Survivor Story

July 20^th, 2009 is a day that I will remember for the rest of my life. I had dreaded this moment for the past two years; I knew it was coming, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. It was the summer before my senior year and this was supposed to be the best time of my life. Winning a soccer tournament and deciding what colleges to apply to were the biggest worries among my friends. By contrast, I felt like I couldn’t even relate to them. They were living in a completely different world than I was. Family dinners, social gatherings and fun-filled evenings were now unthinkable at my house. 

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, when I was only a sophomore. My father and I had just gotten home from a week-long vacation in Florida to visit my grandparents and I was feeling worry-free. My mom picked us up from the airport and I was very happy to see her; we had an extremely close relationship and I had missed her during the week that I was away. We were about a mile from our house when my mom broke the news to us. It was the last thing I expected her to say. Her sister had just begun the recovery process in her own battle with breast cancer, so our family was already familiar with the disease. I was in shock; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I had no idea what to say. My mom was the most giving person I have ever known and the last thing she wanted was for us to worry about her. She kept telling us that everything was going to be fine and that she was starting treatment immediately. 

The process of chemotherapy hit her extremely hard and she didn’t want us to see her suffering, but I could tell. She lost all appetite, couldn’t sleep at night, and lived in dread of her next chemo appointment. For a while things were looking up and her chemo seemed to be working despite the side effects it was giving her after a round of surgery had supposedly removed the cancer from her body. For about a month we thought her battle was over and that she had won. When she visited the doctor for her next scheduled checkup, she came home with the bad news that the cancer had returned and she would have to resume chemo immediately. This news was a definite blow to my mom and the family, but we maintained an optimistic front. My mom’s cancer became “the elephant in the room”; everyone was thinking about it but nobody brought it up. We were living in denial; there was happiness to the point that it felt forced and unreal. Nobody wanted to think or talk about the negative possibilities.

A friend of the family had recently given us the book The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, which expressed the conviction that what you believe will happen actually will. We were afraid of attracting negative energy and instead we all acted as if everything were fine. Looking back, I know that this was not the best approach to take and that my mom needed to talk to us about her fears and worries, but she did not want to upset us or “jinx” her outcome. This way of responding only increased her stress and added to her private burden. These interactions carried on for the majority of my mother’s sickness, and it was not until the very end that we all became open about the reality of her condition.

After it became clear that multiple rounds of chemo were not making progress, she chose to try alternative methods of healing; always a warrior, she tried everything from acupuncture to “hands-on healing” to extreme cancer-focused diets, but nothing was helping. It wasn’t until the cancer spread to her lungs and liver that our family really acknowledged the fact that she was terminally ill and began an open dialogue about it.

The cancer was no longer the elephant in the room because it could no longer be avoided. This transition from denial to acceptance happened pretty quickly. Once she made the decision to stop chemotherapy and continue life on an oxygen tank, we could no longer act as if everything was fine. When my mom opted for quality of life over quantity, it hit me very hard. I wanted her to keep fighting, but I also understood why she was making that decision. From this point on, spending time with family was the most important thing to her, but she never pushed for it. She still encouraged my older sister and me to hang out with our friends and enjoy some degree of normalcy in our lives. Meanwhile, the cancer was spreading even more quickly and breathing was becoming a major problem for her. She felt short of breath at all times and was becoming very weak. I had never seen my mom like this before. She was always a strong person and even when she wasn’t “on top of her game” in the past, she did not let it show. Her decision to start treatments with morphine was very difficult for her; she wanted to be alert and aware of everything going on at all times, but the pain was becoming unbearable.

When hospice came to my house, everything changed drastically. A bed was placed in our living room when she became too weak to walk up and down stairs. All of a sudden my house was filled with a mixture of people--nurses, family members, and friends. I knew the end was coming. Everything was happening so quickly, and all I could do was pray for her to make it to my graduation. As things progressed, I realized that this was not likely and my prayers changed to Christmas, then to Thanksgiving, then just to starting senior year with her there.

