Abstract
Eventually she went to the doctor, which we both hated doing. I do remember liking the fish tank that they had in the waiting room, though. The doctor asked my mom a bunch of questions that seemed especially stupid to an 11 year old, like, “Is your cough productive?” Couldn't he see that she could barely speak four words without coughing? Would he be productive if he couldn't speak a full sentence without coughing? She went off for an x-ray and I stayed in the waiting room trying to think of all the words I knew that started with the letter x. I came up with three but I'm not sure if one of them was actually a word. We went home that afternoon and I told Theodore, my slightly older brother, all about the fish tank and the giant puffer fish with spikes that attacked the electric eel while its back was turned. He told me that he had seen that fish tank and knew that there were only goldfish in it. What did he know? He could probably only think of two words that started with X.
Things continued on for a little bit as they had, but I noticed that the blue Halls wrappers were being replaced by red stained tissues. Mom had to go back to the doctor. This time they told her that they wanted to stick a needle in between her ribs to get a piece of her lungs. They called it a biopsy. We got a phone call a couple of days later that said that we needed to come back to the hospital to receive the results. I sat in the exam room spinning on the chair, waiting for the doctor to come in and speak with us. Finally, a young doctor, who seemed to be around 30, knocked and entered the room. I remember he was wearing a tie with trumpets on it. I hopped off the stool to let him sit down. He wasn't looking at either of us and seemed nervous. He took a seat, removed his glasses and said that the biopsy results were positive for lung cancer. The whistle of that second, snaking C in cancer still rings in my ear whenever I hear it. How could she have lung cancer? She didn't even smoke. Mom started crying. I didn't know much about cancer, except for that people who get it die. Through my tears the fish tank looked like it was melting. I hate goldfish.
I don't really remember the next few weeks. Everything just kind of blurred together as we transitioned into life post cancer diagnosis. Mom slept a lot and slowly stopped going to work. She was going to start radiation therapy. I remember right before she started the treatment I asked Theodore if mom was going to die. He said that he didn't know, but thought that she might.
She began going to the hospital every day to receive treatment. The therapy made her much sicker and she stopped talking as much as she used to. She also stopped smiling. Her hair started falling out and so we went to a wig store. I remember liking one of the green ones, but for some reason she didn't think that was fitting. I wish that somebody could have sat me down and explained to me what exactly was going on, so that I could have used my time with her better.
The treatments continued over the next months and I just assumed that mom was getting better, like if I took Tylenol for a headache. She looked thinner and thinner, though, every day. I vividly remember walking through the door after soccer practice one day and thinking there was a stranger in the house. My mom had lost 30 pounds and looked like a shadow of her former self. I think that's when I realized that things weren't going well.
On May 11th, 1994, my mom sat Theodore and me down on our couch in the living room. I was 13. She explained that she was going to stop going to the hospital to receive treatment. That was the best news I had heard in a long time and started smiling and hugging her. Nobody else, not even Theodore, was smiling.
The next three weeks were the slowest and fastest of my life. Mom completely stopped eating and barely left her room. I told her that I wanted to stop going to school so that I could be with her, but she wouldn't let me. I often think back on those three weeks and fantasize about all of the things that I could have done differently. I should have insisted on staying home.
The last meaningful conversation that I remember having with my mother was about what I would become when I grew up. I told her I didn't know but that I thought I might want to become a doctor if professional soccer didn't work out. She smiled. I told her that if my office had a fish tank, I would definitely put something cooler than goldfish in it, like maybe a stingray. I also said that I wouldn't let people get sick or die. She didn't smile as much at the second part and I've never seen anybody in my life look so tired. She rolled over towards me and looked straight into my eyes. I'll never forget what she said next. Though I won't share our final words, I will carry them with me throughout my journey of medicine. Two days later my mom died in her bed.
I will never stop being sad.
Disclaimer
This piece is a work of fiction. I wrote it as I was caring for a patient with metastatic cancer. For me, it was an exercise in trying to experience the emotion of the family members of a patient dealing with a new terminal diagnosis.