It seems like the pattern is just too cruel: hurry up and wait some more as cancer continues to exact its price on my mother's life. Twice she's come right up to palliative care. Twice, her oncologist, with her warm voice and caring eyes, has presented logical, compelling, seductive arguments for trying "one more thing". Each of them has brought its own particular brand of hell. Both times, the cancer has slowed down, though not as much and for a far shorter amount of time. Now, literally, her bones are snapping at different tumor sites. The chemo she's on is so corrosive her finger nails are falling off, her mouth one enormous sore, all the way into her throat. In two months, she's had maybe 4 or 5 bearable days. And even with all that, today I read with disbelief as my dad tried to make the case that even though my mom wants to stop the chemo "we really need to wait and hear if the doctor has some other chemo options she suggests."
I don't know what the answer is. I think of him, almost 81 and very alone except for my mom. I think of my own self and imagine that if I were watching Spouseman die, every extra minute, every extra second that I could look in his eyes, or touch his face, or feel the warmth he'd left behind on a pillow, would feel like an eternity of joy. And we've only been married for 20 years, not 50. No, there is no condemnation or bitterness in that disbelief. There is the simple, undeniable truth that now my mother is suffering. Not uncomfortable, not in some pain, not losing some quality of life. My mom is suffering and more than anything, I don't want her to suffer. I want it to stop...
(((Rosa)))
Posted by: Songbird | May 15, 2008 at 06:35 PM
I want it to stop too... praying for you and your Mother..
Posted by: Cathy | May 16, 2008 at 05:57 PM