March 7, 2013
Sparks101.com- I Teach Women How Men Think
Today is the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death. I was prepared to write another Sparks101 lesson, but every year on this day, I get much too depressed to do anything productive. Instead, I thought I would tell my readers about my traumatizing experience, from beginning to end.
On the evening of January 18, Matthew and I had a lovely date on his father’s yacht in Marina Del Ray. We were together until around midnight. As much as I wanted to stay with him that entire evening, I knew I had to call it a night. My mother wanted me in the office early the next morning to prepare for a BIO mixer.
When I got home, I checked my cell phone and saw that I had several missed calls from my father and grandmother. I found this odd. They never called me so late, so I knew it must have been urgent. I called my grandmother and she informed me that my mother had collapsed at home and had been rushed to the ER. She needed me at the hospital first thing in the morning. I was quite aware that my mother had been experiencing flu like symptoms for the past month, but I had assumed she had just caught a bug. I told my grandmother that my mother wanted me in the office the next morning and I couldn’t take the day off.
At the office the following afternoon, I got a phone call from my father. He was adamant about everyone in the family being at the hospital. The situation was a lot more serious than I had ever imagined. That morning, my mother had a blood transfusion. My father told me that the doctors had found a large lump on her left breast and it made my stomach turn. I left the office knowing that my family was now in a state of emergency. Obviously, the BIO mixer would have to wait.
That afternoon when I got to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, we sat around all day waiting for answers. This was just the first of what these so-called “doctors” did to leave a bad taste in my mouth. They seemed to have no sense of urgency what so ever.
A nurse finally came in around six that evening and said, “Oh, the doctor will be talking with you tonight, we just don’t know the exact time.” Then she came back at ten, after we’d been anxiously waiting all day for the prognosis. “The doctor said he’s not coming in tonight, he’ll be meeting with you tomorrow morning.” I was about to go postal on her. We later found out that we would not know the results of the tumor biopsy for at least a few days.
When the results of the biopsy came back, that’s when the shit hit the fan. Now, I’m not savvy in all the doc talk, but I think it was the oncologist that informed us that my mother had stage four malignant breast neoplasm. Since my mother had not been properly diagnosed sooner, the cancer had spread and multiple smaller tumors had formed on her liver and spine. This would explain why my mother had been having so much pain in her back over the last couple of months.
My mother then began the process of undergoing treatment to shrink the tumors, although because it was at its last stage, the doctors didn’t know how much could be done to save her. When I think back on this today, a vivid image flashes in my mind––how my mother looked the moment the doctor told her she had stage-four breast cancer. She just gazed out the hospital room window with this distraught, lifeless expression. I could only imagine what she was thinking, “Is this really happening to me?”
By the end of the week, they released my mother from the hospital, but she would be going back regularly for treatment and blood transfusions until they could get her into the clinical trials at UCLA. She had to leave the hospital using a cane because she was having trouble walking.
A week passed and my mother had lost a good amount of weight. The clothes she wore looked like she was wearing a tent. She also looked like she had aged about forty-years. Mother was no longer using a cane––she had downgraded to a walker. When I witnessed what was happening before me, my heart just broke. Something inside me told me it was the beginning of the end. This once strong woman was now incredibly weak and at the mercy of others. I can’t even begin to explain the pain that rips through me knowing she had to sleep in the downstairs bedroom because she was no longer able to walk upstairs. Not only that, but the excruciating pain she was in.
I came by for a visit only to find out that the doctors were letting her sit at home and rot while they took their sweet time getting back to us—and you want to know why? These doctors had somehow lost my mother’s biopsy. Until they could find it, my mother was at their mercy.
Those two weeks were crucial for her survival. We all know how fast cancer spreads. The last week I saw her at home was the weekend of February 10. She was at the point where she couldn’t even use a walker. With the muscle mass in her legs gone, she now resorted to a wheelchair. To make matters more disheartening, she wanted to sleep in the same room with my father, but it was too much trouble to get her up and down the stairs with the wheelchair in tow, so my dad permanently kept her upstairs. My mother was confined to our movie theater room for the rest of her life at the house. Her days consisted of watching television and sleeping.
The next time I saw my mother was when the doctors finally released her to the UCLA Santa Monica hospital. Then I got a phone call on February 18 with even more bad news. The cancer had spread to her brain and because of this, she could no longer go into clinical trials. I was in complete devastation.
That same day, Matthew and I planned on going to the gym together to help get my mind off things. All I ended up doing was sitting in my car in the parking lot crying hysterically on his shoulder. I just couldn’t believe that this was happening to my family. I hated to think that the end was coming, that I was going to lose my mother. I was too young to lose a parent. My grandmother told me that when she was at Cedars-Sinai, the doctor had told my mother that she had six months to live and to get her affairs in order. My father was not supposed to know this. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown as it was. I swear that some doctors are such emotionless bastards. This hospital was supposed to be one of the best and it was like they completely gave up on her.
