My Mom

As I have said in my last post, my mom has liver cancer. It is the third time that she's had cancer in the past 4 years.

This time, it's been really hard for me emotionally. I started crying every time I thought about it, heard about it, or talked about it. I wasn't even like this the first two times she had caner; it was probably because there was always hope that she would be better after her treatment. This time, it is different. She's already weak from all the surgeries, radiation, and chemo from the first two times; I don't even know if she can take another round of chemo. She is already so small and physically weak. I feel like I should be at home helping her take care of the family and all her appointments. My family relies on me mostly for translation purposes, and I hate to hear that they go into the doctor's office not knowing how to communicate her problems. Sometimes, there is a translator, but some of them are very mean. Some of the translators look down on my parents just because they are immigrants. It hurts my heart to hear these stories from my mom. In reality, someone in everyone's family was once an immigrant. Even Christopher Columbus was! 

This has been such a tease. After she got better the first time, I thought my family's life would go back to normal, but that wasn't the case. She got cancer a second time. I still had hope that after the second time it will be completely over, but that still wasn't the case. It's really hard to see her go through chemo again. The effects of it are much worse and early on this  time. This time, she can't even get out of bed after her first round.

The only close friend that knows about this said this must be hard for me, but I think it's the hardest on my dad. My dad works twelve hours everyday, and he doesn't get that much sleep. He comes home at around 12:30 AM in the morning, showers, and then goes to sleep. Most of my mom's appointments are early in the morning around 8 AM, so my dad will have to wake up around 6:30 AM to get ready and take her. After he takes her to her appointments, he goes straight to work and that cycle repeats itself. In addition to all those responsibilities, he also has to take care of my siblings. My heart aches to see my dad working so hard and not get enough rest. I wish I was at home to help him out a little bit.

I still have hope that this will be the last time she has cancer. After this, she will be able to grow old with my dad, see me graduate, see me be successful, see me get married, and meet her grandchildren. Things will work out in the end.