My name is Patty, and I am 64 years of age. I live in Minnesota. I'm
married and I had five children. We've been married for 43 years and out
of that 43 years, my husband and I have lived with cancer for 28 of those
years. Keith was first diagnosed with colon cancer when he was 34 years of
age. At that time, he had the surgery. It had not pierced the wall, so he
did not require any further treatment just to recover. I did not feel that
I was required to be a caregiver in a large sense of the word, because he
was back at work in such a quick amount of time. We did talk about our
feelings, but that was as far as it went.
We went along for 25 years and then my husband was diagnosed with
recurring colon cancer. It was in a new area. There again, he had the
surgery. It was intact so there was no further treatment required, and he
was back up and at 'em in no time at all!
The following year our daughter, Lori, who was 31 years of age and
lived in Texas at that time, was diagnosed with what is called a
non-functioning Islet cell tumor. It's a very rare form of cancer. She's
the youngest person on record to have ever had this type of cancer.
We took her to Mayo Clinic because we were concerned about the type of
cancer she had. She was in the hospital there and they did a biopsy, made
a diagnosis, and did surgery. They were not able to do anything, so they
had to close her back up. They said they would try some treatments, some
chemotherapy on her, but the prognosis was not very good and she was
determined to be terminal. It had metastasized to her liver.
This opened up a whole shock for us. My husband and I both felt like we
had dealt with his cancer and it had been relatively simple, because
surgery had corrected the problem. But with our daughter, we were facing
another whole issue.
After she left the hospital she decided to move in with her sister in
the Twin Cities for a year, because she was going to require treatment at
Mayo and she felt that her health had to come first after the baby. So she
moved in with her sister, who had a large home in the Twin Cities. I spent
a great deal of time taking care of the baby during that year. I drove
Lori to Mayo for all of her treatments. She was on an experimental drug
for awhile.
I was running into a lot of problems with anger. Lori was going through
an angry period, and she had to direct it at someone and I happened to be
there most of the time, so she was directing it at me. It hurt at first,
but I finally reasoned it out that it was something that she had to go
through in accepting the fact that she had a terminal illness.
One of the things she pointed out to us was that Lori was suffering
daily losses such as not being able to care for her child, her infant
child, on a daily basis. Because my husband and I had had five children we
knew what to do if Colleen became ill, and we kind of went ahead and did
it. She pointed out to us that we were better off to consult Lori and act
like we didn't really know what to do, and let Lori make the decision.
Once we started doing that, things settled down and she was much more at
ease with us taking care of Colleen.
We had made a decision that we were going to support Lori in any way
possible during this time, because we knew that her time with us was not
going to be long. At that time they really didn't think she'd live more
than six months to a year.
A year after our daughter was diagnosed with cancer, my husband was
then diagnosed with prostate cancer. We both met with the doctor and
talked to him about the options. There are options available for different
types of surgery and treatment for prostate cancer. Based on his health
history the doctor recommended a radical surgery for his prostate. Of
course this went into then we're dealing with the image of a man's
masculinity. But I agreed with the doctor and we talked it over in the
doctor's office, and we talked it over at home that evening. And I assured
him that I loved him dearly and that he was the most important thing to me
and that I would do anything to keep him alive. And the radical surgery
was necessary, we felt that, and that we would work through it. And we
did. We read books together about it. We talked about it. And it has never
been a problem. He came through it fine and we're doing just fine with
it.
After the first year of treatment she was doing better. She was able to
handle the treatments of chemotherapy quite well. So she decided to join
her husband in Toledo, Ohio. At that time they bought a home and she asked
me would I come and settle them. So I went there and unpacked all the
boxes and got them settled. I cooked meals and froze them. After I
returned to the Cities I made daily phone calls to her. That was my way of
keeping in touch with her. If she had a lonely day I would try and cheer
her up.
I learned that you pretty much have to let the cancer patient determine
the mood of the day. If she's down, then I would try to think of things to
cheer her up. If she was agitated I would try to avoid anything
confrontational. I learned to kind of work into her moods and go with the
flow. I loved to talk about Colleen and I found that took her mind off of
her ill health, and we would talk about Colleen a great deal.
She was coming back here on a periodic basis about every two months, to
the Twin Cities to visit for her Mayo Clinic visit. When she came she
usually spent at least a week or two weeks with us, so we got to spend
some time with our granddaughter. And we tried to make trips to Toledo in
between times.
