So since the summer, my mom's health has gone downhill incredibly; as she was so sick from the chemo, her body wasn't able to handle anymore, so she had to stop chemo all together (even though her doc was thinking about preparing different types).
So what happens when you stop taking chemo? Cancer metastizes! All over the fucking place. In her brain, mostly.
It didn't metastesize right away. For awhile, in the summer, she was doing really well, and she was even moved out of the hospital at one point and to a rehab center for physical therapy (she had to re-learn to walk after being bed-ridden for so long and being in a coma, etc). But then the cancer returned, and she had to go back to the hospital.
And then it spread. In her brain. They gave her radiation (as they couldn't give her any more chemo anymore), but it could only prolong her life a little; make her more comfortable. It can't stop the inevitable.
Since all of this (points to last post written in April), her decline has been pretty rapid. She still has her moments where she says things that are so "mom". But between all the morphine and the multiple tumours pressing down on her brain, it's kind of obvious that she's going to be acting quite differently.
Sometimes she has a hard time telling me and my sister apart (but she ALWAYS knows who we are), and she constantly forgets things. Like, absolutely no short-term memory at all. Again, to be expected.
Sometimes she says absolutely absurd things. The grammar's all there, but the nouns she'll throw in there are very strange. The best thing I can describe to is that it sounds like someone talking in their sleep. That non-nonsensical absurdity that still meets all grammar standards perfectly. The brain is weird like that.
She's always so happy to see me and my sister, and she definitely has these lucid moments where we have conversations like we always used to have, and I can still make her laugh. A lot. :) Those moments are amazing, to put it mildly. But also, those moments are getting further and further apart.
She is spending more and more of her time sleeping.
And of course, she's a whole province away. I have to take a 10-hour train ride every weekend (4-5 hours there, and then 4-5 hours back) to see her for a couple of days. To say the travel has been completely wearing me down is a huge understatement. I've changed it so that my visits are every second weekend instead, although that fills me with a huge amount of guilt I can't put into words. Nonetheless, the weekly weekend visits are just so hard on me.
It's also so hard to judge how much time she has left. The doctors had originally given her 2 months, and that was...well, about 2 months ago. I've heard of people being given a 2-month life expectancy die less than a week later. But I've also heard of people being given a 2-month life expectancy who end up living a lot longer 2 months. So who knows. I think I've decided on continuing with bi-weekly visits, but am always ready to hop on the next train to Montreal should I get an emergency call.
It's been a walking nightmare, and that's the best way I can describe it. When she first got sick, I had nightmares of how she'd be when the cancer inevitably got worse. Now we're at that point, and I'm literally living out those nightmares. How often does one in life get to do that? Not only is the stuff I kept dreaming about now coming true, but that gloomy, creepy feeling that follows me throughout those dreams...it's around me constantly, every day, in waking life.
It's been a horrible year.
Saturday 11 November 2017
Tuesday 7 November 2017
Cancer for you! Cancer for me! Cancer for everyone!
I wrote this back in April of this year. April 2017. A lot has happened since then, which I will get to writing about and posting. Little by little. Because I need to.
Oh wow, hey old blog. It's been almost a year since I last posted here. Guess I just didn't feel like writing. Who knows? I can't remember anything. My short term memory is utter rubbish these days, because of all the stress. Looks like this may once again become another cancer blog, though this it'll be used for me to vent my stress regarding my mother's cancer instead of mine. She's relapsed more than once in the past couple of years, and things are getting tough--ha! I can't type that last sentence with a straight face! "Things are getting tough". Things are getting tough. That would be such a manageable thing, wouldn't it? When things get tough, you know you're going to get through it at some point. Eventually. Even if it's going to take awhile. But not this time. This time it feels likes some kind of nightmare-ish hell I don't think I'll ever be able to find the words to describe.
I will say this. As my mom was doing fine on the chemo she's been on in the past year and a half, I started to have horrible, gut-wrenching nightmares about what could happen if the chemo stopped working. How it would happen; from the very early beginning, our first indications that the chemo was no longer working, and how we'd handle it, all the way to dreaming it out right to the very end. Oh yeah, my subconscious is a very creative, sly motherfucker like that. It's decided to take me on a journey of my mom's cancer that we were currently not even experiencing every single night while I was asleep. Well okay, not every night. Maybe 4-6 nights a week, which is certainly more than sufficient to steal enough sleep and sanity away from you and simultaneously inject you with intensive anxiety and sleeping problems you constantly wander around in a daze with, swearing to yourself how you'd never wish them on your worst enemy.
In some of the nightmares, my cancer came back too, so we had cancer together.
