Mommy Cancer Journey

Friday, we chartered a beautiful vintage sailboat and sent off mom in style!  Her ashes were placed into a flower basket and we gently lowered her into the sea.  We shouted "WE LOVE YOU MOM" Petals and flower followed. It was beautiful, she would have loved it. Thank you so much for capturing this special memory for us: Videography: Cotton Love Studios Photography: Eileen Liu Photography ------- Saturday, we followed up with a BBQ celebration for her life! 8/18/08 (she loved those 8's!) It was much bigger than we had originally anticipated and things didn't go as planned haha. We had wanted it to be on Baby Beach in Dana Point. Baby beach is a location filled with fun and activities to do for people of all ages! We wanted to show people the fun place to fish for sardines, to catch crabs, the aquarium/sea learning center and all the fun activities we used to do as children there! Maybe even paddle board, or kayak around the protected harb...

From Tiffany's Perspective August 14, 2018 Today was the day that mom was cremated. Mom didn't have any specific wishes for when she passed away. She just wanted something small.  So for her cremation,  we wore something bright and colorful so we could send off mom in style, to celebrate and cheer her on her journey. My sister, my dad, and I all picked something that also has something memorable that related to mom. Admittedly after seeing how different mom had looked just a few hours after she passed away on Friday, I was concerned about how she'd appear after waiting in the mortuary for three days. I had a fair amount of experience with cadavers so I had some confidence that I would be okay, but I knew that was not what I wanted my sister to see if mom had advanced further since Friday (or even if she looked the same as she did on Friday night). Mom would not want us to see her in that state. To my surprise, she looked wonderful. She was so peaceful, as though she...

1:40pm, Friday.  I was standing under the Alaska sign at LAX when I read the text from my Uncle "She passed away" ----------------------------------- 3 hours before that, I was in Santa Rosa. I had just spoken to my sister.  It was urgent, mom was already doing the death rattle.  We had belatedly realized mom's light gurgling was actually the death rattle. It was so quiet, my sister could barely hear it.  Google had informed us it was very loud and more horrifying like a zombie. Google was wrong. I felt so anxious, and I was so afraid I wouldn't make it. I needed to get down there right away. Why didn't I just stay down there? What if I don't make it? Did I tell her everything I want to?  What would I want my last words to her to be??  I forced myself to focus. I could let my mind run once I was on the plane. It was around 11:00am There are so few direct flights from Santa Rosa, I have them all memorized. I knew there was one flight fr...

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but I think your mom might pass as soon as the next day.. at best I think since she young and a fighter.. she might have two weeks, it's really hard to say..." That's what the hospice nurse told my sister today. Our minds began swirling with all these words that the Social Worker told us we needed to prepare for before her passing... Power of attorney.. Trust... Mortuary preparations... will.. advance directive.  We've been working non-stop to prepare, but still we wonder...did we take care of everything we needed to? We don't know.  If we didnt.. how do we do anything with her in the condition she is in?  Can we just ignore it and spend time with her instead?  We don't know what the right answer is.  ---- Shortly after my last post, she was admitted into the hospital for a week. We had many visitors come see her during that time. Each time someone came, my mom would burst into tears as if it was th...

Its been quite the Tornado of events lately! It's been really heartbreaking  to see my normally strong and stubborn mom, so sad and broken.  She's been breaking out into tears as soon as she sees people and constantly reminding me I have to take care of my sister. While sobbing, she told me she always thought she was strong, but she feels so useless now, and she's never been in so much pain in her life. Physically my mom is skin and bones, but her belly is bloated like a 4 month pregnant lady (due to damage to her stomach from radiation)  Her legs and feet are also extremely swollen with fluid retention (most likely due to decreased liver or heart function) She has chronic spasm coughs that prevent her from sleeping, the only position she doesn't cough, is hunched over the dinner table like this. There are a million prescription bottles scattered over our dining table, all sorts of opiates, sleep aids, painkillers. But nothing seems to help. We purchased...

Hi everyone! It's been awhile since we posted, so here's a general update on what has since happened. Mom has now completed 10 immunotherapy sessions (9 had chemo). We went to the City of Hope hospital to get a second opinion, because the chemo and immunotherapy were causing her a lot of unpleasant side effects (migraines, super itchy scalp, back pain, leg weakness, constant dry cough - to the point her ribs hurt-, tiredness, frequent urination, etc), with seemingly zero effect on the tumor. The second doctor recommended her to stay only on the immunotherapy, and we'll continue to proceed depending on how the next CT scan goes. The scan is scheduled for mid-February. We learned that immunotherapy tends to have a delayed response, so we hope that is the case here! The second doctor recommended against herbal medicine, as it may interfere with the drugs. Although my mom feels that the herbal medicine has helped her significantly, she will stop taking it for now to see if ho...

July 21, 2017 The results from the PET scan came back, and unfortunately it showed no change- the tumor size was the same and the chest lymph nodes still show abnormal activity. We're a little disheartened that the chemo does not seem to be changing anything besides making mom very tired and suffer awful headaches and leg weaknesses. However, we are also happy that at least it means the cancer is not growing! The doctor said that mom will need to continue chemo for more than 4 sessions, unlike previously expected. Since the chemo isn't terribly effective, we are looking into alternative medicine to supplement.