How Ovarian Cancer Changed Our Lives
TW: Ovarian cancer & loss of a parent
It is estimated that 3100 women in Canada will be diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer this year. It is the fifth most common cancer for women and the most serious women’s cancer.
I’m proud to be a part of the @ovariancancercanada FOR HER auction. You can bid on a $200 gift card to my online shop (auction item #210) until July 16, 2021 at https://givergy.ca/forher. All proceeds will be put to work immediately, helping women with ovarian cancer and others at risk for the disease live fuller, better, longer lives.
My Mom was diagnosed with stage 3 Ovarian Cancer on Christmas Day of 2014. She had been bloated for weeks and the doctor dismissed her symptoms. She went to the ER knowing that it would be quieter on Christmas.
Our lives changed forever. I learned what it meant to live with a chronic disease and was grateful they hadn’t said terminal.
I tried to quit school in Ontario and move back to BC to take care of her but she wouldn’t let me. She underwent her first round of chemo and hysterectomy. It was a blessing when she was declared to be in remission at the end of 2015.
We thought it was over. In 2016, I backpacked all over the world. I loved travelling but always made sure I knew the quickest route home. Mom used to work as a travel agent and loved hearing about my adventures. I wrote “Happy Mother’s Day” on my sketchbook in Venice and sent her a photo.
I didn’t plan on attending my graduation ceremony and instead asked my family to join me for my last few weeks of school in the spring of 2017 so that they could see how I had built a life there. They met my friends, saw my crappy student apartment and all my favourite spots. It was a wonderful time but a scary one because she was in a lot of pain. It was the start of her relapse, though it would take months to diagnose.
I graduated and began working in Vancouver. When I was moving there, she couldn’t curl her hands and had no strength left in her arms. Looking back, she always said that was the hardest time for her because she couldn’t do anything - paint, tai chi, cook. WIthin months, I moved home to take care of her. She underwent chemo again until the beginning of 2018 until she was declared to be in remission.
My brother moved home from Hong Kong and we spent a happy year together. I worked evenings in a hotel and we’d spend our days together visiting restaurants and cafes together. She was on long term disability and spent her days however she wanted - painting, walking, going to tai chi classes, running pain management workshops and reading.
Her next relapse was declared in September of 2019 and we began chemo again. But this time was different. Her side effects were worse than ever. The next few months would be spent in and out of the hospital, puzzling over what she could or couldn’t stomach, documenting her symptoms, arranging doctors appointments and trying all kinds of medication with awful side effects.
I was working somewhere I loved but was constantly drained and distracted. I never could give anything else in my life 100%. My Mom was a super human who never showed her discomfort throughout her treatments and always thought optimistically. She was a star patient - one who exercised, took her prescribed medications and documented all her symptoms so the doctors would have point form notes to read off of for each appointment.
I didn’t really believe it when the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for her and that she had weeks left, not even months. But Mom knew it was coming, she had worked in hospice and had already come to terms with being transferred there before I even considered the possibility.
I quit my job. I bought an Ipad and began drawing for her like crazy. We all spent the next month and a half together, laughing together on our good days and holding each other as we wept on our worst. When she could, we went to our favourite restaurants together (the ones I’ve been trying to draw) and when she couldn’t, I’d fill our table with takeout of all her favourite foods.
On December 2, 2019, we held her hands as she left us.
Ovarian Cancer took my Mom at the young age of 62 and although she fought bravely and gracefully, it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
It is estimated that 3100 women in Canada will be diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer this year. It is the fifth most common cancer for women and the most serious women’s cancer.
We were given five years together after Mom’s initial diagnosis and I will always be grateful to the people that worked so hard to give us that time together.