In others, my subconscious decided to take things up an artsy notch and put a metaphorical twist on my horrible adventures, so I had a bunch of gloomy stories framed in the absurd, in which it was so obvious who the catalyst really was, no matter how little you believe in dream interpretation.
Now after an exhausting, confusing, and draining year and a half of that, we finally get the real thing! So I'm walking around with that familiar dark gloom over everything, that unmistakable nightmare feeling, because that's exactly what this is; a nightmare (or many nightmares, for that matter) come to life.
My mom has been in the ICU for 3 weeks and can't even talk, as she's intubated. There's been little improvements here and there, but I think my sister described the nature of the ICU so perfectly when she said that you take 2 positive steps forward, then 18 steps backward. That's pretty much how it's been these past 3 weeks. Well, past month actually; she was admitted to the hospital on Good Friday, and has been there ever since, though she only got admitted to the ICU a week later. Why? Because the staff didn't know what the fuck they were doing. But that's another rant for another time.
I can't stress enough how fucked-up it is that this is not her cancer that's nearly killed her several times since she's ended up in the ICU. No, it's the new chemo she was switched to. The first chemo she was on was wonderful but it couldn't work forever, so they switched her, and boy did she react badly to it. And now we're in this situation.
Since she's been there she's nearly died a few times. I can't even begin to recount the number of calls and texts I've gotten telling me to hurry over or to call and be put on speaker, because they thought it was "the end". Yet she survived each time. We get these huge glimpses of hope, then it's all torn away from us again and again when she nearly dies.
I know it's the end, but how much time we have left exactly is a mystery. She can suddenly die tomorrow, or maybe get through this and live for another few weeks? Who knows. It would be great if we could talk to her again, as she's still intubated. When we talk to her, she can nod her head yes, or shake her head no, and make certain expressions and sort of (kind of) gesture with her hands (but not really), so there's something. (Though needless to say, that isn't much.) At least we're able to have some communication, however; a few weeks ago it was much worse, as she was under such heavy sedation and couldn't wake up, so there was zero communication happening at all. We spoke to her, hoping she could hear us, but when she finally woke up days later and asked if she remembered any of us being there, she shook her head no to all of us who had asked. So that kind of sucks. But what can you do, eh?
At least today, there was some improvement. I heard she was much more alert than usual, and managed to "ask" a bunch of questions--she still can't talk, of course, but with the nurses' help, and some gestures, she was able to communicate a lot of information she wanted to know, including how long she's been there and why she's on a respirator. It's interesting...I wonder what made her so alert now. I'm also curious about the fact that she doesn't seem to remember anything, despite the fact she was interacting with us over the past couple of weeks ever since she came out of sedation. This is more stuff I will need to find out for myself, when I am there this weekend.
Oh right, this weekend. I live in Toronto; my mom and pretty much all the rest of my family lives in Montreal (or near it). So I've been traveling to and from Toronto and Montreal on weekends to see her. It's been exhausting, to put it mildly. Obviously it's MORE than worth it to see my mom--I wouldn't dream of NOT doing it, and I wouldn't go so often if I didn't want to see her--but omg, the exhaustion of all this instability of traveling back and forth is exhausting and draining in and of itself, and certainly hasn't been helping the constant stress, anxiety and exhaustion I've been feeling to begin with. But ah well. What can you do. (I won't even get into all the work I've missed and now am desperately trying to catch up on...ah, what a mess!)
Anyway, life really sucks right now, and to say that's an understatement is basically a disservice to that word. I walk around crying a lot, and I don't want everyone to see, so I've been wearing sunglasses. So yeah. Next time you see someone wearing sunglasses in a shopping mall or on the subway or whatever, don't be a jackass and fun make of their strange fashion choice. They're probably just trying to hide the fact they're crying, because no matter what those coy little inspirational quotes like to tell you, let's face it: life just sucks sometimes.
Oh wow, hey old blog. It's been almost a year since I last posted here. Guess I just didn't feel like writing. Who knows? I can't remember anything. My short term memory is utter rubbish these days, because of all the stress. Looks like this may once again become another cancer blog, though this it'll be used for me to vent my stress regarding my mother's cancer instead of mine. She's relapsed more than once in the past couple of years, and things are getting tough--ha! I can't type that last sentence with a straight face! "Things are getting tough". Things are getting tough. That would be such a manageable thing, wouldn't it? When things get tough, you know you're going to get through it at some point. Eventually. Even if it's going to take awhile. But not this time. This time it feels likes some kind of nightmare-ish hell I don't think I'll ever be able to find the words to describe.
