Of cows and cancer

"The cow is out of the barn."

It was July 1984, and those words were spoken by my older sister in a phone conversation to our mother. She, my sister, was in the hospital in Daytona Beach, FL where she had been sent for testing. Her home at the time was about 45 minutes south of there, and the local medical center was small and very basic. She had been having back problems for several months, and chiropractic adjustments weren't really helping. She tried not to let it slow her down, but when it became impossible for her to get out of bed one morning her significant other somehow managed to get her to the local hospital.

The details of that particular hospital stay are fuzzy, because at the time it didn't seem like anything more than a nuisance. What they discovered in Daytona would change things forever.

Cancer. A tumor the size of a grapefruit had spread from her breast and wrapped itself around her spine. She was 44 years old.

If you live in the country, or know anyone from the country, you might understand the importance behind her words. "The cow is out of the barn." Once the cow is out of the barn, it's too late to close the gate. The 'cow' in this case, cancer, was too widespread to contain.

I made the four hour drive up from Miami to meet my mother's plane from her summer home in West Virginia. That afternoon we began the task of facing this beast head on. Our mother had been widowed six years earlier, and from that moment on she gave up whatever life she had begun to rebuild without our father. "We'll beat this," she said and she never gave up even when my sister begged to.

She began the first round of chemotherapy, an experimental procedure back then, that was combined with a dose of hormones. She was entered into a national database so that her results could be compared and studied, and that hopefully she could be helped by someone else or vice versa. I was the baby, fourteen years younger, and I had a four year old son and a job that I needed to get back to. I kept my chin up as I said goodbye, but I sobbed all the way home.

She endured the chemo and radiation, and eventually that 'cow' was reduced to a blip the size of a pea. Remission was a gift and she returned to work full time and traveled everywhere she could manage. I had another son, and eventually our mother moved back into her home and became the more frail of the two. We cared for her then, my sister via long distance while I did the leg work here.

The cancer returned and when Harriet was too sick from radiation to attend mom's memorial service in December 1993, she decided she'd had enough fun. She made the well informed decision to stop further treatment and it was glorious! She visited, we packed up mother's house, and moaned at all of the crap she had collected. We sold it to the first interested buyer because we were afraid we'd never get another one.

We shopped, we went antiquing, we went out to lunch, and we laughed. We took mother's ashes back to West Virginia and held a small graveside service. Harriet insisted that she didn't need the closure of a service, but I knew better. We were able to grieve together as we placed flowers on her grave, right next to dad's.

What I didn't realize was how sick she was. It was now August, and by September she was back in the hospital and we were looking for a nursing home for her. They spoke of hospice care, but I couldn't understand why; they were only sending her to rehab to get stronger, so that she could return home. Weren't they?

On October 20th, 1994 I received the call. She had died peacefully around 1:30 that afternoon. She was 54 years old. Too young, everyone said. I knew that as well, but this past August I turned 54 myself. It was a benchmark I have counted up to for the past 14 years and never spoke of to anyone. It sounded morbid, even to my own ears, but now? Now I have outlived my big sister and there were so many more things to do, so much to talk about, so many questions to ask.

There is nothing I can do except to refuse to become another statistic of this horrid disease that claims lives and devastates families. In 1984, mammograms were not the norm. "Those are just benign cysts, don't worry." Well, we should have worried. But it was 1984, and who knew? We didn't then, but we do now.

Get tested. Refuse to take doctor's reports lightly. Wear pink! Not just in October, but throughout the year. I find it ironic that the month she died is now Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I like to think that just maybe she had something to do with it.

If you have a sister? Cherish her, love her, hug her tightly. And then give her an extra one from me.