Use My Folder to Help Someone Else

I can’t begin to describe the feeling you get when your Mother tells you she has cancer. For a moment you think the test results are wrong, the doctors misread the scans or some medical professional simply dropped the ball, but when the realization sets in that everything the doctor said was true, your world changes.

When my Mother told me she had breast cancer I didn’t know how to process the information. I was in disbelief, I was sad, but above all, I was scared. I didn’t know many people that had beaten cancer but I hoped my Mother would be different.

My Mother’s cancer was aggressive and the prognosis was a few years. I accepted the reality and I watch my Mother fight for her life.

She never believed she was tenacious until she battled Triple Negative Breast Cancer. She fought it with everything she had but she told me if the cancer came back (after chemotherapy, radiation and a mastectomy) she wouldn’t fight it anymore. I told her I understood and I respected her wishes, but deep down I thought to myself “My Mom can’t stop fighting, I still need her here with me”. It was a selfish thought, I know, but it was true.

I wasn’t ready to live without my Mother and my Mother wasn’t ready to live without me, but I knew if it became too hard for her that I would have to let her go. I never prepared for that moment because I never wanted that moment to come, but it did.

After my Mother went through her surgery and treatment, she rang the bell and I breathed a sigh of relief but a few months later she experienced pain in another part of her body and before the doctors told her the news, I already knew the cancer had spread. I sunk to the floor and my Mother screamed. As a family we prayed and my Mother continued to fight.

I remember my Mother telling me, if the cancer returned she wouldn’t fight it anymore but she ended up changing her mind. I guess seeing me on the hospital floor battling a panic attack caused her to rethink her fight so she continued on. She underwent more treatment, which led to more doctor’s visits, more scans, more test results and a different prognosis.

At this point I was really scared but I tried my best to remain positive. I was determined to hold it together but my faith started to falter, my stress levels increased and I got to the point where I knew I was going to have to let my Mother go, because she was getting tired.

She spoke about the things she needed me to do, which let me know she wouldn’t be here when I completed them. She was in a lot of pain and the day that she called for my sister and I to come and take her to the hospital she was too weak to change her clothes.

Our roles had reversed. I had to tell my Mother that she could put on her clothes and I had to help her through the process. She had to lean on me to get out of the bed and walk to her vanity chair. While she was seated, I looked at her and said, “You can do this”. She looked back at me and found strength she didn’t know she had and she began to change her clothes.

After I helped my Mother get dressed, my sister and I packed up her hospital bag and we got her to eat before we drove to M. D. Anderson one last time from her house.

My Mother never returned home. She stayed in the hospital for almost 3 weeks and before she passed away from Triple Negative Breast Cancer she wrote these words: 'Use my folder to help someone else.'