She came to Atlanta to visit at the beginning of August. She was tired, but still what I would consider normal. She would nap when Sidney napped. We went to the zoo, had fun lunch dates and went to bed early. She was here for a week.
The counselor at MD Anderson called me in September. My mom had been in the hospital with pneumonia for a week. She never told me. I couldn't go to her living in Atlanta with a baby, and she knew I would try to come. (Children weren't allowed in the hospital for the protection of the patients and their compromised immune systems.)
She never left the hospital.
"Baby, it's over."
We had never talked about what the end was going to look like. Stupid, I know. I had asked my mom if she had filed the power of attorney paperwork when she was at my home in August. She had assured me she had, but that is all we talked about. There was no discussion about "end of life care".
When the counselor asked me when I was prepared to pick my mother up to begin hospice care, I was dumbfounded. I couldn't take care of her! We had just moved to Atlanta four months before. I had a 18 month old baby. I did have a single person in my local support system. I still got lost driving to the grocery store, my child didn't have an emergency contact in her preschool file for goodness sake! I couldn't become a care taker.
My mom had not been entirely honest about the state of her condition. I called my brother, and we had a conference call with a counselor and mom's medical team at MDA. She was showing signs of brain tumor progression- manic, hallucinations, mood shifts. Her pain was substantial due to a tumor in her spinal column. Her mobility was limited.
She was just here in August! I knew that her joints hurt when she walked, so I purchased her the sassiest canes I could find. She said they worked great, helped so much! How was this the same person we were discussing.
That's how she fought her battle. No one knew how bad it really was. She was always going to beat it. Her brain tumor margins grew, but her lung tumors were smaller. It was always a victory. Cancer was her greatest act.
My brother flew to Houston to get her on a plane to Atlanta and clean out her home in Houston near the hospital. A friend flew with her, I met them at the airport curb, and the friend turned around and flew home. She arrived on a one way ticket with a suitcase, a soft purple lap blanket and her canes. Ready or not, I became her caretaker.
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