How Cancer Impacted My Life

Editor’s Note - At the recent Senior Honors night, several students were awarded scholarships from Pass on Joy, in memory of Marc Stringer. The students wrote on how cancer affected their lives. The stories so moved me when I read them that I knew they needed to be shared with the community. I received permission from the students,before printing here.

I can't remember a time when cancer didn't affect me. My mother  was diagnosed with GIST at the young age of twenty-two. Seven years later, she was able to give birth to me after temporarily stopping her medication. The fact that I exist, despite the odds, has to do with cancer.

While there wasn't a time growing up when my mom didn't have cancer there was a time

when I wasn't aware of her diagnosis . And by that,  I don't just mean four, five or six years old. It wasn't until I was in the third grade that I learned she had Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors.

My mom didn't want to use the word cancer around me because she didn't want to scare me. I just knew she had to get surgeries a lot. Even when I would fly to Boston to visit her in Brigham and Women's Hospital I never really questioned what exactly she had surgery for. Then one day when I was nine an older woman came up to my mother at a party and asked her, “How's the cancer?” At that moment my nine-year-old self assumed this woman had a bad memory and got my mom mixed up with someone else.. But I kept replaying it in my mind, especially the word cancer. I started wondering how significant these surgeries •were and if my mom really did have cancer. I finally got the courage to ask her the actual diagnosis and she told me about GIST.

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My mother was tough self-disciplined and never complained despite the many pains and challenges GIST brought into her life. I remember watching her do intense workouts in the living room to build up strength before surgery. I remember her stocking our pantry with the healthiest groceries you could think of. I remember her having to learn to live with a drain. I even remember the drawer full of lotions, she bought to help with the intense dryness one of her

medications was causing. 

Because she usually·seemed so tough, it was hard to see how upset she was about losing her hair. My mom was beautiful, with long blonde thick hair, and she had lots of it. Until she started losing it. The day she cut it, she was so upset. She eventually bought a blonde wig to feel more like herself. Though to be honest, she pulled off the pixie cut very well. Despite these challenges she kept a strong faith in God. Something that stuck out to me was her necklace that said Faith > Fear. Whenever I expressed fear or sadness she would comfort me and tell me to give my worries to God because He was in control.

On a spring day of my eighth-grade year my parents came home from a doctor's appointment and sat me down with some bad news. They told me that my mom's cancer was getting worse and that she most likely would die. This was gut-wrenching news. I just remember the three of us hugging, crying and praying on the couch that night. For the weeks following it felt like the world had slowed down. How could I continue with my life knowing that my mom didn't have much longer on this earth? She had always had cancer but no one had ever given me news this devastating before. I noticed my mom's health had started to decline. She was losing weight and cognitive ability. She even became more tense. The biggest tell that she was feeling bad was how often she was ordering chicken fingers that summer. That was an unusual choice

 for April Stephens, the dietician. It wasn't until after my first week of high school that things really started to go downhill.

To be honest, I don't remember the specifics of how everything went down. I just remember feeling like I'd lost my mom before I actually lost my mom. Her legs began to grow too weak and swollen that she needed a wheelchair. Her face became hollow and unrecognizable. Due to low blood sugar levels, she would enter states of psychosis where she would struggle to form sentences. And when she could form them, it made no sense. One night, I woke up to flashing red and blue lights. I looked out my window and saw my mom being lifted onto an ambulance. My grandmother came to tell me that my mom's blood sugars were so low that they had to take her to the emergency room. When I think back to freshman year, I was going to school on edge every day because my home was chaotic. During the fall of 2022, our house saw a lot more people than usual. My grandparents practically moved in, and there would be different nurses every night. My mom's best friend would come to stay with us, preachers would come to pray, and friends and neighbours would bring casseroles and desserts for us. Eventually, my mom was put in hospice. Even more people came to the house to say their goodbyes. Her last day was December 18, 2022. I had a moment alone to say goodbye to her before she passed. I don't remember what I said, but I know nothing could have been enough to express my love and gratitude for her, and what a great mother she was to me.

Living with the reality of her death has been a struggle. Because of cancer, I'rn missing

out on many potential mother-daughter moments we could have shared. Fortunately, she left such an impact on my life that I am reminded of her in many ways. Memories of her are brought back, whether I'm going on a walk, cooking a recipe, or doing my hair. Even though my time with her was cut tragically short, I learned so much from my mom in the fifteen years that I had her. She was the perfect example of elegance and strength. Even though she wasn't the most outspoken woman, her love for God and others shone through her.