Three: Treatment One:
Chemotherapy
On December
27th, 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 family members always have doctors and hospitals built up
so high in our minds, that we forget they are just doing their job every
day. There’s a reason they usually will
always have a calm demeanor. I get it now.
I remember
it being an overall good visit and I was glad my husband and I came along. The three of us wanted to take a peek at
mom’s scan when the doctor asked if anyone wanted to take a look. Mom didn’t
want to see it. We then learned that those cancerous cells were all over her
liver. It looked like a leopard’s
stomach. The Doctor would then discuss the next steps in
treatment which would be chemo once every other week and she’d get a port
implanted the following week (on her 66th birthday). We all left the
meeting feeling semi-hopeful, mom felt really happy with the new doctor and my
mom appeared positive. We then took my parents to a hole-in-the-wall, but delicious
Italian restaurant which we’ve been telling my parents about for a long
time. It was a lovely night and I even think
my mom enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner.
My mom
started her first chemotherapy treatment on January 18th, 2017. The first seven months seemed like a piece of
cake, compared to the rest of 2017. I
say this because thankfully, she didn’t have too many setbacks just yet. She was just doing what the doctors asked of
her and received her scheduled treatments.
She even worked at her part time job two-three days a week during this
time. She was living her life and doing
her best every day, while going through something like this. I remember feeling so proud of her. I’d say
this was all happening up until around the end of August, early September. We
really had a great summer. Mom went to
the beach at least twice, and one of those times it was a “girls” day. My daughter, mom and I met my Aunt
Kate, who lives twenty minutes from Ocean City for a fun beach day. And when my mom still had decent shreds of
energy, she would help me with my daughter if I needed it and even watch her at
her house for a few hours.
Mom never
lost all of her hair, but it had eventually gotten much thinner. I even helped her pick out a wig at a wig
shop one afternoon in March. The name of
the shop was called Wig-A-Do and I thought it was so adorable. She wasn’t
losing much hair yet, but for it to be mostly covered by her insurance, I think
she had to get it sooner than later. And in case you weren’t aware, wigs have
names! Yes, you read that right. Each wig, at least at Wig-A-Do, had names.
The owner was a lovely, sweet woman and was very helpful. She brought out one wig that resembled mom’s
hairstyle perfectly and mom loved it.
The best part was that this wig was named Dayna. I remember saying to
the owner, “that’s my name!” Minus the
Y. How fitting. I then took my mom out
to dinner at a nearby Italian spot. We
both ordered a cup of pasta Fagioli and then split a huge turkey wrap. I remember this was typical whenever I went
out to eat with my mom. She was never
really into eating large portions and neither was I, so we would always split
something. We both ate our own bags of
chips though, because duh.
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