My Mom & The Battle

Well, I must say, it's been a VERY LONG time since I have last worked on this site. Coming back to it, to copy and paste a poem from my poetry page, it brought back the old memories and a "mothers heart ach and longing" to work on it again and get it back into shape.
I have a couple other sites that I have started and not finnised either, but, alas, I came back to where my first roots were planted and took hold.
A LOT has happened since I first started this site, I have been from Michigan, to Arkansas, to California, and back to Arkansas and then on to Gorgia for a pit stop on up to North Carolina and then back home to Michigan again. My "wild" roots have flown to and from only to bring me back home again.
How I missed home when I was away, and how I longed to fly when I was home. *go figure* ...*Smiles*

Some other news is, that my mother, has been dianosed with breast cancer earlier this year (March 2001) and has been undertaking chemo treatments since the last of spring. Just since last week, she started a new treatment, where it doesn't take as long, but, she also has to get shots for ten days straight, which I think she is almost done with, if not already done with ...

When I first found out, it's like it wasn't real, you know, just words .... But, she had a lump under her left armpit and it had been there for a long time .... But, she had this job and they were strict about her taking any time off and when her car would break down it would be her fault or that she was just being lazy and trying to get out of coming to work ....
WORK, was a house were she took care of a quadraplegic man whom was bed ridden, except to get up and sit in his wheel chair ...
Well, my mom worked for him for a little over a year, and this past winter, they fired her "Which was a God send", because had they not fired her, she wouldn't have gone to get help from the state to get food and medical and help with the rent ...
My mom is used to working and has been antsy about getting a job and going back to work, even though she can't yet ...
Any way, she was able to get medicad, and was able to go and see her Dr. and she said she wanted to get a mammogram done, since she has not had one in about two years ... So, she went and had that done and the main reason was to get that lump checked out under her arm ... I was always going with her to town but this particular time, she really wanted someone there, just in case it was bad news ... The news that no one want's to hear, we heard ... The lump that my mom had under her arm was positive "We didn't find out that day, I for get how long after the mam. how long it was before we found out that it was positive" ...
That day though, that we went to the hosp. to get the mam. done, the nurse there didn't look carefully (another God send)at the chart to see that the point she was supposed to be x-raying was under my moms left arm, but, did a regular mam. that's when we found out that my mom also had a lump in her left breast...
Then we had told her (the nurse) about the spot under my moms arm and so she did some more tests and then they were of course sent to her Dr. ... It was confirmed, she had breast cancer ....

The words just rolled off her tongue, like it was something she had said any other day or at any other time, like it was nothing, or maybe it was just the way I heard it, and didn't hear the underlying sound or feeling that was behind it ... I guess, maybe I just don't remember exactly how she had said it, it must be a part that is vague or locked some where in the deepest parts of my mind that only God knows and sees ...

I just know, that it was a shock to me, because here it was, facing me head on, this thing that you hear so much about, this, illness that takes lives silently away, never to be heard from again ... This thing, being the BIG-C ...
It couldn't happen to me, no, not my mom, not my family, it only happens to everyone else, not us, it can't ... But it did and it's here ...

It has taken my moms hair, from her head down ... I just really noticed the other day, that she barely has any eyelashes left, either, and that her eye brows are gone completely ... I just beg and plead and pray, that it won't take my mom away too ...

It was in March I think when she was first dianosed, and she had had a handful of surgeries, a couple *at least* of day surgeries and then two regular ones ... The first one to remove the lump *lumpectomy* from her breast, and the second one, the longer one, to remove the infected lymph nodes from under her arm ...
There's a number that they give you, on how many lymph nodes it takes, before it's considered advanced cancer ... 1-5 infected is a greater life expectancy and you might not need chemo or radiation, but, 6-10 you will need chemo, and maybe radiation, then there's 10 or higher, you need both, the chemo and the radiation ... They removed 21-22 infected lymph nodes from under my moms arm and said that they couldn't reach under the pectorial muscle, where there were more lymph nodes and that there is a good chance that those too were infected ... We thought that there wouldn't be more than 10 if 10 at all, but, there was 21-22!

Well, the number of life expectancy is about 5 years, if she makes it past the 5th year, then the chances are good that she will live a longer life, but then again too, that's more so I think for women who have had a masectomy done *their breasts removed*, my mom opted OUT for that and I would too, it would scare me and I don't think I'd feel much like a woman without them there ...

My mom is doing good though ... For the first couple or so months of her first chemo regimen, she would feel really bad and then start to feel better the week before her next treatment was due ... *How nice, yeah, right!* ...
Because of her advanced cancer, she was
SUPPOSED to go down to Detroit after the first treatment *about now or last week*, but she had guide lines (of course, there's ALWAYS guidelines, I don't think there'd be life without someone giving you GUIDELINES ....Geeze) that she was supposed to follow: #1) Quit smoking #2) Find someone that she could count on to be there during her high-dose chemo, someone who could handle it *I couldn't* and #3)QUIT smoking, at least be 1 month clean off of it in time to go down, because if she was still smoking, she couldn't get it done *the high-dose chemo* ...
Well, she got scared *I know that's what it had to be, because there's a small chance, that she could've died during that high dose treatment* ...
She's still smoking, she's been smoking since she was in her early 20's *she's 58 now" so for quite a while ... There's no chance that she'll ever quit ... I'm sure of it, she's tried way too many times and gone right back to it ... Of course there were a couple times *at least* that she did good for a while, but that's it, just a while ...
So her Oncology Dr. had to rethink her treatment on how they were going to do it, and so, last week they started her on a new regimen and she's done in an hour and half instead of 5 or more hours ... Then there's the shot that she gets for 10 days straight, including weekends ...