This is one topic believe it or not sometimes I like to talk about. During the time this all happened my friend base was pretty limited and I held everything inside myself up until the end and even afterwards. Any time I bring it up now, most people understandably become quiet and try to change the topic so i'll voice it all here. I'm not seeking pity, I simply want to tell people the reality of cancer and to let out everything I never had the chance to then. This is the story from diagnosis to the end and little of the aftermath.
If you know me personally you know I lost my mum a few years ago to cancer. It has easily been the hardest few years of my life. It changed me as a person, in so many ways that most who knew me then, say i'm completely unrecognisable now.
This is how it all began.
All the way back in Christmas 2008, my mum appeared visibly wore out. She complained of a few different symptoms, that all were concerning but we never thought it would've turned out to be that. At the time all the information was hidden from me and I had no idea what was happening. When she went to the doctor the first time he said it was simply stress and nothing to worry about. As my mum also had the condition Multiple Sclerosis for over 10 years at the time so they blamed that condition for any unexplained problems. One month later things got worse and my mum once again returned to the doctors. She was then diagnosed with heart palpitations and told to take some medication. At the time nurses who knew my mum insisted on blood tests and went behind the doctors back and ordered them. When the doctor found out about this he got pretty angry and complained it was a complete waste of money and it was unnecessary.....little did we know that those blood tests flagged up a very serious problem I wasn't aware of and my mum was rushed to hospital for an MRI scan. Shortly after in January the night before my first GCSE exam that year (maths) my mum was rushed to hospital. I just went into school in tears for no explanation and decided to sit the test and not let on to the school what was happening. Sadly the scan brought up a lump in her small intestine. I was told none of this of course.
2 Months later my mum was admitted to hospital to get the lump removed. I was simply told it was a polyp that needed removed. It was tiny and nothing to worry about at all. My mum would be fine and out the next day. Sadly at the same time my uncle had died of cancer and I was away to the funeral on my mums behalf. Straight after the funeral some of my family including me went to the hospital to see how my mum was doing. We walked into the ward and she was sitting up in the seat with a smile on her face. All seemed well but I was not ready for what I was about to hear. When we got to my mum she just whispered to my dad that something had went wrong and the surgeon wanted to talk to him. He was taken away for about 20 minutes then came back pretty distraught. He just came out with that a large cancerous tumour had been found that was far too big to remove. They had no choice but to cut around it and leave it there. At that moment I just burst out crying and i'll admit went pretty hysterical. So much so I had to go to a family room to calm down. I was shaking all over and nearly fainted. I actually had no idea what was happening. My mum just felt unusually tired...that was it.....well...the only part I was actually told. Instead of my mum getting upset she actually just got angry at my dad for announcing that infront of me. I was never meant to know....even if that was the outcome. The only time my mum ever broke down was when she seen me in tears over the news. We followed on being told that it was pretty advanced but they would do everything they could. This was March and my summer GCSE's were dawning.
So, I was off school for 2 days with no explanation. When I went back to St Micks I refused to talk to anyone. I was still in shock and in a daze. I just got an absence slip saying I was sick. I had agreed to myself that the school nor anyone in my year was to find out about it. I didn't want peoples pity nor anyone to nosy into my affairs. My friends in school I just wasn't close enough to, to talk about it so I kept silent. About 3 weeks later when my mum had started Chemo and I was forced to act as carer and also visit the hospital everyday on other occasions I was forced to tell my art teacher what was happening as I no longer could keep up with deadlines. I explicitly said that I wanted the fact kept quiet and no other staff or student to know about it.......but the next morning.........every staff member knew and more against my will some of my 'friends' were told too as the school had assumed I had said. The workload for me was cut down which was good but the lack of student confidentiality just made me sick, stressed and worried. To add more to it one of my friends was actually asked to spy on me and to tell the staff member what i was saying and what was happening in my family. It was such an invasion of privacy and still makes me angry to this day.
Moving on in time, I was helping my mum do things and also revising for my GCSE's and doing coursework including art at the same time. Some of the st micks staff were pretty rude about my situation telling me to give up abit of my social life to do the work (Little did they know I had none what so ever. I had become a shadow of myself and refused to talk to anyone outside school). A-Level choices were also on the agenda and I decided that under my current stress and also that my mum would need time to get out of the woods I opted for 3 A-levels much to the schools dismay since at the time I was in the top 20 in the year. (Maths, Physics and ICT). I finally took my GCSE's and got through them pretty smoothly. I easily absorbed information then so revision wasn't really an issue for me. Come summer I had got my results and I got 2A*s, 6As and 2Bs. I was a few marks off a few more A*s so I was pretty pleased with my performance.
