I have written this book to help others who are on the journey, the end-of-life journey. I pray that you find my book helpful, even if you take away only one idea. I hope this book will touch your soul as it has touched mine to share it with you. Maybe you will relate to my story and perhaps learn from my experience and the reference materials I’ve listed. Whether you read this from the perspective of a patient, a caretaker, or a family member, I hope all who read this book will gain knowledge and strength from it. It is my mission to depict my Mother’s life and her walk toward the death of life as we know it. I wrote this book so that others may know her bravery, understand her fear, and learn from her story. It is about my Mother’s journey and my own in walking alongside her, providing the support that she needed. This book tells of her struggle to deal with a cancer diagnosis that had no hope, from the very beginning. How do you deal with that kind of diagnosis? If you knew you had a disease that was going to kill you quickly but you didn’t know exactly when or how, what would you do? Would you immediately travel to faraway places? Would you spend all your money? Would you stay at home with your family and friends and enjoy each moment with them?

Everyone is different and will react differently to this kind of news. I think the reality is that if you know you have an incurable disease and you don’t feel good to begin with, most likely you won’t travel to faraway destinations. You would want to stay close to your doctors, hospitals, and family. Situations like this rarely play out in real life as they do in the movies. How do you deal with this kind of diagnosis when your life is full? You are active, still working, never ill, and all of a sudden one day you show up ill. You go to the doctor and he informs you that you have this rare cancer and there is really no cure. Nothing has proven effective for extending the life of someone with your disease. How do you deal with this sort of shock? How does your family deal with it?

There are many different types of death. Fast, slow, knowing, and unknowing. What is worse? Knowing or unknowing, fast or slow—each has its different journeys. Each has its pros and cons. We can never predict what ours will be.

In this book I tell the story of my beloved Mother. The complexities of her illness, the sadness of no hope, the anxiety and fear of the unknown and of what is to come. How it affected our family and how my family responded to this kind of stress. How brave my Mother was on her journey, and how frightened. How I became the brave adult in her presence and the frightened child when I was out of her presence. How she choose to know nothing of her disease in the beginning. She would say, “No news is good news.” How I knew all the ugliness of her cancer, via the Internet, from the very beginning and had to pretend I was upbeat. There are many differences between our two generations and how we handle such matters. How do you prepare yourself to lose your mother or a father? How do you deal with the pressure of supporting them, taking care of them while maintaining your own life? How do you deal with their fear and your own fear of death? How do you deal with the grief of losing them? How do the different members of your family deal with stress and grief? There is no way to know these things in advance. You must walk this road to know what kind of person you are and how you deal with this sort of life-changing event. Holding your loved one’s hand during the process of illness and walking with him or her down the road to the end of life can be poignant, bittersweet, demanding, frightening, confusing, and surreal. It is an experience that makes you grow as a person. One thing is for sure: We all must walk this journey in our lifetimes. Whether with our parents, our spouses, our children, or ourselves, it is virtually guaranteed.

It was my nature to serve as her advocate, I took it very seriously and I was proud to do it. Everyone should have an advocate when sick, be it a family member, friend, or paid professional. It was my pleasure to try and give her some comfort during her last days. Just to know that people you love are looking out for your best interests when you cannot takes a lot of burden away. It always put a smile on my face when she would say, “Yes, boss,” or “No, boss.” You never know how you will react in emergency situations. I tend to be calm and take charge. My family would say that I am bossy, and that’s okay; I am, every situation needs a boss. During my mom’s illness, that was the case, and I took the lead. I was the first to contact the doctor and hear the news of the cancer, and to get on the Internet and discover all I could about hope for her future. I was the first to lead her toward different therapies, doctors, alternatives, opinions, research, cancer seminars. . .anything to find hope. It was just my nature to be this person; it wasn’t something I even thought about; I just jumped in. I didn’t know what else to do. It was the only way I felt that I was being proactive.

Even though I was the advocate, there was a team of family members working hard all the time. It was so nice to have people to share the duties. Helping out at Mom’s house, getting the groceries, doing the cooking, visiting and being with Mom were all shared by family and friends. We have this huge family and my family did a good job of sharing the load. The teamwork by all members of the family is important. Each role and how family members react is going to be different. Each one of us is different and will not react the same to this sort of stress. No one role is more important than the other; every role is vitally important in the circle of support. If everyone does the best he or she can, that’s all anyone can ask.

In this book I also share with you some tips that worked for me when it came to dealing with doctors, hospitals, insurance, and getting the support you need. In any case, I hope you picked up this book for help and guidance. It is my wish that it gives you some tools that will help you on your journey.

It would have made my Mom very happy and proud that a story about her life and illness may help others. For me, in many ways, this book memorializes my Mother’s kind, generous, and always helpful spirit. So here we go; here’s our story, however humble it may be I hope it touches your soul.

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