MEMORIES		A CRUEL CANCER STRIKES OUR MOTHER

My mother fought the rare cancer known as carcinoid when most treatment of it was still considered experimental. She was diagnosed with it in May 1992 and finally succumbed to complications following a second liver embolization in September 1994. She welcomed any procedure, no matter how experimental, in the hopes that, even if they did not work for her, that her experience might help save others with carcinoid at a later time.

A Farewell, But to Normalcy and Health. By the time that long-awaited Farewell show of Johnny Carson aired, my sister and I were at the hospital, awaiting her return from exploratory surgery.

Earlier, we found out that the excruciating pain that awoke Mom earlier that day was the result of an ovary that had torqued and twisted unto itself, ultimately bursting.

That evening, surgeons opened her up to find hormonal fluids burbling atop her liver. They, knowing this was beyond them, merely sewed her opened abdomen back up and strolled her to a recovery room.

"Go Home and Die." Mom's spirits sank even lower when, the following morning, a surgeon who was involved with the procedure and diagnosis of her carcinoid, said that "this hospital doesn't treat things this rare" and that all she could do was "go home and die."

Mom requested continual reading over her of the 91st Psalm, and my Dad and sister prepared to take her back home ... but, hopeful, not to "just die."

Jean could not bear to watch Mom's devastated spirit run its course in the absence of hope. So she diligently searched the Internet for whatever leads it could return.

There wasn't much out there on carcinoid, a cancer carried by the hormones of the body, particularly with the Internet in its relative infancy.

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH,
THE MEMORY AND TRIBUTE CONTINUES

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