Back to Page 1She was born in Kansas City, MO on October 29, 1918. (Mom had a twin brother who died in the early 90's, complications of diabetes.) On August 10, 1940, my parents married in Kansas City.
Mom was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in September of 1998. She had started in with vague symptoms during the late spring of that year. Every couple of weeks, she would have heavy night sweats, which kept getting more and more frequent. And she began not feeling well, nothing really specific, she just didn't feel well. Several times we went to her PCP but nothing was showing up. We were persistent, kept looking for the cause of the night sweats.
We finally went to an infection specialist and he was the first physician to feel an enlarged liver and a CT scan was ordered. We finally knew the problem. The scan showed a large tumor in the abdomen, wrapped around the aorta, vena cava, stomach, and pancreas. The liver was not enlarged; it had been pushed forward by the tumor. A second tumor, much smaller, was seen in the right lower lobe of the lung.
Years before this, mom had been diagnosed with Aortic stenosis and this condition had slowly worsened over the years. It had reached the point that surgery was being considered when mom first started having symptoms from the lymphoma.
The first meeting mom had with the oncologist, we learned that chemo can be very damaging to the heart valves and mom would be taking a real chance with chemo. Mom was always the type that thought you should try treatments, even if they could do more damage. Personally, I did not want mom to do the chemo but it was certainly not my decision.
The first dose of chemo was calculated at 20% of the normal adult dose and mom did ok with it. Three weeks later, the same dose was given. Within 3 days of the second treatment, mom was in acute heart failure. Due to the heart failure there would be no more chemo An abdominal CT scan was done sometime after the second chemo treatment. I don't remember why, I think the oncologist wanted to see if the treatment had any effect on the lymphoma. The original cell type was pancreatic and that is a hard cancer to treat. To everyone's amazement, the scan showed that the tumor had been reduced by HALF. The smaller lung tumor was completely gone on the 2nd scan. I firmly believe if the chemo had not caused such heart failure, mom would have "beat" the lymphoma.
We had hospice involved from the time mom quit chemo. I cannot applaud hospice enough. They gave our entire family support and we forged a lasting friendship with mom's hospice nurse
By this time, it was late October and we had family in from all over the country for mom's 80th birthday. Mom had a goal. She wanted to see one more birthday for all her children, five of us. She saw my younger sisters birthday on November 15, Thanksgiving, my birthday on December 18, Christmas, my older brothers birthday on December 27, my dad's birthday on March 6 of 1999, Easter, my older sisters birthday on May 11, my younger brothers birthday on July 22, and my parent’s 59th anniversary on August 10, 1999.
In the early summer of 1999, she had the worst case of shingles I have ever seen. They covered her back and chest. She suffered tremendously and yet she never gave up on seeing her anniversary. Truly, the only way she made it to the anniversary was she absolutely did nothing that required the least exertion.
After the anniversary, mom told me she could not live her life sitting in a chair or in bed. She had not been to Mass in months and decided she was going to Sunday Mass. Two days later, she was back in heart failure.
Dad panicked and insisted our hospice nurse call an ambulance to get mom to the emergency room. Mom was finally stabilized and admitted. When she was able, she told me she wanted to go home, no more treatment. Telling dad mom's request was very difficult. He was not ready to loose mom. None of us were, but I felt mom had the final say. We brought her home and she died September 6, 1999. That date happened to be Labor Day, so I now associate Labor Day with mom's death, as well as September 6, sort of a double whammy.
My mom was one of the most loving persons I have ever known. She loved her family, flowers, birds, and her religion. We miss her tremendously.
