" I miss Nanny."  That's what my daughter said a few minutes ago when we were talking about my mom and her nana.  She just knows she's in heaven and in our hearts, always.  My daughter has even said to me that she wishes nanny was alive.  Me too kid. It sucks so bad.  I miss my mom so much, it stings.  A few saviors for me have been: being busy with our new home, being busy with my young daughter, being busy with work and the logistics that need to happen when it comes to driving my kid to school, my husband picking her up or me, and right now, my dad watching her on Fridays, basically 9-5pm.  It's a long day for everyone.  The busy Christmas season just ended ( thank God) and it's a new year.  I have to keep moving forward because it's my only savior.   Other more recent saviors: my best friends wedding stuff , ( less then four months to go)!!  keeping up with exercise and trying to stay as healthy as I can, planning my daughter's 5th birthday pa

February 11 th , 2018:   The day my mother passed away I don’t think I got in bed until 11pm on the 10 th , but I know I didn’t sleep well at all.   My dad had a restless night and so did my grand mom, aunt and my two uncles.   I feel my mom knew it was time, knew none of us would sleep well and wanted us all to surround her.   I got the first call from my dad around midnight.   I maybe was asleep for a half hour, I really have no recollection.   But I woke up feeling all around shitty.   I felt shaky and completely exhausted.   Dad was home at this point and he told me the nurse just wanted to give him a heads up that mom’s breathing is more shallow and faint.   She told him it could be within hours.   I actually told my dad to call me back and I guess I went back to sleep.   It sounds selfish and strange, but that’s what happened.   I took the first phone call as a warning.   I just knew I had to lie back down because I felt so depleted.   My dad called me again around 2:45am

Five:   Week of Hell Timeline 2/5- Emergency room.   They finally moved mom to the ICU around 11pm.   My dad and I went home around 9pm once we knew they had a hospital room for her. 2/6- Full day in ICU, lots of visitors of family and friends.   Dad and I had a private conversation with Palliative care and discussed and eventually confirmed placing mom in local hospice care provided by Samaritan. We also spoke with many different doctors which is the usual in this scenario. The building was on the same grounds as the hospital.   It was very convenient. 2/7- Mom’s last day in ICU until around 8pm when they moved her to hospice.   One of my cousin’s and my husband stayed with my dad and I until they were about to transfer mom.   Dad and I stayed until mom was settled. This was the first day my in-laws brought my daughter by to say hello and see her Nana.   Though my mom looked nothing like herself, I wanted Claire to see her and vice versa.   They both deserved that.

Four: Treatment Two: Immunotherapy and Setbacks One of the many setbacks my mom would encounter once the fall came around was fluid retention in her abdomen. It would be the most annoying and painful setback for her. She was off treatment of any kind for close to two months because of this fluid buildup.   Also during that time, her liver became inflamed and irritated. Mom’s doctor wanted her off treatment for a few weeks to allow her liver to heal and manage the fluid. By December, mom’s doctor decided she needed to be back on treatment, but that they would try something new.   Chemo was out the window and Keytruda would be next. Keytruda is an immunotherapy treatment that works with your immune system to help fight cancer.   Mom received two treatments, only once every three weeks.   They were given on December 14 th and January 4 th of 2018. By now, the cancer just had more of a head start and was rapidly beginning to spread.   I don’t believe this was because she had go

Three: Treatment One: Chemotherapy On December 27 th , 2016, my husband and I met my parents at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Voorhees, NJ. We met with mom’s main oncologist, and a different doctor, Dr. Alex.   According to my mom, she loved him immediately and felt very comfortable.   Really, that’s all that mattered. That other doctor who I mentioned earlier about misdiagnosing my mom with pancreatic cancer did not bode well. My mom didn’t’ care for his bedside manners and she had every right to feel that way.   She was the patient after all. I remember briefly mentioning to Dr. Alex about cells on mom’s pancreas, “stage 4 pancreatic.”   And he calmly said to me, “well when we looked at your mom’s scans, there was nothing on the pancreas. Forget about the pancreas.   She was just misdiagnosed.”   I remember feeling relieved and irked at the same time.   He said it in a tone that was so calm and nonchalant, as if he was getting the check for a coffee. I guess we, the patients and

Two: Mother and Daughter If anyone liked putting the cart before the horse, it was my mom. Her sweet, caring and sensitive nature made up for her almost always jumping to conclusions in almost any given situation. Now that I think about it, my memory only truly recalls that particular flaw of my mom getting the best of me. Whenever I had something to tell her, regardless of its importance, she wasn’t the best listener. She would never just take the information at hand, process it, and then make an informed decision.   At least that was my hope; whenever I’d call her with my fingers crossed. Flaw or not, she was a pro at making assumptions. Here’s a fun story for ya. When our daughter was three months old, my husband and I decided to get her baptized. Being non-religious folk, both my husband and I purely went along with the baptism to mainly please both of our mother’s.   For the record, we both didn’t really have an opinion on it, but knew it would be helpful one day for