Goodbye

When something so excruciatingly devastating catches you off guard, you lose touch with what you love. That’s what happened to me, at least. No more blogging. No more reading. No more motivation to use any creative outlets. Just grieving.

On February 23, 2019, my mom called. This in itself was out of the ordinary, as I was always the one to call her—she never wanted to bother me in case I was busy. But it was a Saturday, and I was home watching Austin play video games. Not busy at all.

In a nervous voice, she asked if I was alone, so I moved to the bedroom. Through a sudden wall of sobs, she told me she was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer—the doctors found a tumor over 10 cm long. We knew it was deadly, and we knew it came from somewhere else in her body, but the doctors told her to come back in nearly a month before they could give her more information. Three and a half weeks of wondering—imagining the worst. Three and a half weeks of calling my mom every other day to check in and give a little brightness to her day, knowing she was alone at home to deal with this herself.

On March 19, the doctors provided the promised update. They were still unsure where the cancer originated, but she had six months to a year to live.

The news hit me like a bag of bricks. Less than a year? How was I supposed to spend every possible moment with her when I lived halfway across the country?

She called a few days later, explaining all the appointments she had scheduled for the last week of March—bone scans and liver biopsies and CT scans and port implants. On top of it all, the pain was getting worse. She was having trouble lifting items around the house; even laundry had become too painful to accomplish. But she would never ask outright for help; she was a proud, independent woman. I told her I would talk to Austin and call her back later that night. After a quick conversation with my husband and a text to my boss, my flight was booked for the following morning. I called to tell her I would be there in just twelve hours and she sobbed, grateful.

I arrived in Seattle on March 22nd. My aunt drove to pick me up. My mom struggled to get out of the passenger seat to hug me—it had been nearly a year since I’d seen her. I held back the tears. She was tiny—frail. She was working full-time just a couple weeks ago, so this had progressed quickly. I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind.

For a week and a half, I took her to all her appointments and cleaned up around the house. After just a couple days, she could no longer get up to take her medications herself, so I began administering and documenting everything, even though the night. I helped her day in and day out with a strong face, and cried every time I retreated back into the privacy of my own room.

April 1st was the big appointment—we would sit down with her oncologist and go over all the tests she had received the previous week. I was apprehensive, especially knowing that I would have to fly home in just two days—I had a job and school obligations that needed to be sorted out. But I already had a flight booked to visit in June, so I would be back.

The doctor’s tone was grave, but my mom didn’t notice. Within the past week, she began spacing out and experiencing hallucinations and delusions. I didn’t know if this was a side affect of the morphine, or of her deteriorating condition. It was my job to let her know what was real and what was not. So when the doctor spoke, he talked to my mom because she was the patient. But I was the only one listening.

The cancer had originated in her lungs, where they had found another tumor. Her metabolic panel showed rates that were growing worse exponentially. Without treatment, she likely had about a month to live. The only other option was chemotherapy. At this point, my mom had become teary-eyed as she turned to me and asked, “Kendra, what should I do?” It was up to me. Based on the doctors explanations, it seemed as if we were too late for chemo, so I chose in-home hospice care.

The next day, the nurse and social worker showed up, along with two of my aunts. Although my aunts had seniority, the power of attorney rested on my shoulders. I signed the papers deciding whether or not to resuscitate, resort to feeding tubes, or use hospitalization. I tried asking my mom what she thought, but she was too tired and disconcerted to understand what I was requesting. After many hours, they all left us in peace.

That evening, I packed my belongings and attended to my mom’s bouts of pain throughout the night. The hospice nurse had changed her medication schedule, so I was getting up every two hours to administer her morphine. At this point we just want her comfortable, they told me.

I flew back to North Dakota on April 3rd, quit my job, and made arrangements for my graduate school observations. With the help of my school district point-of-contact, we were able to schedule six weeks of observations into three days. The evening of Monday, April 8th would be the earliest I could travel back to Seattle.

My aunt called the evening of April 3rd. She said that my mom had woken up and got out of bed, insisting that she wanted to take a shower. I was taken aback—the entire time I had been there, she barely had enough energy to get up and use the bathroom. But alas, she took a shower by herself and had some pep in her step, according to my aunt. Perhaps this was supposed to reassure me. It didn’t.

The day prior, the hospice nurse had brought a large stack of reading material for us, the family, to use as a resource. That night, I thumbed through one of the pamphlets: “Gone From My Sight: The Dying Experience”. It detailed the symptoms to expect when your loved one is one month, one to two weeks, and one to two days away from dying. When I read this on April 2nd, my mom fell into the “one to two weeks'“ category.

So when my aunt told me my mom had had a sudden burst of energy, I felt defeated. This was a key symptom in the “one to two days” category. Austin kept reassuring me that we would make it—he had received emergency leave from his higher-ups and we would be driving to Seattle as soon as I finished my observations. We’re not going to make it, I finally admitted to both him and myself.

My aunt called Thursday, April 4th in tears, urging me to talk to my mom in hopes that my voice would help her hang on longer. I fought the tears and spoke to my mom, promising that I would be there in just a few days. Her voice was weak—she almost sounded half-asleep. I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me too. That was the last time I talked to her.

My mom died the afternoon of Friday, April 5th, just four days after we received her prognosis of one month—less than six weeks after receiving that first phone call on February 23rd.

She was fierce. She was independent. She taught me to fight for what I want and expect nothing less. She taught me that hard work will pay off, and that nothing in life is free. She taught me to be my own person and not give a damn what anyone else thinks, so that’s what I plan to do.