Cancer, has it really been 20 years?

I met cancer for the first time 20 years ago this week.  I was looking forward to my 11th birthday when he came barreling into my life completely unexpected.  I knew very little about him back then, but he would take residence in my home for the next 10 years, really.

It was the second week of January 1991.  My parents had spent the weekend out of town.  They said they just wanted to spend some time together.  My older sister Pam and I didn't think much of that.  We only knew my parents to be head over heels for each other.   But when they came back on Sunday, they told us they needed to talk to us about something.  My 10-year-old brain couldn't anticipate the gravity of the news they were about to share as we took our usual places at the dinner table.

My dad broke the news.  It's been so long now that I can't remember his exact words.  But he told us that my mother was sick.  Doctors were sure it was cancer; they just didn't know what kind.  Ovarian cancer, maybe.  Stomach cancer, possibly.  This new, rare type of cancer called lymphoma.  They were hoping it wasn't that type.  What they knew for sure was that my mother had a football-size tumor in her lower abdomen.  That explained my mom's backaches and her inability to sleep. 

But, cancer?

My dad told us the news and then sobbed.  It was the first time I had seen my dad cry openly.  My mother had her back to the patio door and the winter sun streamed in around her.  Her long, dark hair rested gently on her shoulders.  She hugged Pam and I as we told her how much we loved her.  I cried and could not comprehend life without my mommy.  This was back when cancer was almost always a death sentence.  Not many people survived.  If you did, you were lucky.  It was a disease that still mystified doctors.

A couple weeks later, doctors informed my mother that she had non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  I had never heard of this, but of course, I was 10.  My life consisted of school, Barbies and sleep-overs.  What my parents did not tell us at the time was that doctors only gave my mom a 20 percent survival rate. 

She started chemo almost instantly.  She doctored in Minneapolis and received treatments at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.  Her sickness didn't become real to me until she started to lose her hair.  My mom had the best hair.  She first got cancer at 48.  And even at 48, my mom had this dark, long wavy hair.  It was hair of an 18-year-old.  Her hair started falling out in clumps, though, to the point that she was bald.  She got a wig, but I thought my mom looked the best when she just wore her fancy turban.  And, she had so many pills to take.  There were pill bottles everywhere.  Our countertop looked like the storage shelves at a pharmacy.   Yet, my mother went to work every day, no matter how sick she was.   She is the epitome of a working mother.  She still went to as many of our activities as possible.  She went to church.  She loved us unconditionally, despite her body's complete demise. 

At night, I would go in to my parents' bedroom and listen to my mom breathe.  I just wanted to make sure she was going to wake up in the morning.  She did every morning, although I worried constantly about what my life would be like without her.  Six months after she started chemo, doctors discovered that her tumor was gone.  Her blood work even showed the cancer was gone.  It was a miracle, literally.  Her doctor couldn't understand how quickly her tumor had disappeared.

We celebrated the fact that she was in remission.  Doctors told us that if she could make it to the five-year mark she would likely be in the clear forever.

Fast-forward to the check-up just before her five-year remission mark and doctors found the cancer was back.  How could this be?  She was almost at the five-year mark.  It seemed like a cruel twist of fate.  And, I was no longer a bright-eyed 10 year old.  I was a teenager.  And to be completely honest, my mom and I struggled like many mother/teenage-daughter relationships.  The truth is my mom could see right through me and I didn't like it. 

This time, though, doctors were worried.  When non-Hodgkins lymphoma comes back, it has a habit of returning again and again, each time doing more destruction.  Doctors thought my mom's only hope for a real "cure" was to do a bone marrow transplant.  They would take my mom's own bone marrow, clean it, re-harvest it and then give it back to her.  This meant, however, that she would have to stay at Abbott in Minneapolis until this process was complete. 

By this time, I was the only child left in the house.  So, every day my dad would drive to Minneapolis and leave me to tend to myself.  I would get to school on my own, made sure I had a lunch, go to my afternoon sports, do my homework and then many days I would also drive to Abbott to see my mom.  It didn't matter that this small-town girl was driving to Lake Street in Minneapolis at night.  I would have walked through gun fire if it meant I got to see my mom one last time.

Once there, I'd have to wash my hands, put on a mask and robe just to see my mommy.  Her immunity was zero.  The treatment wreaked complete havoc on my mom's body.  I would often cry on my drives back to Owatonna after seeing her.  Yet, every time I saw her, we would talk about me.  She never cried.  She always had hope.  At the time, that was just my mother.  I was so absorbed in myself that I couldn't see how extraordinary this was.  This woman was dying and all she could think about was me.  I begged her to be home in time for my spring junior/senior banquet so she could see me off.  She came home, now I know against her doctor's wishes, just to be there to see me in my prom dress.  The next week she had to go back to the hospital.

Cancer would eventually leave us after that spring.  He took a part of my mother, though.  It's hard to describe, but my mom didn't rebound as easily the second time around.  When I asked her last night if it had really been 20 years since she was first diagnosed, she paused then laughed a bit and said, "Yeah, I guess it has."  It didn't really phase her.  When I told her that I was glad she survived and that I was happy she was my mom.  She said almost in tears, "Well, I'm happy I survived, too, and I'm so glad you're my daughter."  That is my mother.   

Now that I'm a mom, I realize the absolute incredible nature of what my mom went through.  I also realize that even though my mom and I had a love-hate relationship when I was a teen, mommys are so important.  Everything they go through really does shape a child's life.  I am fortunate to say that I have a mom and that my mom is the ultimate survivor.  I'm also fortunate that my mom has become my best friend.  What cancer didn't know 20 years ago is that he knocked on the door of a survivor.  I'm proud to say that survivor & that woman is my mother.