by Lisa Federico

Created on: August 22, 2009

Personal Experience With Cancer

I met Cindy by accident, maybe luck, early in December two years ago.

I was visiting a friend at a multi-service facility: Nursing Home / Express Recovery / Acute Care / Hospice. My friend was in Express Recovery a three month period of care and physical therapy following spine surgery. She was doing well, and would eventually go back home to her family, back to work, back to her life.

Cindy was a 46 year old elementary school teacher with perfect skin, warm brown eyes, and chin length wavy brown hair. She was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer a year earlier. After months of treatment that included both chemotherapy and radiation, she got a clean bill of health along with a five year prescription for Tamoxifen and three month check-ups for the next two years. She lost her hair, but it grew back in. She lost weight, but gained it back. She told me she never lost her spirit as she endured treatment, pain, set-backs, and so much more.

When Cindy made her first three month appointment she was fatigued, not hungry, tired all the time probably the effects of treatment but she was ready to move on, looking forward to Christmas and a joyful season after missing most of last year's holidays.

But appointment day would not bring happy holidays. Results of the mammogram were swift and clear. The films were fuzzy white with large clusters of micro-calcifications throughout both breasts. The cancer was back.

Immediate additional tests were done including ultrasound and MRI, blood tests, more x-rays. The cancer had metastasized to all her major organs - spread through her body as though she had simply opened her mouth and let in an ocean of poison.

Cindy's family requested hospice care two weeks later. The fatigue got worse, she vomited everything she ate and drank, couldn't sleep. Doctors told her three months was a generous estimate, that she should get her personal business in order immediately. The hospice would help with the details.

Hospice care is provided to terminally ill people to those who have failed to respond to treatment and who have less than six months to live. Hospice care doesn't hasten or prolong death, nor does it treat the illness any longer. The hospice provides comfort, care, and support to the patient and their family so that last days are filled with love, dignity, and peace.

Cindy told me all this when we first met, an hour-long conversation with a stranger.

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