MY MOM IS A LUNG CANCER SURVIVOR

NOVEMBER 17, 2019

My mom is our rock, our matriarch, a source of love and light for so many people. She was healthy, active, never smoked a day in her life.

SLOW LIVING

Notes on slow, seasonal + intentional living from a Windy Peak in Montana.

MY MOM IS A LUNG CANCER SURVIVOR.

I’m getting ready to head out to yoga class this morning with my mom. It' isn’t my typical yoga class but one for Cancer survivors and their caregivers. The class is filled with a diverse group of people, young and old, men and women but they all have one thing in common…cancer.

My mom is a cancer survivor. In February of 2013 she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. I remember the phone call I received from my dad almost seven years ago. It was Valentines Day and my first or second day at my new job at the local Food Pantry. My dad called me several times. I didn’t answer the first time since I was working but picked it up the second time. Through hysterical crying I heard him say, ‘Kris, Mom has cancer’. I’ll never forget his voice and those haunting words.

Mom was sick for a little while before she was diagnosed. Nothing major…we thought she had a bad cold, maybe bronchitis. After a nurse practitioner picked up on some abnormal sounds in her lungs, they did an x-ray and found a large amount of fluid surrounding her lungs. After pathology tests were done it was confirmed that my mom had stage four lung cancer and was given less than a year to live.

Naturally we were all crushed. My mom is our rock, our matriarch, a source of love and light for so many people. She was healthy, active, never smoked a day in her life. Initially she decided to turn down chemo and go on hospice but after some serious thought, deep conversation with family and a phone call with her trusted doctor she decided to fight the damn thing.

From there she did a year’s worth of chemotherapy with frequent therocentesis to drain the excess fluid around her lungs. She also had fluid built up around her heart. In March of 2014 the chemo became ineffective and she had surgical procedure where they opened her chest and placed a pericardial window to drain the fluid from around her heart. After this she was sent to Salt Lake City to get a second opinion and there they discovered that she had an ALK mutation. This meant that she was able to try targeted therapy which she was successfully on for 18 months after that.

During this time my husband and I decided to get pregnant and have our first child. He was born in October of 2015. We honestly weren’t sure if he would meet his loving grandma but sure enough my mom was there to see him just hours after he was born.

A month after Leon’s birth mom started having vision changes, difficulty coming up with words and some balance issues. She had a brain MRI which showed a large brain tumor in the left occipital area and a smaller one in the right cerebellum. She went through emergency surgery to remove the large tumor and was in the hospital for 5 days. She came home on Thanksgiving to celebrate with our family. Due to the progression of her cancer she stopped her current targeted therapy.

In December 2015 she underwent radiation targeting the operative site and the smaller tumor and switched to a different targeted therapy drug.

Since all of this madness my mom has been stable. She gets scans every few months and is monitored very closely. She has seen two more grandchildren come into the world (one being my daughter, the other being my niece). She has traveled abroad with my brother and even went to Washington DC to advocate for increased funding for lung cancer research and awareness. Two months ago she and my dad packed up their house that they had lived in for 30 years and moved to a beautiful home in Livingston, Montana to be closer to their grandchildren. I feel so blessed to be able to see them every day.

This February will mark 7 years of my mom’s journey as a cancer survivor. I could call it a miracle but I know it is all because of my mom’s positivity, strength and strong will.

In honor of Lung Cancer Awareness Month my mom is raising money for Alk Positive Lung Cancer Research. Click here if you feel so inclined to donate.

‘Where there is light, there must be shadow, where there is shadow there must be light.’ - Haruki Murakami