On February 23, I went to visit my mother at the hospital. She seemed to be in good spirits and hopeful that the treatments of radiation and chemo were going to work. Well, the day I came to visit her was the day the doctors had decided to stop the chemo. Her white blood cell count was too low and she had an infection of some sort. To our dismay, the doctors didn’t plan to start it up again, though they would continue to do the radiation. It amazed me that this disease had not affected my mother’s personality. She was still so cheerful and full of life. For the next several days, I spoke to my mother over the phone. Her birthday was on February 24 and mine is the 26 (Yeah, happy fricking birthday to both of us.) That week, I wasn’t able to go see her as much as I liked. I had to step in and take care of the company because she nearly demanded that I not shut the doors. Oh and might I mention that I got sick that week, so I missed several days with my mother.
I finally went back to the hospital on March 6. I’d never seen someone decline as fast as she did in a week. What I saw when I walked into that hospital room is something I will never be able to get out of my mind. There was my mother, only the shell of the person she used to be, laying on the bed with her eyes rolling back into her head as she moaned in pain. I broke down outside the hospital room. When I was finally able to pull myself together, I walked back into the room to find my father and the doctors gathered around my mother’s bedside. The doctors told us that there was nothing more they could do but make hercomfortable. They would cease future treatments and instead would up the dosage of morphine. The cancer was now all throughout her bone marrow. Worst of all, the brain tumors had gotten bigger. It seemed that the radiation did nothing and her body was shutting down. In my opinion, I think those insensitive pricks should have talked about this outside the room. My mother was still coherent at the time, and I knew she could hear everything they were saying. I walked into the room that day and she had mumbled my name. Even when my little sister had shown up, my mother showed signs that she knew Kacie was there.
That evening, I stayed overnight at the hospital with my father who had sent Kacie away to stay with our neighbor. At 6:00am the next morning, I woke up to the sound of my mother breathing irregularly. It startled me, so I got out of my makeshift bed and went to check up on her. I talked to her, put my head on her chest and told her that I loved her. Amazingly, she lifted her arm and put her hand on my arm. I kept telling her, “I love you, Mommy, I love you.” Then I went back to sleep. At 8:00am, I woke up again. Throughout this time, my father had been knocked out by choice. He had taken sleeping pills hours before hand. Around 8:15am, a nurse came into the room wheeling in a machine (sorry I’m not technical in the medical department, so I don’t know the exact name of this machine.) She said she was going to take my mother’s vitals. After a moment, the nurse looked at the machine rather oddly and then left the room. She came back with about six other doctors who gathered around my mother’s bed as though they were on some medical drama. I asked what was going on and a female doctor came over to me and said gently, “Honey, your mother’s body is shutting down. She’s getting ready to go. We don’t know when, but it could be hours or moments. We just don’t know yet.”
I cried heavily and went to my mother’s beside. Just hours before there was still some life left in her and now she was completely incoherent. My father finally woke and lay down beside her. He told her how much he loved her and I did the same. The nurse told me to tell my mother that it was okay to go––that we would be okay. Then I watched my mother, the person I’d known almost twenty-five years take her final breath, like a fish out of water. My mother left this world at 9:00am on March 7. She was fifty-years old. The cancer took her life in just two-months and three-weeks.
Lesson 7
From as far back as she could remember, Holly’s life had always revolved around matchmaking. At the tender age of five, she recalled swiveling around in a chair at the office and watching her mother coach rich and prominent women. These sophisticated millionairesses showed up in designer outfits, and expensive perfume that lingered in the air for hours like smoke on a breezeless day. Holly and her mother would gather behind her enormous luxurious oak desk and comb through hundreds of male recruit headshots. “He’s not her type,” Darlene would say or, “If we could just get him to cut his hair, he’d be perfect.” Even in those days, matchmaking was a highly subjective business.
Mother and daughter were extremely close. Running this type of company allowed Darlene to spend more time with her daughters than most mothers were able to do in a lifetime. Holly couldn’t remember a time where her mother had left her alone for more than twenty-four hours.
Darlene found her daughter to be the most impressionable at a very young age. The opportunity to teach her the tricks of her trade couldn’t have started at a better time. According to Holly’s mother, it was never too early to start prepping a girl for the ruthlessness of the dating world. Of course, Darlene wasn’t about to get into the birds and the bees with a five-year old, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t teach her daughter about the good and the ugly when it came to love. Darlene’s astute knowledge had molded Holly into the decisive young woman she was today. Holly had become privy to the outside world when she was just a child. While most teenagers were out getting high, drunk, or becoming sexual active, Holly chose to distance herself from that type of lifestyle. She knew the consequences would be more trouble than it was worth. Some would say that she grew up too quickly, but in a convoluted society, sometimes one is better having street smarts than book smarts.
