Since 2008 didn’t exactly start out the way I wanted with the loss of my mom and handling all the things that came with it…my wonderful boyfriend, Steve decided that I needed a quick weekend stress buster.

“Fran what are you doing from Friday, March 28-30?”
“Well, I’m doing my  “Dare to do it” talk on Wednesday, March 26 for the Westchester Century 21 awards breakfast, but I’m open on that weekend.”
“Good. Consider yourself booked.  We’re going on a surprise trip. Bring a bathing suit and your passport.”
“Nothing more?”
“That’s up to you.” I smiled.
I love surprises…let me change that…I love good surprises… I don’t want the Gods of future adventures to misinterpret that.

Ten minutes later I get a call from the Century 21. “Fran we need to change your speaking date to Monday, March 31. We need you here by 8 a.m. are you open?”
“Ah….Yes.”
I quickly called Steve back. “What time are we landing on Sunday night?”
“Midnight, be home by 1:30 AM.”
“Tight but I can do it”.

So with speech written, at 5:15 Friday morning, Steve and I head for the airport. Three hours later we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Now unless I’m mistaken Florida doesn’t’ require a passport. So I ask Steve, “So we are going on another plane or boat, right?”
“Nope. We are renting a car and visiting my mom.”
“Well unless your mom suddenly signed up and became and independent country…we don’t need a passport to visit her. Is she coming with us on the trip or was the passport thing just to throw me off?”
“You’ll see. You always wanted to go to Cuba right?”
“Yeah right, that’s on my bucket list.”

We rented a car and had a nice lunch with his sister and mom. I became a little teary eyed because Steve’s mom was on a cane and it reminded me of my mom…I just wanted to help and hug her. I was so happy Steve and I spent time with them.

After lunch we headed back to the airport, adventure style. You see the trunk of the convertible we rented decided not to lock, so for the entire time on the highway, I keep picturing the luggage catapulting into the air and smashing into another car… which would have put a damper on the trip. Luckily for us and the other drivers…the wind kept the trunk down so our luggage didn’t become projectile missiles.

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I arrived back from Jamaica on Thursday at midnight. I was exhausted and went to sleep ready to face whatever challenge faced my mom and I, head on.

Friday, Jan 25th 2008
First thing in the morning I was over at the Hudson Valley Hospital.
As I was headed to my mom’s room I ran into the hospitalist , Dr. Demeterio. I tried to restrain my anger because it was her, who despite a message she left on my cell phone saying she had a concern about discharging my mother, did so anyway. If she was so concerned, why did she discharge an elderly woman with pneumonia who was protesting to stay? (Echoes from Sicko rang in my head.)

Very smugly, Dr. Demeterio said, “ “It was lucky that your mom came back into ER that night. We wound up running a whole battery of tests.” (Of course why these tests weren’t done before remains a mystery.)

She continued, “ We’ve discovered she has a lump under her left arm. We believe its cancer. That would explain her swelling. A biopsy is going to be done on Monday and then we’ll know for sure. Not sure what kind of cancer yet, but the puzzle pieces are adding up. We have her on a machine to drain fluid from her lungs. I’ve told your mother she may have cancer. Your mother is not strong; she won’t be able to take chemo. Be prepared for the worst.”

“You told my mother! Why would you do that before the biopsy has been done? Do me a favor don’t be so quick to write my mother off. And while we’re at it. How is it that she is on a lung machine now having her fluids drained, and she wasn’t on one prior to leaving the hospital? She was back in ER within the hour. How is it that in a hour, fluid accumulated in her lungs?” Why wasn’t a chest x-ray done before you let her go?

She said, “We were going to do a follow up x-ray, and she was reacting well to the antibiotics. We are doing all we can for your mother.”

I was not feeling the love for this doctor at the moment. If this were a cartoon, she would be thrown off a cliff.

I walked into my mom’s room she was attached to all kinds of tubes and her body was swollen from toes to the middle of her back. I mean really swollen like a balloon.

My mom and I talked for a while. She was in pain. They had her on percoset; they also gave her a shot of Torodol. Mom said this was the worst week of her life so far…with all the tests.

In my heart, I didn’t think my mom had cancer. After all she had been in the hospital originally from March 26th till Sept. 10th, surely if she had cancer, one of the many doctors would have spotted it before now. Plus, a chest CAT scan had been done in August and there were no signs.

Dr. Demeterio came in the room…my mom immediately tensed up…I knew she didn’t like her. I mentioned to her that my mom looked dehydrated. She said, “That’s the least of your problems.”
Again I wanted to smack her with a tire iron. Could this woman be any colder!
“Well I’d like her on an IV…last I heard water was important to the human body.”
Shortly after she was put on an IV.

Before I left the hospital that day, I checked in with my mom’s former roommate, who had been moved to another floor. She witnessed along with her friend, my mom being forced to sign the discharge papers. I was furious and called the supervisor.

At that moment however I had to make a decision. Are my energies going to be focused on what was done, or what I could do now to help my mom? I chose the later, figuring I could deal with the other matters after my mom was better.

After I left the hospital I went into mission mode. I started calling all the doctors my mom had seen since March 26th and asking for copies of all her medical records. I knew it would take a few days for this information to be gathered and I wanted to have it on hand if anyone needed it to help my mom…I felt I was going to need this get a second opinion, and just try to see if anyone missed anything.

I called my sister and told her what was happening. She threw up.
I talked to my seven-year-old niece, Athena. Over the phone we did visualization for my mom together.

It was going to be a long weekend.

Saturday, Jan 26
Believing in the power of prayer, I sent out a mass email to my friends asking them to visualize my mom cooking manicotti in her new kitchen. I got hundreds of responses. I printed out some of them and later read them to my mom. Her eyes lit up, ”Wow” is all she could say.

At 12:50 pm, I spoke Dr. George, the oncologist for the fist time. She told me that my Mom complained of pains in bone, ribs and spine. So they did a bone scan. It shows she has metastic disease (which means it looks like cancer has spread.) She said my mom also has tumor markers in her blood. The normal CEA level is less than 5. My mom has 254. We’ll know more after the biopsy…but there is hope.”
This woman I wanted to hug.

Because of the mass email, my friend Catherine decided to come to the hospital to visit my mom with her new boyfriend Ron. Ron and I clicked right away and we were making my mom and Catherine laugh with our banter. They brought my mom beautiful flowers. My mom told Catherine, “I like this guy, hold onto him.” Catherine smiled.

My sister and my niece came up that night too. They visited with my mom for a while. My mom was surrounded by love.

That night I thanked God for all my wonderful friends who were being so supportive. I also thanked God that even though we had a small family we had a strong one.

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