Hell Week

[Colleen Muir]

This blog post will sum up some of the events leading up to my mom's death, in particular an especially emotionally damaging week that I'm still having difficulty getting over. Warning: this will be long. 

To say that my parent's marriage was never easy would be an understatement. In the 22 years of my life before my mother's death my parents had separated and reconnected at least once a year, separation lasting sometimes as long as 2 years. When I was in high school my mother went as far as to buy a separate house which she and I lived in for a period of time. The one thing I will say for them though, is that for all their fighting, they were a great team in a crisis. 

For the most part. 

By February 2012, my mom had been battling cancer for 2.5 years. Diagnosed in November 2009 with triple negative breast cancer she underwent a radical right mastectomy and lymphectomy. She continued with chemo and radiation for the next year or so. In January 2011 the cancer had come back in her lungs. Again chemo. Again radiation. But by June the chemo had stopped working. In September 2011 the opportunity came up for her to be on a drug trial. Within the first few months she saw 60% reduction in tumor size. We were all excited. But in the end of January came the news we all dreaded, 50%. Not 50% reduction. 50% growth. Within a month the tumors in her lungs had grown 50%. Her doctors described her lungs as looking like buckshot. The chemo stopped working, again. Our goals became a lot smaller; make it to my nephews 1st birthday, make it to my graduation in May. We all adjusted our thinking, and coped. 

The week of my 22nd birthday (Feb. 2012), I was called out of state to present a paper at an academic conference. My fiance and I traveled, a good opportunity for us to get away and celebrate a bit. The conference went well, I presented my paper, all was going swimmingly. Until my dad called, and called again, and called again. I finally called back, to hear he was taking my mom to the hospital- she was having trouble breathing. She insisted it was just an asthma attack but he took her anyway. I wasn't there so I can't say exactly what happened, but they must have gotten in some kind of fight, because she managed to have him thrown out of the hospital and had called one of her friends to pick her up and drive her to "her house". My parents fight continued for the next week or so and I continued to field calls from each side. I was at school in Indiana (they lived in Michigan) so there wasn't a whole lot a could do. No big deal, another mom/dad meltdown. 

The following sunday I got a text from my mom that read "being admitted to U of M neuro floor. Call your sister." I had this sinking feeling and texted back. "Do I need to come home." A one word response. "Yes" I frantically called my sister. The news was just about as bad as it could be. The previous friday my mom had gone to the dr because of what she thought was a migraine, they did a scan but it took two days to come back. Her oncologist called on Sunday to tell her to go to the hospital immediately. She had 3 tumors in her brain, in addition to the buckshot tumors in her lungs. The tumors in her brain were inoperable. 

My fiance and I dropped everything, emailed our professors about the family emergency and made the 6 hour drive. My dad was visiting my sister in PA and they also began to drive. We stopped at the hospital before heading home. My mom seemed jovial, her friend was with her. We talked for a bit and then headed back to my parents house to wait for my dad to get there, my sister was going to stay overnight. My dad returned to the hospital early in the morning, telling Zach and I to get some sleep. 

We got on the road to the hospital about 10am and received a call from my brother "Meet us in the cafeteria DON'T go up to mom's room." When we arrived we went to the cafeteria as instructed and heard about the morning's events. While my sister was there overnight my mom had become erratic, dark, disturbed. At around 6 my sister had helped her shower, and while washing her hair my mom told my sister "I hope they do the cyberknife surgery and miss. I hope they cut a major artery and I bleed out on the table." My sister did her best to keep it together and reassured her "they aren't going to do the surgery remember?" to which my mom replied "I'm going to tell them they have to." Shortly after my mom had my sister kicked out of her hospital room. By the time we'd arrived around 11am my sister, my dad, and one of my aunts had all been banned from my mom's room by her choosing. Her hospital room now had a sign on the door that read "all visitors must visit nursing station before entering this room" I was allowed up after lunch, but they refused to have me go up alone. They had started her on massive steroids to try to stop the swelling in her brain, but as of yet the hadn't worked. She was fine one minute, looking at art books, then the next telling me the same thing she'd told my sister "I hope they do the cyberknife and miss" After about three hours I couldn't take it anymore, but I was one of the few people she hadn't had security escort out so I stayed until my brother could get there to spend the night. 

The next morning we met in the cafeteria again. They were going to get her set up for radiation. Give it one more shot, targeted radiation directed specifically at the tumors in her brain coupled with continuous steroids to help the swelling. My brother, my aunt, my cousin and I accompanied her down to the radiation clinic while she waited for them to come in and give her the rundown of the treatment. He came in and explained but said for her to wait while they got everything set up. 

This is when things got bad. 

My aunt left to go get some food leaving my brother, my cousin and I with my mom. My mom started in on my brother and I. But my brother took the brunt first. "I just want to let you know, that I may not last very long. And you have some choices to make. You can either be involved in my life or you can talk to your dad." My brother was stunned, "mom, maybe this isn't the right time to-" "NO" she shouted back, "you are either involved with me while I have my last days or you can talk to your dad. You cannot talk to him and still love me." My brother responded (much cooler than I would have) "He's my dad, mom, I'm not going to just stop talking to him." She responded back so coldly "well, then you've made your choice. I'd like you to go now." and he left, Leaving my cousin and I in the room. i'm not even certain that my mom was aware my cousin was still in the room, because she then started in on me. "Now, you, you have your graduation coming up, and I want to be there, I told you I would be there. But I WILL NOT COME, I will die before your graduation if you are going to talk to your dad. I understand you staying at the house this week, but you can not talk to him and love me. So you have to make your choice, will you be involved in my last few days or will you choose to talk to our dad. Choose wisely." Meanwhile, I guess my cousin had been texting my aunt, "things are getting bad in here, find an excuse to get Colleen out." Pretty soon after the nurse came in to pull me out because the family ad brought me lunch. I left the room in tears. They all reassured me "Its not her talking its the cancer." I walked around the rest of the day like a zombie. 

After two radiation sessions her mood went completely back to normal, everyone was allowed back in her room, including my dad and was able to go home by the end of the week. This week has become known as "hell week" 

Now, in my head I know that it wasn't her saying those things, it was the tumors pressing on her brain. But, I'm still so hurt. I don't know how to forgive her for causing me so much pain. I really want to but I still feel so hurt. Of all the things you're never supposed to say to your children "I hope I bleed out on the table" and "you can either be with me while i die or talk to your father" are pretty high on the list. I feel so much guilt for being mad at her. She's gone now and I'm still mad. The worst was that in the last few months of her life, she had no idea she had said those things, so I had to continue to interact with her like she never had. I couldn't let her know how hurt I was, because it would only hurt her more because she had no clue of all those events. So how do i deal with this hurt and anger?