Following these results, me and my mum were called into the school for a chat twice. Each time the school was begging me to undertake a fourth A-Level. Each time I said no giving my valid reasons and my mum backed me up on the pressure I was currently under. The school accepted this ......for awhile.
Shortly after results I was called into St Micks for a photo for GCSE performance. The Vice principal used that for his advantage. he asked me to go to his office after and forced me to take a fourth A-Level against my will, literally not allowing me to leave the office before choosing one and also not until he had a little dig at how disgraceful the 2 Bs I got were. In terms of my mums treatment it was going really well. The tumour had shrunk quite abit and the doctors were pretty pleased and confident with the results.
So I kicked off AS with 4 A-Level's. My brothers wedding was at the end of September and we all attended. My mum tried her best to go but you could tell it was a struggle for her :( The wedding did go well but unfortunately 2 weeks later my mum took a turn for the worst. She had collapsed and was rushed to hospital. Even though it was 7 months before she died, it was more or less the last time she was going to be in my house. She only returned for 2 days.
During the first months in hospital we thought it was just flu and her immune was too weak to handle it well. She had unexplained constant vomiting and also was getting blood clots. Once again there was something really sinister going on and my family was hiding things again.
One day I was really happy. I had excelled at a maths class test and I thought I was getting myself back on track again until I started walking home and my dad came to pick me up. the moment I got in the car he blurted out some news I just couldn't digest. Apparently my mum had an operation that i was never told about but it was unsuccessful. I was told my mum had to get her leg amputated. The reason wasn't known until later but the tumour inside her had got so big it was crushing the main blood vessel to her leg cutting off the blood supply and everything they tried to do failed. Once again I just broke down for a few days.
I went to the hospital to face my mum the night before the operation. I tried to keep strong but my reaction told everything. I was pale white, no rosy cheeks in sight, shaking, zoning out and pretty silent. The worry and stress had got to me to the point it had affected my health.
The operation was a success and we thought this was all we had to worry about but no it wasn't. One month later we were told there was an infection and the healing in one area just wasn't happening very well.........that wasn't the reason.
This is the most shocking part of my mums cancer that im sure people just like me did not know could happen. Basically my mums tumour had progressed so far that it had bore a hole in her body to the outside. If you looked into the hole you would see the small intestine....thats how far it had progressed unnoticed...... Sometimes liquid from the intestines would leak out the hole.
Shortly after we were told it was coming to the end and there was nothing they could do. My mum had went into a coma like state. She didn't have the strength to eat or speak. The change had happened so much it made me ill. I'll be honest and say I took a breakdown. Even though my mum had cancer and all these terrible things had happened I thought the cancer was under control like they had said. We were VERY wrong though. After a week of unexplained absence from St Micks I announced to my form teacher I wouldn't be back for awhile and also requested to be withdrawn from the work experience I had to do.
That night she got the last rites and we just sat and held her hand hoping the best. After that a miracle happened. The next day my mum had exited the coma like state and was sitting up eating away and watching tv. It was amazing but it also confused us about what was happening. It was a crazy change.
A month after that my mum came home for a week. I became a full time carer and I also tried to work on my AS's at the same time at home. Nuff said that was too much pressure and I ended up collapsing from exhaustion a few times. I hid that fact from my mum as much as I could but it ended up getting back to her and she requested to go into a nursing home. I can still remember her words to me now. "You want me to get better don't you? I just need to rest and get taken care of for awhile then i'll be back for good."........She left that room and never returned until her wake :'(
She spent the rest of her time in a nursing home until her final week. The nurses there got concerned and could just tell it was near the end. The Macmillian nurses then looked after her. It was coming up to Easter and they requested she be sent to Newry Hospice for care until they came back.. She left the next afternoon to Newry Hospice and I had one day out with my friend to lisburn (Literally the second time I had left the house to go somewhere apart from school or hospital since my mum had been diagnosed). I got a phonecall 2 hours after I got that the end was basically in a few hours and i had to go home.
I went to Newry Hospice and held my mums hand until she went into a coma. We had a bedside vidual until she died the next morning at 6.03am on April 3rd 2010.
I broke down at the wake, funeral and afterwards. I was forced to grow up and became a complete shadow of myself. I didn't speak to anyone much any more and I avoided returning to school for 1 month. More things happened to me that i'll not bother mentioning. Only one i'll mention is basically 2 weeks after I returned to school i was in a car accident and had to take more time off school. I ended up withdrawing from most of my exams and repeated the year.
Truth be told I didn't get myself back again until 2012 all thanks to Sean and Ryan :)
Just going to finish off by saying my mum was the most inspirational person in my life and I love her so much. I miss her so much every day. She was the most important person in my life and a person I looked up to. I will never get over losing her.
RIP mum <3
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