 I took my mom to the hospital this morning.
It’s a familiar drive, one we’ve become accustomed to over the past year. We talk about the family, my dad, her doctor. We talk about how far she’s come, and how acupuncture has been pivotal in supporting her through the intensity of modern medicine. We talk about me opening a practice again someday. She says I can make a difference. I do not ask her if she is scared. It is not a question worth answering. Since the diagnosis last year -- Stage 4 Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma -- her 77 year old body has endured two major surgeries, six weeks of radiation, six rounds of chemotherapy, experimental immunotherapy, multiple biopsies, and countless blood draws, CT scans, and MRIs. Today is what we hope will be the third and final surgery to remove a large mass in her right thigh, a mass that materialized five months ago out of nothingness, ghost cells that played silently on a seemingly clear MRI before building a spiral around her nerves and vessels. We can be thankful, at least, that they decided to say hello. To give her a chance to fight. |
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