• Member Since 20th Aug, 2014
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libertydude


Aspiring writer, Steve Magnet disciple

More Blog Posts70

Mar
29th
2022

I'm Going to Be Gone for a While · 10:57pm Mar 29th, 2022

Way back in April of last year, I did a post talking about my mother's cancer diagnosis. While I was obviously saddened, I did not really dwell on it often in later posts. It was just one of those things that you gradually learned to live with, like any other health condition. My mother also was a real champ about the process, always keeping a positive outlook even while my father and I were growing more and more distressed. While we knew the cancer had spread to her liver and spleen last month, we still had a faint hope we could get it under control. Mom is only 64, and we thought her chances were better compared to if she got it when she was 74 or 84. This tempered optimism continued throughout the rest of this early year.

That all ended Monday.

Now, the worst possible outcome has come true: The cancer has become terminal. Starting in her uterus, it spread to multiple organs, despite chemotherapy and other treatments. On Sunday, my father took her to the Emergency Room after she complained of stomach pain, where they discovered the cancer had virtually annihilated her intestines. There was nothing to do but remove most of the cancer-ridden intestines and give my mother a colostomy bag. This has left pretty much only five to six feet of intestines left, which means it is unlikely my mother will be able to digest much food (intestines are long for a reason). Further cancer treatment has become unfeasible due to both the lack of digestive ability and the fact that the cancer has spread to pretty much every organ in the abdominal cavity. Any treatment now is aimed at giving her a little more time, not saving her life. The most positive outlook is two months from now, in late May. It will all end either due to the cancer itself shutting down the necessary organs or starvation due to the lack of necessary intestinal length for digestion.

I wasn't expecting to have to go through this so soon. Your parents dying is something that's supposed to happen when you're in your forties, not when you're in your mid-twenties, still trying to figure out your place in the world and make those relationships outside of your family. Now my mother will never see her grandchildren, never travel to the foreign lands she wanted to visit, and never see her sons achieve anything professionally outside of college. Nobody on her side of the family even had cancer that we know of, so her end happening this way feels particularly devastating. In a cruel twist of fate, my mother went through a similar occurrence with her own father, who died from a stroke when she was a young girl. The only difference is Granddad died instantly in the middle of the night, while my mother is going to be around long enough for us to say goodbye. I suppose that's a slight mercy in a sense, though it's hard to see anything as a mercy in the current situation. Twenty years ago, she was crying in our living room over her mother's death. Now, someday soon, I'm going to be doing the same thing in the same room, long before it should've ever happened.

Suffice to say, this is not a fun situation. Both my father and I have cried multiple times, and my aunt and uncle are similarly distraught. Things are going to be difficult for everyone over here for a while, so I'm just stopping the updates and plans I normally post on this site. Don't count on any stories or discussion posts around here. The fandom is falling to the wayside while I spend the last few months my mother has left with her. She really wants to catalogue all of the old family photos she collected over the past few decades, and I'm going to help her with that before those bits of family history she fought so hard to remember fade away with her.

This is not a goodbye to you all. I plan on coming back when it's all over and it's time to move on with my life. It's more like a sabbatical. I'll pick back up where I left off, but don't expect that until June at the absolute earliest (if we're being realistic, probably July).

Final word: Appreciate those you love while you can, and make sure they know ASAP. Sometimes you don't get as long to say these things as you'd like.

Comments ( 2 )

Sorry to hear. I wish you well.

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