cancer sucks (updated)

Back in mid-August, I asked for some virtual wishes for my mom, who up until a few months ago appeared to be a healthy vibrant woman enjoying retirement with her soul mate.

That day she was undergoing surgery to remove two tumors at a world class facility in the Lonestar State. During the procedure to remove the smaller one from the primary site, the doctors discovered that she suffered from some unusual clotting factor that had gone undetected after two days of testing. In short, she started to bleed out and they had to get the hell out of there, or she would have died.

Thankfully, they were able to manage the hemorrhage and safely remove the tumor from the primary site. But they never got to the bigger tumor and the more complicated part of the procedure. Even under the best scenario, operating on the liver is a dicey proposition.

An extremely rare type of tumor apparently found its way to my mother’s liver some years ago, making itself at home, silently taking over critical space in her abdomen, spewing toxins into her bloodstream affecting her heart, and impeding her liver’s ability to function normally. Making her really sick in a matter of months.

My mother has never been one to show weakness or vulnerability, or fear for that matter. She has always been a bundle of energy, a strong force to be reckoned with. Truth be told, I’ve had a hard time keeping up with her on many occasions.

Now that energy has been sapped by the toxic mess in her liver. She is tired and sick, weak and scared. She is anxious. She feels way beyond her 71 years. She is thinking of her own mother, my nana, who died just 11 years ago at age 79. My mother doesn’t look or feel that old. And yet suddenly she is facing her mortality.

This week my mom traveled back to the Lonestar State to the best facility in the world for this type of cancer. They have a team of specialists studying her case. (With her rare tumor and clotting factor, she may end up in a medical review journal.) She met again with her top surgeon. After two days of diagnostics, they determined they cannot operate because she is in such bad shape that her liver would probably fail during the procedure.

This morning they will meet again to re-evaluate whether there is any scenario that could result in a positive outcome. It certainly does not look good right now.

I have been down this road before, and it’s hard. I lost my dad and my nana to cancer, among others. I know my mom is getting the best care possible. I encourage her to express her frustration, sadness, and rage, to breathe through her anxiety, to ask questions and question the answers. Yet aside from talking with her often and simply abiding with her, there is nothing more I can do.

There’s a certain helplessness in watching your loved ones suffer.

Yet I feel a strange sense of detachment from the whole awful situation. People ask me how I am, and what am I supposed to say? It fucking sucks, that’s how I am. Yet I’ve allowed some kind of buffer to exist between my heart and the sad reality of losing my last parent. As if not thinking too hard about it will somehow protect me when the bad news just keeps on coming.

Updated: Cancer still sucks. But the news this morning is that they will put her on a two week protocol of drugs and try surgery again in early-mid November. So maybe there still is some hope to be had.

~ by luna on October 15, 2009.