Losing my best friend to Lung Cancer

by Kayla Engle
(Leaf River, IL)

My mom just passed away 11/6/11 from Small Cell Lung Cancer. She battled this disease for almost a year. She was so healthy up until the last week before she died. I helped take care of her so my dad could go to work. I enjoyed every day with her even if some days were just watching tv and others were going out and seeing things together. I've been spent the last three months grieving over the loses of my uncles one of which passed away a week before my mom had. After my last uncle passed away mom got really down and depressed. We got really concerned because we couldn't get her to snap out of it and soon realized something wasn't right because she was having problems getting her legs to move so we took her to the hospital. We soon found out she had three large tumors in her brain putting pressure on it. She had the option of radiation to extend her life by a month or just do a steroid and we've have at most a week with her. She choice to do the steroid and we ended up going into hospis care at their serenity house. Mom was still mom she just couldn't walk but two days before she passed away she started looping and getting confused. This was really hard for me because she knew what she wanted but she wasn't making since to anyone and she wasn't sleeping. We ended up having to put her out with meds. Since mom went into the hospital i had had dreams every night about what was coming and it was overwhelming to me. The day that my mom passed away we just tried to make everything as normal for her as possible and her sisters came to see her just moments before she passed. The last moments with my mom were very special to me even though she was breathing different she opened her eyes and looking at me and squeezed my hand it and then stopped breathing. It was a special moment for me. However after she passed none of her sisters stayed to be there and days after never called or anything. We didn't hear from them until a week later when we held her memorial. I'm having a hard time understanding why they were like that. I right now miss my mom especially with the holidays coming and me and mom were so close. I'm having a really hard time moving on and wanting to get back into the swing of things especially the things me and her did together. I am 20 years old and i lost my mom at the age of 47.