I had a deep and memorable conversation with my mom shortly before she passed, one that changed my feelings about her sickness and what was about to happen. She confided that she wasn’t afraid of dying and that the hardest part for her was going to be losing her family and friends. She was upset about all the time she wouldn’t be able to spend with us. She always said that you live life to learn a lesson, and she firmly believed that she was destined to experience this ordeal for a reason. She went on to say that she felt like she was not fulfilling her “motherly duties” and that because of the cancer, she was bailing out early. She expressed later, with laughter in her voice, that she wanted to see me off to college and hoped to dance with me at my wedding. I responded that she was one in a million and that all the good things she heard about me from others were the product of the values she had instilled in me. She appreciated every day of her life and until her last moment she was saying, “What a blessed family I have been given.”

July 18^th was the last day that I saw my mom as the parent I had known for my whole life. We played Scrabble together and although she was weak, she was still herself. The 19^th was an extremely difficult day for me because I could see that she was not only in pain but also was having difficulty just trying to speak. I was torn. I wanted her to be happy and pain-free, but I also wanted my mother to stay with me. That morning she was still somewhat alert, and I exchanged my last words with her. Throughout the day they upped her dosage of morphine to the point where she was on a machine that continuously dripped it into her system. I could see the suffering she was going through. About mid-day she was struggling for air; she would gasp, pause, and gasp again. Sometimes the pauses between breaths were so long that I was certain that it was her last. Watching her that day was extremely painful for me and those images are carved into my memory. The following morning, July 20th, my mother passed away. I was upstairs sleeping and my sister and my dad came up to let me know what had happened. My first reaction was anger because I had wanted to be beside her when she passed from this world to the next, but I had stayed up very late the night before with her.\

I spent the next few days constantly with family. I made the decision to write a eulogy for my mother’s funeral because I had so much to say about her and I thought I would regret it forever if I didn‘t.?My cousins helped me write the tribute while we had a sleepover at my grandparents’ house and I felt proud of what we produced.?Reading it at her funeral was nerve-wracking but comforting at the same time, and I wouldn’t change a thing.?It was the first step in my healing process and in my life after my mother’s death.

Up through the final months of my mother’s sickness she managed my whole life. My mom knew me better than I knew myself and helped me make the right decisions at every turn. She was always a very active and engaged mother, participating in every aspect of my life. She was always ready to help me--and anyone else who needed it--with anything. One of the lessons she learned from this experience with cancer and conveyed to me through both her actions and our conversations is that asking for and accepting help is just as important as giving it. My mom was a very positive person and taught me that even the darkest of clouds has a silver lining. She also taught me to live in the moment and not take life for granted.

A few weeks before she died, I walked downstairs and she was sitting at the end of the kitchen counter. I caught myself looking at her more deeply than usual. I was so content and happy to be around her. Almost immediately she made a comment about how my eyes seemed extra blue and bright that day. I have since noticed myself being more present and appreciating life more fully because of how I saw her in that moment. My mom taught me to live life with no regrets and to forget the “could haves” or “should haves.”

My universe has changed in every respect since the passing of my mother. I have been forced to become much more independent and self-reliant. My world was turned upside down by this experience, and I am working at piecing it back together. I know that nothing will ever be the same as it was when I had my mother guiding me through each stage of life. The process of applying to colleges alone has been extremely difficult and I sometimes imagine how much different and how much easier life would be today if she were still around. I am lucky, though, to have my friends and family, who have stepped up greatly to help me with anything I need; I have a broad support system to lean on.

As I begin the process of higher education, I will be facing new challenges and experiences that I will have to negotiate my way through without my mom’s physical presence. However, I am confident that she’ll be with me and guiding me step by step. And I know for certain that I will apply her lessons throughout my college career and beyond.

Ryan submitted this essay as part of his college admission packages. It is also the essay that won him a $10,000 scholarship from Susan G. Komen for the Cure in 2010. As part of the scholarship, Ryan will be volunteering with Komen Connecticut and serve as a local Komen for the Cure ambassador at the University of Connecticut, where he will be entering as a freshman this fall.