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gina_k_s
Posts:1
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| 11/12/2011 10:40 AM |
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This is the story of my friend, let’s call her Maria, and her mother’s encounter with breast cancer. Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. It can either be benign, or not harmful, in the form of breast lumps that are easily removed. However, if the lump is left untreated, it can turn into malignant, or harmful, cancer. It will spread to the lymph nodes around the armpit area, causing the area around the armpit and shoulder to swell. Breast cancer kills about 12% of the women diagnosed with it in the US. I had heard that most cases were found in women between the ages of 75 and 84, since breast cancer mostly affects women with higher levels or have built up more estrogen over their life. I never thought I would know anyone who’s life was affected by it, until a year ago, when Maria’s mother died from it.
I remember Maria’s mom when she was alive, and how she would always let us bake brownies when I was at their house. After her mom died two years ago, I remember sitting across from Maria in her pink bedroom, listening to what happened, as if it were yesterday.
Maria sat across from me on her white couch, her old stuffed dog Poochie on her lap. I remember her twisting Poochie’s ears around in her hands, and thinking if he were alive, he’d be squealing. Then she started to talk to me, he voice cracking in the middle of sentences.
“When my mom first knew something was wrong, I think about three months before she went to the hospital, it was like she was in denial or something. She wouldn’t acknowledge the strange lump on her chest to be cancer, and kept telling us it was nothing, but it later turned out to be a tumor. Sometimes I’d come home from school and she would have a bag of ice on her shoulder, to get the swelling to go down. I had no idea what it was at first, she kept saying she just pulled it during yoga. I think she didn’t want me to know there was something wrong.”
I remember Maria reaching down to pull her green sock up her ankle, to hide the tears in her eyes. I didn’t know what to say. I remember that I wanted her to stop talking about it and to say she didn’t have to tell me only a week after her mom died, but she didn’t seem to want to. So I let her talk.
“Then one day I came home from school, expecting to see her there in the kitchen. My dad was there instead, alone. He said to me, ‘“Mommy’s in the hospital, honey. The doctor said they found signs of breast cancer during her checkup yesterday, but don’t worry, she’ll be ok.”’ Then he smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile, it was more like the tired smile he gives to the airport customs officers after getting off a long flight. I was pretty worried, but I thought she would be ok. I never thought it would happen to my own mom.”
I was surprised too; Maria’s mom was always upbeat, asking us about our day, or coming in Maria’s room during our sleepovers to gossip with us about cute boys or mean girls and teachers.
“A week later, my mom was still in the hospital. My dad was always there too, and when he’d come home, all he would say to me was “‘Hi honey,”’ with the same fake smile. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on. But one day, when he came home, he said mommy was going to start chemotherapy. It was too late to start radiation.”
I knew radiation had to be started early in the first stages of the cancer, to reduce the rate of recurrence. It worked by damaging the genetic material in the cancer cells and limiting their ability to successfully reproduce. When the destroyed cancer cells eventually die, they’re disposed of by the body. Maria’s mom had chemotherapy though, which is prescribed for women with cancer that has already spread to the lymph nodes. It uses drugs that kills the growth of rapidly dividing cells. The risk factors of it were that the drugs may also kill healthy cells around the harmful ones, making the patient’s immune system become less effective sometimes. Since cancer is a condition in which rapidly dividing cells multiply uncontrollably and invade nearby, healthy body tissue, the drugs used in chemotherapy work to treat cancer by destroying the cancerous cells, or stopping the further growth of them.
Maria shoved Poochie off her lap onto the floor. He lay crumpled at her feet. Maria sniffled, and wiped her eyes, smudging black mascara around her face. She stood up and said she needed to go to the bathroom, and I forced a smile and nodded.
Waiting for her to come back, I remembered a day a couple weeks before Maria’s mom died. She had come to school that day, sat down in class, and didn’t say a word to anyone. When our teacher, Ms Lewis, asked us to hand in our homework, Maria didn’t move. Ms Lewis asked Maria if she had her homework with her, and Maria just stared at her. Ms Lewis nodded and went on with the lesson, which everyone thought was strange. Ms Lewis usually lectured about responsibility, and that there were never excuses for missed homework. She must have known about Maria’s mother.
Maria walked out of her bathroom and sat back down on the couch. She looked at me and I saw black rings under her eyes that didn’t come from the mascara.
“She lost all of her hair you know,” Maria said.
I looked at Maria, who was looking right back at me. Then she continued.
“Her hair started falling out. She said it was a side effect of the chemo. It made me cry, every time I’d see her without her hair. But you know, my dad and I still thought she was the prettiest lady in the world. It killed me to see her like that, because I knew she was dying. I asked my dad if there were any new kinds of therapy to help her live, and he said not yet. Radiation and chemo were the best for trying to treat cancer.”
Tears were pouring down Maria’s face. I stood up and went to sit next to her, using my sleeve to wipe her eyes. After that, she stopped talking, but I knew what had happened in the end.
Maria’s mom died after four long months of battling breast cancer. Maria was taken out of school early by her dad, to see her mom a few hours before she died. Maria didn’t come to school for a few weeks afterwards.
Maria’s mother isn’t the only one who had a husband who would sit at her bedside for weeks during the chemo sessions, or a daughter who went to school not knowing if her mom was going to be alive when she came home that day. All around the world, there are organizations to help women diagnosed with breast cancer, such as the Pink Ribbon organization, which accepts donations and has online forums for victims and their families to post on to help raise awareness around the world. The Breast Cancer Foundation in Singapore holds support groups and volunteer counseling for survivors and/or their family and friends. Maria and I both wished her mother’s tumor had been treated at the first sign of its existence, to keep it from spreading. Sometimes the symptoms are noticed too late though, and the same thing that happened to Maria’s mother happens every day to millions of women all around the world. |
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