There are some places that I never look forward to going to. The first is the courthouse, as I loathe jury duty and hope I‘ll never find myself on trial. The second is the hospital, as it reeks of noxious fumes and requires official duty from us all: when one visits a patient in a hospital, the environment is dreadful, but it is a duty one must perform to support a loved one there.
Throughout my youth, my mother spent many long hours at the hospital. I had never seen anyone in such pain before, and hardly anyone could experience it with the grace that she did. Although she survived breast cancer for over 20 years, first in 1982 in the left breast and then in the right, her biggest trial began in 2003 when she developed ovarian cancer and underwent a lengthy process of operations, chemo therapies and radiation at the City of Hope.
Image Credit: City of Hope
The City of Hope is a vast cancer center in Southern California that serves cancer patients from across the globe. A large portion of the patients who go there are in gravest need; many are without health insurance and cannot afford to get treatment at regular hospitals. The City of Hope becomes their last hope. In 1982, when my mother developed breast cancer, my father was laid off because of policies governing the transportation industry and the railroads, where my father worked. Our family was left without health insurance. With nowhere to turn, my parents went through the lengthy application process at the City of Hope, and within a year my mother was treated and cured of breast cancer at the City of Hope using the latest treatments. All in gratis.
After 20 years of remission, she started to feel pain in her stomach and went through more testing. Her doctor placed her on a different chemo treatment that was to be taken orally. We prayed that she was experiencing side effects of the cancer treatment she had been giving over the last year, and not more cancerous growths. The tests revealed that the blockages were caused by tumors that had grown back and were putting pressure against her large intestine, preventing food from passing. I saw her whither from a robust 120 pounds to 90 and then to 75 as the ovarian cancer and chemo treatments ravished her body's ability to maintain health.
The doctors told her that she would be given more chemo to reduce the tumors. Then, at a later date, a painful operation was performed to remove the affected areas.
The pain worsened and she continued throwing up all food that she ate. I remember walking into her hospital room once to see her in a fetal position, in extreme pain and asked if she had called the nurse. She said no. I always wondered why she chose to suffer through the pain instead of ask for help. I beeped the nurse, who asked my mother to rate the intensity of the pain with a number.
My mother looked up at her, confused, as the pain clouded her thoughts. She answered, “Three.”
I advised the nurse to provide a dosage for eight or ten. Nobody wants to see a loved one suffer like that.
Within a few minutes, my mother came back to life, finally breathing in air without cringing. In the background, on a 13-inch television, John Kerry and George W. Bush were arguing their positions on national healthcare in their presidential debate.
My mother held my hand and asked me to lean down to speak with me. Throughout my youth, she had always been very private about her past and her life in Korea. As she laid there, she spoke in her broken English that seemed unique only to her. There seemed to be a rush coming from her, as if the privacy of her past was now trivial.
She told me that if she had stayed in Korea her life would have ended in 1981. Her introspection told her that it was providence that sent my father to serve a tour of duty in Korea during the early 70’s, where he met her in a nightclub after bumping into the back of her chair.
She reminisced about the love letters they wrote, and the petition to bring her to the United States. She told me of how she felt the day she flew in a plane for the very first time, to come to the United States.
My mother developed breast cancer only a few years after immigrating to the US. With the deepest gratitude only the most faithful can share, she said, “Your father, he saved my life. He saved my life by bringing me to America.”
That was the last conversation we had, just the two of us. Too often we take our lives for granted, that we do things out of duty, that our lives could be better than what they are. But my mother lived well with what she was given. She appreciated every day to her last, because she believed those days were a gift. For my mother, it was not just a duty to live them. They were a blessing. My mother did not die of cancer; she survived it -- and lived to tell about that survival.
She passed, quietly, on November 6th, 2004.
In dedication to my beautiful mother Sunyon Paris, your blessings were mine.
Images from Pexels.com and Picabay.com under Creative Commons CC0
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