When we'd go to Toledo we'd get a motel and take Colleen over and let
her go swimming in the swimming pool. And sometimes Lori felt well enough
to come and go with us. We found that this was a fun time that we could
have together. She really had a fairly good second year with her cancer.
She was able to have a fairly quality, high quality of life, and things
were going along quite well with her treatments.
We basically did not discuss her death until she brought it up. We felt
like we didn't want her to think that we'd lost hope. We hung onto hope as
long as we could, but we also had to deal with this in a realistic manner.
I read a lot of books, so did my husband, on hope and how to deal with
someone who is terminally ill, what to expect about a death, how to do the
grieving. All these things were some help to us.
The last few times that she came to the city, she was growing weaker
and weaker, and our family started gathering and her siblings would come
over. And they would engage her in conversation about reminiscing about
the past and bringing up happy times. And she loved this! She responded to
it beautifully, and she would say, "Oh, this is wonderful! I love this!"
And sometimes she'd look at us and she'd say, "Am I dying? Is it time for
me to die now?" And we'd talk about it then, because she'd opened the door
for it. When the end was coming near her husband did notify us and we went
to Ohio and we were able to be with her, her last three days.
We were fortunate enough to be with Lori her last days. The night
before she died she asked to see me alone and she told me that she was
ready to die. And I stayed calm and just encouraged her, said that she had
done a wonderful job of fighting the disease, and that her daughter was
going to be just fine and so were the rest of us. And we were going to
make sure that Colleen was loved and cared for. And that it was okay for
her to let go. And I felt like it was like she needed to have me validate
that, because she then asked for a popsicle and let me feed her the
popsicle, and she slipped into a coma and passed away the next day.
Her passing was very peaceful, and there was so much love in the room
and we were able to be right there holding her and kissing her and loving
her when she died. And that was such a tremendous help to my husband and I
in accepting her death, because we were right there with her and were able
to give her all the love that we could give. And it was a very peaceful
passing for her.
I didn't probably take as much time for myself during the past three
years as I should have, mainly because I was going in so many different
directions trying to help with our little granddaughter and trying to be a
support to our daughter.
I think I know the one place that my husband and I drew our greatest
strength from was our faith. We happen to be very active in our church.
And we also found that we were very open to discussing our situation with
friends and acquaintances. And it provided us such a some people withdraw
from sharing a journey such as this that they're on, and I think they make
a terrible mistake by doing that. Because if people really know what
you're going through, they're going to be there for you, as far as praying
for you, giving you support emotionally, and just coming up to you and
saying, "I'm praying for you. I'm thinking about you." Sending you a card
now and then. Calling long-distance. We have some long-distance friends
that would call us and share with us how we were feeling and how they were
thinking about us. All this was such a tremendous help. Our faith was a
tremendous source of strength for us. I think you have to be able to reach
out.
My husband and I also were involved at the time of Lori's diagnosis
with raising funds for research for the Cancer Foundation and American
Cancer Society. And we talked about backing away from that the first time
we did it, and then after Lori was diagnosed we said, "We can't do that,
we have to keep fighting!" And so we were coming in contact with many
families dealing with cancer issues themselves, and it was helpful to
share stories and to hear people's to hear other people's stories. And you
knew you weren't alone and we were fighting for the same thing, to try and
raise dollars for cancer research. So these were the ways that really were
a tremendous help to us.
I think one of the main things I've learned is to try and stay calm,
because your lives are already in an upheaval, and sometimes nerves are
frayed, and you're stressed out, and temperaments are short. But I learned
that you've got to take a deep breath and remember, anything you say, you
can't take it back once you've said it.
And so if you're to the point where you're so troubled you don't know
which way to turn, then seek a grief counselor, because they are a
tremendous help. And I know the one we went to was wonderful, and she was
such a wonderful help to us. I also read a lot of books. I read as many
books as I could get my hands on, dealing with the issues that we were
dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
My husband and I stayed very close. Our children, fortunately, our
family is very close. We kept them all involved and we talked about it a
lot. The last three years, we've devoted almost our entire life to our
daughter who was ill. We did that through choice because we knew we had
her for such a short time.
My husband and I have talked it over and now we feel it's time to be a
little bit selfish and start thinking about ourselves for a change. So
we've already talked about perhaps trying to take a vacation soon and get
away, and just to spend some quiet time reflecting on our lives and the
loss of our daughter, and dealing with that. And try and move on from
here. I know we'll be okay, we just have to start thinking about ourselves
a little bit now.
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