She’s the Strongest Woman I Know

To keep my story as short as possible, I would first like to say that my mom is one of the strongest women I know, she was petite, had many conditions but she was in high spirits, strong, cared and loved everyone and kept a smile on her face.

I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, from 2007 until 2014 when I had to move back home to care for my mom. I found out that she had so much going on: alcoholism, COPD, high blood pressure, gout, and depression. Moving back home to care for her was very hard, the family wasn’t very helpful. I had to work, plus I was enrolled in college during that time. So I had a lot going on as well.

But after getting myself situated and recognizing what her needs were I became stressed, depressed, and burned out. I was so tired. She later developed walking pneumonia in 2015 which almost killed her putting her in the hospital and therapy centers for long periods of time just to get her healthy enough to come back home.

While in the hospital she had a stroke. The stroke caused her to lose her speech and she was unable to move her left side or swallow anything. I was like, God give me a break. At this point I was so stressed out that I didn’t know what to do.

After the stroke, she was transferred to a rehab facility where she got pneumonia again, but in my opinion, the pneumonia was never cleared before her leaving the hospital. Next thing I know, the rehab facility is calling me telling me that she’s transferred back to the hospital, this time to the ER and placed in ICU.

I went to see her and her body lay lifeless on the hospital bed. I broke down, I cried, I almost fainted, but I knew I had to stay strong for her or I would eventually be in the hospital and no one would be there for her like me. But with God, she pulled through. She came home later on, but her battle was only going to get worse.

One day in November 2016, I was at work while one of her aides was there until I got off. But she called me earlier in the day saying that my mom was acting different and her hand had dropped. She called the ambulance and they took her straight to the hospital. The hospital ran all kinds of tests on her. One, in particular, was the CT scan, it showed that my mom had multiple tumors in her brain the doctor told me. After he told me and left the room, my mom had a seizure right there in front of me. Jesus!!!, I had to leave out the room because I felt myself about to lose it.

I got in my car and screamed to God!!! NOOOooo God NOooo!!! cancer, out of everything she had. Stage 4 lung cancer with metastasis of the brain was the one that took her from me after everything she went through. I was told by the doctors and nurses that she had a few weeks to a month to live with treatment, but I told them no to treatment due to her already being so weak from her other illnesses.

Instead of a few weeks to a month, she lived from me finding out November 12, 2016, until February 6, 2017. She was with me through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. I am thankful for that. Mom, you are not suffering anymore, love you.