I will say this. As my mom was doing fine on the chemo she's been on in the past year and a half, I started to have horrible, gut-wrenching nightmares about what could happen if the chemo stopped working. How it would happen; from the very early beginning, our first indications that the chemo was no longer working, and how we'd handle it, all the way to dreaming it out right to the very end. Oh yeah, my subconscious is a very creative, sly motherfucker like that. It's decided to take me on a journey of my mom's cancer that we were currently not even experiencing every single night while I was asleep. Well okay, not every night. Maybe 4-6 nights a week, which is certainly more than sufficient to steal enough sleep and sanity away from you and simultaneously inject you with intensive anxiety and sleeping problems you constantly wander around in a daze with, swearing to yourself how you'd never wish them on your worst enemy.
In some of the nightmares, my cancer came back too, so we had cancer together.
In others, my subconscious decided to take things up an artsy notch and put a metaphorical twist on my horrible adventures, so I had a bunch of gloomy stories framed in the absurd, in which it was so obvious who the catalyst really was, no matter how little you believe in dream interpretation.
Now after an exhausting, confusing, and draining year and a half of that, we finally get the real thing! So I'm walking around with that familiar dark gloom over everything, that unmistakable nightmare feeling, because that's exactly what this is; a nightmare (or many nightmares, for that matter) come to life.
My mom has been in the ICU for 3 weeks and can't even talk, as she's intubated. There's been little improvements here and there, but I think my sister described the nature of the ICU so perfectly when she said that you take 2 positive steps forward, then 18 steps backward. That's pretty much how it's been these past 3 weeks. Well, past month actually; she was admitted to the hospital on Good Friday, and has been there ever since, though she only got admitted to the ICU a week later. Why? Because the staff didn't know what the fuck they were doing. But that's another rant for another time.
I can't stress enough how fucked-up it is that this is not her cancer that's nearly killed her several times since she's ended up in the ICU. No, it's the new chemo she was switched to. The first chemo she was on was wonderful but it couldn't work forever, so they switched her, and boy did she react badly to it. And now we're in this situation.
Since she's been there she's nearly died a few times. I can't even begin to recount the number of calls and texts I've gotten telling me to hurry over or to call and be put on speaker, because they thought it was "the end". Yet she survived each time. We get these huge glimpses of hope, then it's all torn away from us again and again when she nearly dies.
I know it's the end, but how much time we have left exactly is a mystery. She can suddenly die tomorrow, or maybe get through this and live for another few weeks? Who knows. It would be great if we could talk to her again, as she's still intubated. When we talk to her, she can nod her head yes, or shake her head no, and make certain expressions and sort of (kind of) gesture with her hands (but not really), so there's something. (Though needless to say, that isn't much.) At least we're able to have some communication, however; a few weeks ago it was much worse, as she was under such heavy sedation and couldn't wake up, so there was zero communication happening at all. We spoke to her, hoping she could hear us, but when she finally woke up days later and asked if she remembered any of us being there, she shook her head no to all of us who had asked. So that kind of sucks. But what can you do, eh?
At least today, there was some improvement. I heard she was much more alert than usual, and managed to "ask" a bunch of questions--she still can't talk, of course, but with the nurses' help, and some gestures, she was able to communicate a lot of information she wanted to know, including how long she's been there and why she's on a respirator. It's interesting...I wonder what made her so alert now. I'm also curious about the fact that she doesn't seem to remember anything, despite the fact she was interacting with us over the past couple of weeks ever since she came out of sedation. This is more stuff I will need to find out for myself, when I am there this weekend.
Oh right, this weekend. I live in Toronto; my mom and pretty much all the rest of my family lives in Montreal (or near it). So I've been traveling to and from Toronto and Montreal on weekends to see her. It's been exhausting, to put it mildly. Obviously it's MORE than worth it to see my mom--I wouldn't dream of NOT doing it, and I wouldn't go so often if I didn't want to see her--but omg, the exhaustion of all this instability of traveling back and forth is exhausting and draining in and of itself, and certainly hasn't been helping the constant stress, anxiety and exhaustion I've been feeling to begin with. But ah well. What can you do. (I won't even get into all the work I've missed and now am desperately trying to catch up on...ah, what a mess!)
Anyway, life really sucks right now, and to say that's an understatement is basically a disservice to that word. I walk around crying a lot, and I don't want everyone to see, so I've been wearing sunglasses. So yeah. Next time you see someone wearing sunglasses in a shopping mall or on the subway or whatever, don't be a jackass and fun make of their strange fashion choice. They're probably just trying to hide the fact they're crying, because no matter what those coy little inspirational quotes like to tell you, let's face it: life just sucks sometimes.
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