I couldn't help it

So my little brother recently had surgery on his wrist. He had to write a paper for his english class and needless to say found typing quite difficult. So naturally he asked me to help. He had to write about one incident that completely changed his life. He chose to write about my mom. Well I couldn't help it I basically wrote the paper for him. (don't tell his teacher)

It was August of 2006 when one doctors appointment determined how my life would be for the next couple of years. She had not been feeling well for sometime but you couldn’t tell by her attitude. It was the last day of my Eagle Scout project and we had been working hard all day. The phone rang; the doctor called to set up an appointment and asked my mother and father to come in to talk. Ovarian cancer is a funny thing. It is nearly impossible to detect and in my mom’s case was detected too late. She didn’t tell me right away. She made a statement while we were driving, “you won’t be able to do that when I am not here.“ I asked question after question until my dad pulled the car over and she looked at me and said, “I have cancer.“ The word “cancer” left me confused. I knew cancer was an illness and I knew what I had seen on television but I had no idea how physically, emotionally, and mentally it would be on all of my family. She had in stage, stage five ovarian cancer and the time frame was short. They gave her six months to a year to live. Six months to a year for any other person but doctor did not know my how stubborn my mother was.
Times where hard. My days where spent in hospitals, chemo appointments, and doctors visits. The first chemo session put her in the hospital for two weeks. The tumor that was the size of two softballs had let out a poison into her body that nearly took her life. Infectious disease teams where brought in from around the state to help her. Her next surgery took place in November of 2006. She has over 30 pounds of internal organs removed that had been attacked by the cancer. She spent a month in the hospital and 53 staples and a lot of pain later she was able to return home. Two tubes remained in her side for the next month to help drain any infection from where her spleen was. It took her three months to be strong enough to go back on chemo. Another tumor the size of a softball formed where her spleen used to be and put her back in the hospital for surgery. Chemo attacks the fast growing cells and makes the healing time slower. It took her months to recover from the surgeries she had been through.
The next little while was full of ups and downs. She tried chemo after chemo and nothing seemed to be working. It was inevitable, there was no cure for the cancer but she refused to give up. She took every punch the cancer had to give her and then just turned the other cheek. She had the philosophy that you are only given what you can handle and she was ready for the challenge. She continued to do the things she wasn’t supposed to. She went camping, fishing, shopping, and even learned to quilt. She just decided that she was going to be herself with or without cancer. It was around July 2008 that things took a dramatic turn for the worse. Chemo has a tendency to upset the stomach and cause vomiting. Although vomiting is normal my mom started to throw up everything that she ate. After some convincing she let me take her to the hospital to make sure that everything was alright. I wasn’t ready for what happened next. She had tumors in her bowls that caused an obstruction. The obstruction didn’t allow any food to pass through her small or large intestines. The doctor said that this was it. She refused to believe it was true and with a tube through her noise pumping out the contents of her stomach and with no food or water for a total of three days she took her last round of chemo. The pain finally was too much to bear. She called my family into her hospital room and with eyes swollen with tears and a crack in her voice asked, “would you be disappointed with me if I gave up?” It wasn’t the doctors appointment, or the news of my mom getting cancer that changed my life it was those words. A couple of small words changed my life and the lives of my family forever.
It was August 7, 2008 when my mother died in our house on hospice. She doubled the time frame she was given and she did it with spunk and humor. She was strong, stubborn, independent, loud, obnoxious, rude, and completely priceless; she was my best friend.