MOM, I FOUND A LUMP

August 2002

Typically Kelly, she used some of her strength to visit a terminally ill friend in the hospital.

“Mom, I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I sat outside in the car for a long time, but John and I really wanted to be with him. We sat with him all night the night before he died, and we talked a lot and I really think I was able to help him”

And I remembered the conversation we had had so many months before. Of course she would do this. Where she found the strength we don’t know, but that was Kelly.       

She and Anthony came down for a weekend. Mac went up and got them and we had a fantastic time. While Meghan and Daddy enjoyed their one-on-one time at home, we had a weekend to remember, which included shopping and lunch like the old days, and family meals, and on Sunday, she came to our church with us.

Bob and I proudly got on stage with her and introduced her to the members of our

church, who had all  been praying for her, but some had not yet met her. Oh, it was great! We knew it wasn’t a cure. We knew we would eventually lose her, we had always known that, but we hoped this remission would last a long time.

It lasted 4 months!

Chapter Seventeen

The type of cancer she had, “Carcinomatous meningitis” was diffuse, inflammatory, not like a solid tumor to be excised, more like it spread along the lining of the meninges, as if along the inside of a pipe. If eradicated from one area, it could still be clinging to the lining in some other area.

I wondered now, where was the “quality of life?” She was either in the hospital on IV morphine, or at home unable to control the unrelenting pain with oral medication. We talked about things.

“Mom, I don’t want to die”

“Honey, I can’t bear the thought of losing you, but I promised I wouldn’t let you be tortured. Are you tired of fighting?”

“I have to fight, Mom, I don’t have a choice. I want to live. I want to stay with John and the children”

Kelly and I had always been close, we had been friends as well as mother and daughter, and there was no subject that was taboo, ever, but this was brand new territory. What were the rules here? I couldn’t bear the thought of life without her, but knowing that it was inevitable, I felt a need to prepare her, to make it easier for her, to help her to think that God was, indeed, waiting for her.

An aide came to the door, astutely surmised the situation, and said,” Do you need a few minutes?”

“Yes, I need to talk to my Mom”

“I’ll come back later”. Thank you, whoever you were . . .

“Mom, John and I have made out a will. I never thought I’d be doing that, but we had to get some things straightened out.”

She then outlined all of the things she had planned.

“Are you telling me you don’t want me to sing?” (I can’t sing, not at all!)

“No, I don’t want you to sing. Please! I want you to have a hell of a party, and I want you to make me a key lime pie”

On December 19, shortly after midnight, we received a call from John, saying that the doctor had called him, advising that they had found Kelly unresponsive, all indications being that she had suffered a CVA(stroke). He didn’t know whether she would make it through the night. We were on the road within minutes, traveling the now too-familiar road. I hated every inch of the boring, colorless macadam of the turnpike. We had not been asleep long before the phone rang, but were now wide awake, our nerves taut and our senses on alert for whatever may be ahead.

When we were about an hour away we realized that Bob had not eaten for several hours and his diet-controlled diabetes demanded that he eat on a regular basis. Not knowing what might be available at this hour we decided that we had no choice but to find an all-night place for a quick something for him. He ate something, he didn’t know what and didn’t know how it tasted, and I cried a lot.