since high school) would come out to California to sit down and tell Magee and me.

Her plans were blown out of the water yesterday afternoon. She was in incredible pain and asked Maura to take her to the emergency room, Ed Bodurian (Cardiologist, Protector of Missy) told her to come to Sibley in the event that she needed to be admitted.

I’m too tired right now to go into detail about the back and forth, the waiting, and the leaking of information that ensued. But ultimately, Magee and I ended up on a red-eye and arrived here at the hospital at about 7:30 this morning.

When I walked in this morning, I sat down and held her hand and she opened her eyes and said “I’m sorry, sweetie. I was going to tell you when I knew more.” And she is lying in bed, barely able to speak and concerned with nothing more at that moment than making sure that I am okay.

The first Doctor we met today was Dr. Smith. An Oncologist. He said the calcium level in her blood is too high and has introduced medication to manage that. He said they would know more after the MRI and PET scan.

The Doctors are all good to me. They repeat things and spell things and explain things while I take copious notes. And they go beyond the clinical and give me big picture information and answer what may be really basic questions with detail and kindness.

Maura had gone home the night before so she could put Beastley in the kennel this morning and Buzzy stayed into the night last night and came back to meet us in the MRI area this morning.

Mom can barely speak. Her lung capacity is diminished and the cancer has paralyzed her left vocal chords, but she is still amusing herself. The MRI technician asked her if she knew why she was getting the MRI and she told him that they were hoping to find out if she actually has a brain.

The MRI was followed by a CT scan (which replaced the PET scan since she had been admitted — insert long insurance bureaucracy story here) and by the time she was wheeled out of the CT scan area she had all four of her children following her gurney like ducklings. She asked the technician who was wheeling her around to make sure he had room in the elevator for all of her fans.

Monsignor O’Donnell (aka Father Uncle Bill) stopped by her room while she was getting her MRI so we missed seeing him. He takes an exercise class here at the hospital once a week. He’s about 80 years old. He baptized me and buried my grandparents and my father. I never thought mom might go before he did…but it looks like that is how things are going to be. And to have him still here to help pull us through this is an incredible gift. He and Mom are thick as thieves.

Aunt Jane arrived soon after the MRI and she and I spoke with Dr. Picone, the Pulmonologist, while Magee, Maura and Buzzy took a well-deserved break. Dr. Picone has reviewed the MRI and the CT scan results and told us that Mom does, in fact, have a brain. He also said that her brain is clear of cancer and that she has surprisingly little atrophy for someone her age. (Thank you to the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.)

The tumor has more than doubled in size since last week. It is blocking an airway and, as a result, the lung beyond the blockage is behaving like it has collapsed. He cannot tell if the cancer is in the lung walls until they do the PET scan in a few days.

He does not think that the pain in her shoulder is a result of any metatstasis. Again, they’ll know more next week. He told her that she needs to do chemo and radiation and that a radiologist (another one hand-picked by Ed) would see her later today or early tomorrow.

He did not ask her to think about radiation/chemo, he just told her she should do it and she said, “Okay.”

Since her return from the tests, she has been struggling to get some rest. The pain of her hip and her shoulder and her back, combined with her drastically decreased lung volume are incredibly overwhelming. She was put on a constant morphine drip yesterday and at about 2pm today they switched it to a 2-dose an hour push-button system. Tonight, the nurse checked the box and said that she hadn’t pushed the button since around 3:30 so that was good news. She is also taking percoset and antibiotics and anti coagulants and medication to boost production of her red blood cells.

She ate two pieces of bacon this morning. Ed says she needs high-protien, fatty foods and has had them add an appetite stimulant to her medications. We gave her an Ensure shake this afternoon. She had a tiny pece of a Snickers bar, too.

Buzzy had to leave at 3:30 so he could get home and take care of the boys since Julie had a class to teach tonight. He was operating on 2-1/2 hours sleep so I hope he is getting some rest right now.

Magee and I left late in the afternoon and went over to Aunt Jane and Uncle John’s to take showers. We were still in the clothes we had been wearing for almost 24 hours. It feels good to be clean.

When we returned, a few of mom’s girlfriends from the office stopped by and one is probably cooking up a storm as I write this and will likely be here bright and early tomorrow morning with a home cooked, fresh, fatty breakfast for mummy.

Mom told us to go home and get some rest and we ignored her and she is secretly pleased. We’re falling into shifts and making sure that she is never alone.

Aunt MaryAnne, her older sister, came for a few hours in the evening and watched her sleep for a while.

She is getting amazing care here and the nurses are really phenomenal. They are being incredibly attentive and have managed to find the exceptional balance of helping her in what is clearly her most vulnerable state ever, while preserving her dignity.

Last night she didn’t get any sleep, just a few “fuzzy moments.” Right now, she is resting comfortably. Magee has just fallen asleep in a chair and Maura and Buzz are off getting their rest so they can be here again early tomorrow.

That is what is happening.

This is how I am feeling:

The feeling of undescribable, doubled over, silent-screaming loss has been buried under the moment to moment decisions needed to make her shoulder feel comfortable one minute and her lips feel less dry the next.

Her arms are bruised from injections and her skin is so soft and she has my grandfather’s hands.

And when I hold her hands I am acutely aware of their warmth and the life that is still in them.

And every time she pushes the morphine button I feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me and I have to pretend I am looking out the window or examining the ceiling so I can keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks.

When I am just about to crack, I walk outside and check my messages and make a call if I can. Your calls, your questions, your offers to help, your reminders that she and I are loved, these are the things that get me through while I steel myself to go back in for more.

I found myself consumed with contempt for her girlfriends from work, because I felt like they were taking up some of her very finite time. They were so lovely and she was happy to see them and I just wanted them to go away. Irrational, yes…but I felt it so strongly and had to have an internal dialogue with myself and remind myself to be gracious.

We are not looking at a fight for survival, here. We are looking at a fight to minimize her pain and suffering. Even the chemo/radiation is being used to that end. We need her to get some of her lung capacity back.

Right now, we don’t know if we are talking about weeks or months. We should know more tomorrow. And after the PET scan in a few days.

And mom told Aunt Jane that she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep tonight because she is so excited. Because her kids are here. And she is so happy.

But she is finally asleep now. And I have a pillow and a blanket on the floor. And she likes to sleep with the TV on, so it is casting a little light on her. And from the floor I can see through a gap in the bed railings and watch her chest rise and fall while I listen to her breathe.

And I don’t want to sleep, because I don’t want to sleep through a minute of the short time we have left. And I may never hear her beautiful, soothing voice again, because it is already gone. But I am memorizing her amazing blue eyes and the way that she smiles with them and my grandmothers nose and I am shocked at how tiny and fragile she looks and I am in awe of the fact that she is still making sure that everyone around her is okay.