My mother started complaining of back pain in September of 2003. She was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic inflammatory breast cancer in early December. Her condition was terminal, but her doctors thought they could extend her life by two or three years with treatment. They gave her radiation and chemo, and the plan was to operate in the spring.
We were all in a state of shock at first. She went to the doctor because she had a backache, and after a series of tests, we learned she was dying. But her treatment went well. Her tumors shrank, and she even started to feel better. I began to believe that I would have her around for a while longer. I imagined that there would even be some good times before the inevitable.
Then on the evening of February 4, 2004, my father knocked on my door and told me that my mother had a temperature. He asked me if he should call the nurse. I told him yes. I was in charge of digesting all the information the doctors and the hospital gave us, and I read that because mother’s immune system had been compromised by the treatment, any sign of fever should be dealt with immediately. It was a sign of infection that she might not be able to fight off without help.
Dad called the nurse who advised him to take her to the ER. Because of the condition of Mother’s back, she had to go in an ambulance, and Dad and I followed in our car. They took mother to an examination room and Dad and I waited in the waiting room. After a couple of hours, we were called back. The ER doctor informed us that Mother had a touch of pneumonia. A touch. A mere touch. She said it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about, and that she just needed some antibiotics, but because she was a cancer patient, she needed to stay in the hospital.
Dad and I went home that night thinking Mother would be discharged in a day or two. We were wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment