Real Girl Next Door

by Denise Richards

  For a while, it looked as if she might be one of the lucky few. She was cancer-free as my marriage to Charlie dissolved and I took up with Richie. In between CAT scans, which she had every three months, she provided me comfort and encouragement. When I was going through my divorce and everything else, my mom was my rock through it all. “You’re so much stronger than you think,” she said. I would tell her I felt guilty, even telling her about my challenges when here she was facing the biggest challenge of her life. But, she explained, “I’m your mother. Cancer doesn’t stop that.” After her cancer returned, she put on a brave face despite fearing what lay ahead. In that alone, she presented a powerful and lasting lesson that I return to daily. Facing the worst, my mom showed me how to be my best.

  2

  DURING A BREAK from Bon Jovi’s European tour, Richie flew home and we arranged for our cancer-stricken parents to undergo exams at the famed MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. All of us—Richie’s parents and my parents and the two of us—flew there and met with a team of specialists. Earlier, my mom had done a few days of experimental chemo and gotten so sick she had to be hospitalized. It nearly killed her. So we were desperate to find another option for her and the best available treatment for Richie’s dad.

  We spent part of a week there. During the day, Richie and I went with our parents to their appointments and then spent the nights going out to wonderful dinners in an effort to lighten the mood. Not surprisingly, none of us had much of an appetite. During one of my mom’s appointments, she broke down, and it broke my heart. She couldn’t help herself. The doctors were extremely frank about the severity of her condition and the difficulty of treatment. They were kind and human, but direct, and their directness carried a frightening gravity. It was like driving straight into the concrete wall of mortality.

  I did everything I could to stay strong for her. The doctors at Anderson set up a treatment plan for her with a new specialist close to home. There wasn’t much to do except try another drug, a new kind of chemo taken orally, which we thought wouldn’t cause the same severe side effects as the previous chemo she’d tried. But we were wrong. I don’t know how my mom battled that horrific disease, but she did. It was sheer force of will—the will to live. The People magazine with our Mother’s Day picture came out and I would stare at the original in my living room, the four of us, with my mom still looking healthy, her eyes dancing with brightness as she cuddled with her granddaughters, and I’d think, why her? Even if it was her, why couldn’t she beat it? Why was the disease unrelenting, uncaring, and unloving?

  That summer, I moved into a slightly bigger home to have enough room for my parents to stay over when they could, which wasn’t often enough. My mom’s new chemo drug made her very sick. I made sure to visit every weekend that she was feeling up to it. I was also distracted much of the time by my custody fight with Charlie. Communication between us dwindled to nil, and the tone, at least on his end, was nasty. When I dropped the kids off for his visitation, I wasn’t allowed inside the gate of his community. I had to sit in my car until someone from his house drove out and got my nanny and the girls. I hated to leave them. It broke my heart. A similar routine took place when I arrived to pick them up. One time a handyman brought them back out. It confused the kids. It was awful. I cried every time I drove away after dropping them off. I’d ask myself, “How did this happen? How’d we get to this point?” I had no choice; that’s what was in our stipulation.

  Our custody case required what seemed like endless depositions and court visits. It also devastated me to sit across from the man I married, the man I thought I’d be with forever, and have him glare at me for seven hours while I was questioned about the most intimate details of my—no, our life. I felt exposed in so many ways, though I got to the point where I didn’t care what I was asked or what name I was called as long as I protected the girls.

  There was endless speculation in the media about our battle. I was called a gold digger, vindictive, and crazy. It wasn’t easy to be pitted against the star of America’s favorite sitcom—something he reminded me about constantly. I felt at times I was fighting a losing battle. Everyone loved Charlie and thought I was the evil wife who stole her best friend’s husband. I felt that I was misjudged before anyone else had any facts. I never wanted our personal business to be public. At one desperate low point when I almost let loose, a friend said, “Remember, you’re a mom first. The other stuff doesn’t matter.” My mom, a constant support, kept me focused and strong. She wrapped her arms around me and said, “It may not seem like it now, but you’ll get through it—and the truth will come out.”

  For Charlie, it was about the fight. He said he would bleed me dry financially and swore I’d never win. He vowed to destroy me, and I have to say, it often felt as if he was going to succeed. I also wondered why he felt the need to show up in court with his publicist.

  My savings disappeared. My legal fees got so high I almost had to relent. My parents offered to sell their house to help pay the bills. People have since heard the way Charlie has exploded on his Two and a Half Men bosses in interviews. As you may imagine, I have been on the other end of that voice many times—I’ve experienced it in person and seen it in print. And it ain’t pretty. I felt maligned and misunderstood. So many times I wanted to publicly defend myself. The few times I did, I actually made things worse. So I stopped. But my girls held me up. I’d see them at the dinner table or check on them at night as they slept and feel a surge of strength where I had none before.

  Finally, I told Charlie to stop holding press conferences. If he had an issue with me, he should file it with the court. We had a short window with the girls before they’d catch on to the insanity, and I wanted to preserve every moment of innocence they had. It was surreal to have breakfast with my daughters, and then off I went to battle their dad in court. They would see me dressed up and wonder where I was going. I always told them I had an important meeting.

  I remember sort of joking with my lawyer that I’d run out of conservative outfits to wear to court, telling him, “We have to wrap this up.” My mother was battling for her life, and I didn’t want to continue fitting in phone calls and visits between court appearances. I drove to Encinitas as frequently as possible. My mom’s treatments made her sick, and the days she was really ill, we stayed home because she didn’t want us to see her that way. But when she had a good day, we would head down to visit her. I cried every time we drove away. I saw her body changing drastically. My dad turned into her full-time caretaker. Before she got sick, she did all the cooking and cleaning. Now my dad had to learn how to cook. Plus he cleaned the house, managed doctor appointments, treatments, and kept track of all her medications—a complex task, as anyone who has been in a similar situation knows. He had a schedule and a huge pillbox to keep it all organized and make sure she got all her meds.

  My mom’s biggest fear was that the cancer would spread to her brain and her bones, and in an effort to prevent that terrible turn, she was willing to tolerate any and all discomfort without complaint. In that respect, she was remarkable, almost saintlike.

  If only I’d had her grace during an incident while shooting the movie Blonde and Blonder in Vancouver. One day, as I worked on a scene with Pamela Anderson, one of the paparazzi crossed the line with me and I lost my temper, which is unusual for me. Even under the most trying circumstances, I rarely blow up. I go the other way; I withdraw. But not this time. He wouldn’t leave Pam and me alone. (You have to understand that some of these guys ask rude and aggressive questions as they shoot, hoping to provoke you into lashing back and giving them something juicy to sell. This guy was one of those.) I offered to give him some shots if he’d let us work. He responded with an outburst of vulgarity and insults not only directed at me but at my family.

  Well, even though I knew better, I lost it. I picked up his laptop and hurled it over the balcony. I’d never done anything remotely like that in my life. He just pushed the wrong button at the wrong time.
It was just built-up crap of all the negative stories week after week, my mom was so sick, we were working sixteen-to-eighteen-hour days, and I was traveling back and forth between L.A. and Vancouver as frequently as possible, and after this guy insulted my family, I let loose. Granted he was being a prick, but I could’ve handled the situation differently. I had a couple lawsuits from that incident so there were definitely consequences for my actions, and I dealt with it. Now, I am nice to all the paparazzi.

  That unfortunate incident was followed by good news. After I wrapped the movie, we got word that my mom’s tumors had all shrunk significantly, to where they were close to nothing. We were ecstatic. We took that as a major reprieve from immediate danger. It seemed there was a payoff to all the discomfort she’d endured. She had to keep having her scans every couple of months, but the new drug had worked.

  Anyone who has dealt with cancer knows it’s a roller coaster of hopes, dreams, fears, and countless other emotions, and we were finally in a good spot.

  3

  IN FEBRUARY OF 2007 my mom decided to get a tattoo. It was, she later explained, something she’d always wanted to do. But she didn’t tell any of us at the time, not even my dad. Her best friend, Diane, was in town, visiting, and the two of them went to a tattoo parlor my brother-in-law, Brandon (he’s covered head to toe), recommended. The tattoo artist there, one of Brandon’s friends, promised to do a great job on my mom. Brandon didn’t even tell my sister.

  At the tattoo parlor, my mom was about to get inked when she had a seizure. The poor guy who was getting set to work on her didn’t know what to do. Diane stepped in, helped my mom, told the guy to call an ambulance and then to call Brandon, who, in turn, phoned my sister, who called my dad. Although no one called me, I had a premonition that something had happened to my mom. I don’t claim to be psychic, but I might as well have been standing next to an alarm as it went off. I knew from the sinking feeling in my gut there was a problem.

  I tried repeatedly to get ahold of my dad, but his cell went directly to voice mail. Finally, Diane called me as my mom was on her way to the emergency room. I grabbed Richie, who was sitting next to me in my office. A few minutes later, my dad called from the hospital. He confirmed the worst. My mom’s cancer had spread to her brain.

  I could barely move. I felt my heart sink and take me down with it. Richie got us a car and we went straight to the hospital. I could barely speak the whole drive there. I knew this was the beginning of the end, which I didn’t want to even think about. A recurrence was bad enough. Once the cancer spreads to the brain, though, the chances of recovery are slim to impossible, and the side effects—the only thing my mom feared—can make it all the worse.

  She definitely wasn’t herself when I saw her at the hospital. She was giddy and animated, in an almost childlike manner, and kind of out of it, all of which the doctor said was due to the seizure. Seeing her like that frightened me. I kissed her face, touched my hand to her cheek, rubbed her shoulder, and glanced at my dad with a look conveying questions and concern. I wondered if she’d ever be herself again.

  Once the effects of the seizure wore off, she did become herself again, but with another long, scary, uncertain road ahead of her. The doctor shared the horrible news with us: not only had the cancer spread, she had forty tumors in her brain. Forty! How the hell was that possible? I didn’t understand. We were told the tumors in her body had shrunk, and yet her brain was now full of them. Again, how the hell was that possible?

  I was so pissed, angry, confused. I was convinced the chemo had killed the tumors in her body but in some way caused the cancer to spread to her brain. My theory was unfounded, but I didn’t know how else she could go within a few months from having a clear brain to having forty tumors there. I didn’t get it. I was crushed. So was my dad, who hung his head in defeat, trying to hide his tears.

  My mom never gave up hope and infused us with her beautiful spirit and will to continue living. “I’m not giving up,” she said, taking each of our hands in hers. “I don’t plan on losing this fight. Thanks to all of you, I have too much to live for.”

  She started radiation on her brain. Though she lost her hair after the second treatment, her body seemed able to tolerate it. After the first couple of weeks, though, it made her sick. Unfortunately, my custody battle veered into uglier and more challenging territory. Many days I was tied up in depositions lasting upward of seven hours. I didn’t understand Charlie’s hostility, and I resented him for getting me riled up to where I fought back. My only intention was to do what was best for our daughters. We needed to keep the focus on them, I argued, not the two of us. It was surreal to sit across from the man I once loved with all my heart as he glared at me as if I were the enemy while our attorneys took turns asking us the most intimate details about our marriage. They also brought in people who had worked for us.

  It was a disturbing, debilitating, and demeaning exercise in anger. It took me away from caring for the children. It took me away from spending time with my mom as she battled a terrible disease. What was the point?

  I left one deposition on the verge of a panic attack and had to pull off the freeway until I calmed down. Between the fighting in court, the leaks that ended up in the press, the toll it was taking on my career (offers and auditions dried up), and worry about my mom, I was constantly on overload. Only seeing the girls at home allowed me to maintain perspective no matter what kind of day I had.

  Even that was put to the test when Richie called from the road and told me his father had taken a sudden turn. He was in the hospital and expected to pass away that night. Getting on the first available plane, I met Richie at the hospital in New York. His dad made it through the night and held on for the next week. We were at the hospital every day until he finally ran out of fight and died peacefully surrounded by those who loved him. My heart broke for Richie and his mom.

  Watching them deal with their grief while planning the wake and funeral made me distraught and anxious about my mom’s plight. I stole away to a quiet corner of the house and called her doctor. Explaining that my boyfriend had just lost his father, I asked about my mom’s prognosis. “I need to know the truth,” I said.

  According to the doctor, a new drug was on the verge of being approved for testing and my mom would be a candidate for it. I asked a few follow-up questions about the drug, then found myself telling the doctor about my mom, who was only fifty-three and looking forward to my sister giving birth to her third child soon. “She’ll have five grandchildren,” I said. “She has so much to live for.” The doctor understood. “I adore your mom,” she said. “She has a wonderful spirit.”

  Richie came into the room and handed me a tissue. Tears were flowing down my face. I thought about my mom still bravely going through her radiation treatments and taking steroids to control the swelling in her brain that caused headaches so intensely painful that she dropped to her knees to weather them. Would the experimental drug, if it even became available in time, make a difference? I mustered my courage. “What I really want to know is how long she has,” I said. “With or without the drug, how long does she have to live? Does she even have a chance? From your experience, can you give me an estimate?”

  The doctor paused. “If your mom is in a coma tomorrow, I wouldn’t be surprised; if it is six months from now, I won’t be surprised, either.”

  She had up to six months left to live.

  4

  BACK IN L.A., I made sure the time my mom had left was filled with family and love. I never told my sister or my dad about my conversation with the doctor, and of course I never said anything to my mom. She never asked that question of her doctor. Likewise, she never once gave up hope. Nor did she give up her role as mom, grandma, and chief supporter, cheerleader, and rock of the family. She nurtured me when I ended my relationship with Richie, understanding that we’d helped each other through extraordinary times in our lives, but because we handled pain and stress differently, it was best to part ways, though it
didn’t mean we wouldn’t be there for each other in times of need.

  I focused on my mom and children. Despite being sick and weak, my mom came up for Lola’s second birthday party. She didn’t want to miss it. Lola looked exactly like her, from her mannerisms to her cute little dimple, and I know my mom looked at her with curiosity at how this adorable little imp’s life was going to unfold.

  Since the seizure, she walked with a cane. Even then, she had trouble. For the party, she bought a new wig. I hadn’t seen her wear one since I was a teenager. She put it on and came in my room so I could help her style it. As I combed her hair and started to talk, I saw tears rolling down her face. I’d rarely seen my mom upset about her cancer. She handled it with such grace and dignity. But I think she was crying because she knew this birthday party was the last event in the girls’ lives that she’d see. I’m sure she was thinking about future birthdays, graduations, first dates, weddings—just life—everything she’d miss as she passed into the unknown.

  I gave her a hug and assured her that she looked beautiful. She had a wonderful time at the party.

  Every weekend my mom was up to it, I took the girls to see her. The reality of her condition was sadly inescapable: she wasn’t getting better. She quickly went from a cane to a walker. My dad had to get a video baby monitor to keep an eye on her when she napped. We feared she’d have another seizure. I helped my dad so he could run errands, go to the grocery store, and have a little time for himself.

  Unless you’ve gone through something like this, you don’t realize the way a serious illness gradually extends its tentacles into every aspect of daily life. As the cancer consumed my mom, it also took over our lives, too, especially my dad’s. She couldn’t be left alone. She struggled to walk. She passed out a few times. Her thinking was cloudy. Unable to lift a pan, she had to stop cooking, something that was like breathing to her. She was a nurturer, yet now she was the one who needed full-time nurturing. Maybe this was the last lesson she needed to learn.