There was only one request that Darlene had left for her daughter before she died. She made it known the afternoon the doctors had informed her that the cancer had spread progressively throughout her bone marrow. With this news, Holly intended to stay overnight at the hospital, knowing it was only a matter of time before this malicious disease took hold of this beautiful woman’s life.
Holly walked into the hospital room to find her mother lying on her back like a limp doll.
“Mom––” Holly said, swallowing down her tears.
“I need you to do one more thing for me, Holly.” The sound of her voice came out weak, as if she didn’t have enough air to push out the words.
Holly sat down next to her mother’s bedside. “Sure. Anything.”
“I want you to find––” Darlene coughed several times, like a dampness as thick as fog had settled inside her lungs. “Water!”
Holly quickly grabbed the pale pink plastic cup off the counter and watched her mother suck through the straw hastily. “Mom, it’s okay. Just relax.”
Darlene handed Holly back the cup and took a deep breath, as if she had just come up for air. “My one last request is that you find someone who will love you like your father loves me.”
“Mom––” Holly said, confused by this statement. “You know that Matthew is the one for me.”
“I really hope he is, sweetheart, but you know how my intuition speaks to me.”
“We’ve been together a long time,” Holly replied. “How can you think that Matthew and I aren’t going to end up together?”
“It’s wonderful that you two are so in love.” With all the strength she could muster, Darlene took her daughter’s hand in hers. “But things are going to change when I die, Holly. Things are going to get really tough for you, especially when the time comes for you to take over the company.”
Holly looked down as tears welled in her eyes. “Please, don’t say that. You’re going to get through this one way or another.”
“We have to be real here, honey. You know what the doctors said.”
“Yes, and miracles happen every day.”
“But what if it doesn’t, Holly? Do you think Matthew will continue to stand by your side during the most trying time in your life? He’s very much a get-up and go type of person.”
“Yes. I know he will. No matter what.”
“Well, sweetheart, I sure hope he does because it will be the ultimate test of his love for you.”
“I don’t understand where this is coming from.”
“Don’t get me wrong.” Darlene flinched in pain as she turned toward Holly. “I think Matthew is a great guy, but I just feel like there’s someone else out there for you.”
“I don’t think so,” Holly argued. “Your intuition is wrong this time, Mother.”
Darlene patted her daughter’s hand and smiled feebly. “Only time will tell.”
What a fool Holly had been for doubting the one person who had a proven track record of never letting her intuition go astray. Maybe if Holly had listened to her mother’s wise words, she would have seen Matthew for who he really was: a selfish man who loved himself more than he could ever love her or anyone else. The part about someone else waiting out there for her was hard to fathom when Matthew seemed to be the only man who ever suited her requirements. At that point in Holly’s life, it didn’t look like she was going to be fulfilling her mother’s wish anytime soon.
***
March 10, 2013, Date # 2: Andrew
For a week, Holly analyzed Andrew carefully throughout their phone chats, searching for any red flags that she would have considered deal breakers. After meticulous consideration, she believed that there was absolutely no cause for concern. With all systems go, they were set to meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles.
Holly had arrived early to the restaurant, feeling a tad bit jumpy. As she watched people trickle in and out the front door like streams of smoke, she hoped that one of these strangers would be Andrew. The moment Holly looked up from her cell phone, she noticed an older Asian man smiling at her as he approached the front entrance. This was definitely not Andrew—he was much too old.
“Darlene?” the man asked. He was very tall and thin, wore a pinstriped shirt and grungy jeans. “I’m Andrew.”
This couldn’t be. He had gray hair that receded from a high widow’s peak and he looked to be at least twenty-years older than his pictures. Knowing that he actu
ally believed that she would be dumb enough not to notice the age difference blew his chances within the first thirty seconds of introduction. Holly wanted to take off on the spot, but she didn’t know how to make that possible without making herself look so callous.
“Um, hi. It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Holly said, cringing on the inside.
“You look great. I love all that beautiful red hair,” Andrew commented as he ran his hand down the back of her head.
“Yeah, uh, it’s natural,” she replied, feeling sickened by his touch.
“Then you must have a real pumpkin patch down there, huh?” he asked, nudging her side. “Just kidding.”
For the life of her, Holly had no idea what that comment was supposed to mean. She assumed it was something inappropriate, but let it slide.
“So, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” He patted his non-existent belly. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
Andrew started in by talking about himself, leaving little room for Holly to get in two words.
“I’m always traveling and I’ve met so many interesting people. I’ve bumped into a ton of celebrities, and boy can I tell you some stories––”
“Are you two ready to order?” asked the Chinese waiter who wore a suppressed smile.
Andrew glanced over the menu one last time and said, “Yes. I’ll have the mosu pork. Oh and we’ll be sharing these dishes.”
“Well, hold up just a minute,” Holly interrupted. “I don’t eat pork, for non-religious purposes, of course. I just don’t like it.”
“You can pick it out, right?” Andrew continued ordering in his native tongue, without even waiting for her reply.
The Experiment Page 13