Honestly, the last several years have been a blur for me. I can't remember the exact dates of some of these events, so bear with me. My parents seperated several years ago and their divorce was finalized at the beginning of 2004. I believe during my parents' seperation is when my mom first was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although extremely upset at first, she handled her situation with courage and grace. She had a double mastectomy and was treated with chemo and went into remission. Her follow up scans and tests were clean for a while, but some time after her first round with cancer it came back as metastatic breast cancer. I believe she had tumors on her lungs, liver, and other places. She underwent chemo again, and again the cancer went into remission. Around Thanksgiving last year, my mom and I had a disagreement and weren't talking. But she called me up the Saturday after Thanksgiving and asked me to take her to the ER because she'd been feeling sick with headaches and nausea lately. I rushed over and took her to the hospital, where she was checked out and told she had tumors in her brain. (I learned that her breast cancer was very aggressive and was likely to eventually turn into brain cancer.) I was devastated that day. I was so sick of her getting sick. I just couldn't believe it. I was attending ASU for my first year of college, but I left during the second semester to go home to take care of Mom, because no one else really could. I was able to handle it for a while, taking care of her and keeping her company. She went through radiation this time for the tumors and when she had follow up exams, she had even more tumors of larger size than she did before the radiation. At that point, Mom's treatment plan was changed to palative care. She was in and out of hospice facilities, in and out of hospitals, we had several social workers and nurses at the house all the time. As time progressed things got harder for me, as they did for Mom. She was becoming more and more forgetful and confused, she had more and more pain, and I just wasn't qualified or emotionally strong enough anymore to take care of her. Mom spent her remaining time in a live-in hospice home in a city about an hour away from me. I hated not having her home with me but I knew she was in good hands. I visited her often and we called each other a lot. One particular week, my uncle called me and told me that Mom couldn't get out of bed anymore (which I knew was a bad sign because before she'd at least been able to move around in a wheel chair). The next day she slept all day, as she did the next day. We think she developed pneumonia, because as she slept her breathing was irregular and she had congestion she was unable to get out. She finally passed on September 1 at 48 years of age. I couldn't believe that my best friend was finally gone. Since then, I've been pushing myself to move on but I know I need to deal with her passing before I can do anything else. I just don't exactly know what to do or who to talk to, but I think I'd benefit from talking to people who've gone through what I have. Thanks for reading. Casey
