My beautiful mother, Betty (Elizabeth) Belfiore was born in NYC on May 28, 1939. She married at 18 and had two children, my brother Ed and I (Laura). She spent most of her life in New York. She was a long -time smoker. She did quit smoking in 1997 and started again in 2002.
She spent the last 10 years of her life in Northwestern Florida. She lost a lot of weight towards the end of 2002. My mother was having extensive dental work done and was having problems eating.
In March of 2003, her regular doctor gave her a referral for a chest x-ray. My mother held onto it for approximately one month and then decided to get the x-ray during Easter week. On April 16th they found something on the lower right lobe of her lung. I was on my way down to Florida for Easter and when I got there, my whole family was waiting for me and we went right to the hospital for a scheduled CT Scan with contrast. She was then sent for a brain MRI and a PET Scan.
She was diagnosed with lung cancer at end April 2003. Her pulmonologist told her she had Stage IIIa. Non-small Cell Lung Cancer. She had a dime-sized nodule in her lower right lobe and metabolic activity showed up on the PET scan in her mediastinum area. They wanted her to get a mediastinoscopy and if they did not find anything in the nodes there, they would remove the lower right lobe of her lung. If they did find nodes with cancer in her mediastinum, they would not operate any further. The pulmonologist recommended us to a surgeon, who said he could not do the mediastinoscopy.
I then took my mother to Baltimore, MD to try to have a Broncoscopic diagnosis. (I was looking for the least invasive way of finding out with certainty whether or not my mother had cancer). I was told in Baltimore there was no evidence of cancer. We went back to Florida and scheduled my mother for surgery with a different surgeon who said he would do the mediastinoscopy. I told this to the Dr. in Baltimore and he said, do not have the operation, I can probably do a needle biopsy in the lung. We drove back to Baltimore only to find that the Dr. was not able to reach the nodule. So we immediately went back to Florida and scheduled her for the operation. This was done on August 6, 2003. They tested 4 nodes in the mediastinum and found two to be cancerous. The operation came to a halt.
The news was devastating to my family and I. My mother and I were so close that I could not imagine life without her. My mother handled everything like a trooper. She was scheduled to receive 23 doses of radiation to her lower right lobe and mediastinum. With light weekly (7 weeks) doses of a cocktail of carboplatin and taxol. I was with her for her radiation and first dose of chemo. The first 15 minutes were good, then all of a sudden, my mother’s face was turning red and she said she was having trouble breathing. I quickly got a nurse and the nurse flushed her with liquids and called for an ambulance. My mother’s blood pressure was up and she passed out. By the time we got to the emergency room (a couple of floors down) she was OK. Her oncologist then recommended she receive taxotere (a synthetic form of Taxol). There she went the next week, (I do not know where this bravery came from) and got her chemo. After about a month and a week she lost her hair. She also received a 10 or 11 more doses of radiation. My mother made friends in Radiation and Chemo. She spent her time talking and helping other people in there. She became a kind of "ambassador" to newcomers. She was wonderful! Everyone loved her.
My mother did not have many side effects from the chemo, but the radiation to the center of her chest hurt her and burned her skin! Her white blood cell count got low a few times (chemo) and she received neulasta for that. Also, her platelets did get low too and she really had to take care of herself and she did with the help of my aunt, her sister. After a 3-week break, she received 3 heavier doses of carboplatin and taxotere 1 time every 3 weeks for 9 weeks.
I have to say, all the while, my mother’ s attitude was something to be admired. She never let this thing get in the way of her having a life. She went out, she danced, she ate, she loved, and she laughed. She had the best fun she could. I stayed in Florida with her from April 2003 to August 2003. I spent December - January 2003-2004 with her.
By the end of January 2004, she was finished with her regimen of chemo. She looked good and her hair was growing back. I visited her in April 2004. Then, all of a sudden in April, she started having back pain. She was helping her brother clean out their parent’s house, as my grandmother and grandfather were moving into a retirement home. She was a little weak and wanted to help and we thought possibly she might have hurt her back. We never thought it could be the cancer.
She was planning a trip to Key West with her sister and niece, but was not feeling too good by the time she went at the end of April. She was going to go by hook or by crook. She went and had a nice time although couldn’t get around much. We scheduled tests for her 3 days after she returned. By the time she got back from Key West, she could barely get out of bed. I begged for her to let me come there from New York and she said to wait. My Mom went into the hospital for the tests and they found that she had nothing in her lungs, but that it was in her spinal fluid and meninges of her brain. She called me and said, "so......do you want to pack your bags?" I told her I loved her and I would be there as quickly as I could. She didn’t tell me much of anything else except that they had her checked into the hospital to regulate her pain. She wanted me to get there safely before she told me anything.
I was down there the next day and found out that she had a couple of weeks to a year and that she would be receiving palliative radiation to control her pain. She was in the hospital for 5 days. I took her home. We stayed close. I stayed with her in the hospital. She was a little confused with the medication, but we could still communicate. We asked the doctor if he could discharge her to hospice at my mother‘s request. My brother came down and, together, we took care of my mother who still had lucid periods. We took her daily to receive the radiation until one day when she was in such pain; we could not keep her in the car. I called the radiologist and he said let’s take it one day at a time. The next day she went…the next day she said no more! Hospice put her on methodone and morphine.
We celebrated her 65th birthday with our family on May 28, 2004 and she was still having some good moments, but soon after that, she began to decline. She still managed to communicate with me by touch and eye contact. My brother and I kept telling her we loved her and that everything was going to be all right, that we were going to be all right. We did everything we could to make her comfortable. We loved her.
On the evening of Monday, June 7, 2004, with my brother and I at her side, we held her and told her how much we loved her and that it was OK and that we were OK and she took her last breath and, peacefully and without pain, l my dear mother left us for a much better place.
I will never know a sadness and emptiness like this again.
I learned so much from my mother. She was never afraid to communicate her feelings. She raised my brother and I to be this way too! She was a hard worker. She was an open person. She possessed a great wisdom, even when she was young. She was surrounded by beautiful friends…friends she had her whole life, friends who were true friends and stayed friends with her for life AND after. She was loving and never afraid to show those feelings. My mother told me many times that she was not afraid to die. Friends of hers also told me she also communicated this to them. She never showed any signs of fear at all! I never realized just how brave and strong my mother was. I am in awe of her! I can only strive to be like her someday.
My mother was a beautiful, loving, caring, happy, classy lady. She knew how to have fun! She made the best she could out of her life. She did a damned good job!
I do feel that she was robbed. She was taken at such a happy time in her life. I will miss her with all my heart and soul. Someday, I pray, we will see each other again.
In retrospect, I feel that my mother was probably a Stage IV and terminal from the beginning of the diagnosis. They never did a spinal tap as part of the initial diagnostic stage. I think this was probably a blessing in disguise. I don’t think my mother would have lived happier knowing that she was terminal. Although, she probably would have never had any treatment if she knew she was terminal. I was told the chemo does not penetrate into the spinal fluid or brain. There is a barrier of some sort. When the doctor told us she could live a few weeks to a year with this terminal disease, I feel that she had it from the beginning…because she lived just about a year after the initial diagnosis. I think she would have lived a lot longer if it did not get into the brain.
But, God must have really needed her.
My mother is the song that will never end. She is the love of family and friend.
