MY MOTHER'S STORY

 

This is my mother, Darla. She found out at the age of 43 that she had stomach cancer, but it was a long road up to that point. My mom was having severe stomach pains & was staring to have terrible acid reflux in May of 2003 (the year I graduated high school). They did an upper endoscopy and found nothing….NOTHING? How could that be? She was feeling so awful!!!

The doctors suggested she try this and try that. They gave her many different diagnosis’ from acid reflux to a paralyzed intestine & stomach. In November of 2003, after projectile vomiting regularly and losing a large amount of weight in such a short time, they decided to do another scope. This time it came back as hereditary diffuse gastric CANCER (nothing anyone wants to hear!). We weren’t completely surprised as my grandfather had passed away from stomach cancer, also. The plan was to open her up and remove the cancer, but they didn’t really know how much would be there. After surgery, they came out and let us know they removed 80% of her stomach.

 She started chemo and radiation shortly thereafter. In February, after treatment, they said it looked like the cancer was clear, but would need to come back in June for a re-check. My mom returned in June to find out the cancer had spread EVERYWHERE. The only thing to keep her alive would be to do the chemo and radiation, but it wouldn’t get rid of the cancer. She agreed to doing that, but in November of 2004 she let my sister and I know that she was sick of feeling like bugs were crawling all over her, sick of throwing up constantly, sick of sleeping if she wasn’t throwing up and all from the treatment. She let us know that she was going to quit treatment and try to live life as normal as possible…it was about quality of life, not quantity at this point and she was one tough cookie all the way until the end.

 December 19th, 2004 my mom took her last breath. We miss her SO much, but are thankful for the time we did get with her and the knowledge we have gained about HDGC and the CDH1 mutation.