VAL (part 3) (radiation)

If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, then you know that my mom (Valerie) is terminally ill with cancer. If you are new around these parts, you can get caught up here & here. Last week she started a month long round of radiation therapy. This treatment is not intended to cure her or even fight the cancer. The goal is to simply blunt the tumor for a short time, hopefully decreasing her intense ongoing pain, while also possibly adding an extra 6 months on to her very short life expectancy. There are several reasons why she is no longer a candidate for anything more. As I understand it- the primary reasons are: her main/large tumor (picture the size of a biscuit) is intertwined with several organs and has now invaded into her pelvic bone, she is down to one kidney, there are also tumors present in her lymph nodes. What does that mean though? It means that aggressively fighting the cancer would actually kill her before the cancer does. And so here she and we are, a few weeks of radiation everyday for one month, crossing our fingers that she can handle it and that it will also indeed relieve some of her pain. Because there are great risks involved, getting to this point has taken much council with family, many Dr.’s, prayer, and fasting. She has been fighting this cancer for going on 7 years now. I know it must be exhausting for her. (It is for me and I am just an Innocent bystander in all of this.) I am so grateful that I was in town on the day of her first treatment- to be a witness to such bravery, strength, and grace. I know I say this all the time, but it’s true… I want to be her when I grow up!