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This is my mom, Leslie Lehrman, in 2001. Hanging out in Hawaii with her husband, Bob, and his family.
Back then, the thing my mom used to complain about was gaining weight. Oh, and that perpetual problem I recently discovered goes back to her elementary days: Her HAIR! She NEVER likes her hair. Never.
While complaints about her weight and hair continue. Today, she has bigger things to complain about (even though she doesn’t). Little did she know, four years after soaking up the sun, she’d be fighting for her life with lung cancer.
March Madness
Nope. These days it’s no sunburn that makes her chest and neck red. It’s radiation. And on Friday, “Scans and Results Hell” starts, as Mom has a CAT scan to see if/what her latest radiation treatments have accomplished. She meets with her docs the following Monday (22nd) to get the verdict.
My mom has been fighting lung cancer since 2005. There are so many healthcare horror stories during her treatments to tell, but that’s for another time. She has been told her lung cancer is “incurable, inoperable Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer.
So, chemo, radiation and an occasional cocktail (not of the alcoholic kind, unfortunately) have been the story of her life ever since. She’s had some success with the treatments and even “earned” several breaks from chemo and radiation for several weeks. Thanks cancer cells. What a wonderful “gift.” You MORE than suck.
As if the treatments and side effects weren’t enough, my mom has suffered from chronic pain, thanks to a botched surgery that left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, causing major nerve damage. Yes, she sued. Yes, she won. Paultry.
A Turning Point
So, really she hasn’t endured the effects of lung cancer itself until recently – just the lovely chronic pain, treatment side-effects and emotional torture from the “Scans and Results Hell.” Somehow, she managed to get the H1N1 virus. She also got Shingles. Shingles was a turning point in my mom’s quality of life.
My mom’s chronic pain worsened and her docs believe Shingles played a part in that – possibly a permanent role. Shingles brought my mom to the bottom. You know, that place where many cancer patients say, “You know, I just don’t know if these treatments are worth it anymore.”
‘No, she didn’t just say that, did she?” Yes, she did. For the very first time. While I was stunned, I wasn’t really stunned. In fact, I expected her to reach this point way before now. I know there have been many days she has felt like giving up, but never had she uttered it – at least not to me.
As I hoped, the next day was “a new day” for my mom, with a different attitude and outlook. What’s so insanely crazy to me is that this psychotic emotional drill is “normal” for cancer patients (and their families and friends). It just NEVER ends. It’s madness beyond the month of March. I honestly do not know how my mom has handled all of this with the amount of grace and strength that she has. I’m sure I would have caved by now.
Lung Cancer: No Longer a Smoker’s Disease
Hell, last week I was complaining of a stupid sinus infection. Then, the other night, I found a lump in my calf. So, of course I go online to figure out what it is. While it’s probably just a knot in my muscle, as I sat there reading about all of the worst case scenarios, it totally struck me: When my mom goes online to research, she IS the worst case scenario in every way possible. Lung cancer. #1 cancer killer. LEAST funded. 15% survival rate (which has remained unchanged for 40 years). No longer a smoker’s disease. Stigma stands in the way.
No. My mom has never smoked. Get this: 60% of all new lung cancer cases are diagnosed in patients who have never smoked or former smokers who quit decades ago. Does that freak you out? It should. ANYONE can get lung cancer. ANYONE.
Instead of Hawaii, my mom sits pool-side at her Phoenix home – thinking, reading and wondering what comes next. Whatever the results, I know my mom will remain the lung cancer warrior she is. I’m the one complaining here. So, March 22nd, bring it on! I know my mom is game. I’m working on it.
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