We have all read stories about cancer survivors who have beaten the odds and were inspired by their brush with death to live with even more purpose.
My family’s story is not going to have that happy ending. This week the death watch began for my sister, Maralee, 51, who has lost her battle with ovarian cancer.
Ours is the type of story that people shy away from hearing. But it is also one that cannot be ignored when cancer is the number one killer in America.
One in four people will be diagnosed during their lifetimes with some form of cancer and about 1,500 people will die each day from the disease.
My family’s story began with my sister’s hysterectomy in 2013 and her oncologist in Portland assuring us that surgery had successfully removed all traces of cancer.
What should have caused our ears to perk up was the doctor’s mention of a “nodule” found outside the abdomen, which we were assured didn’t look problematic.
We had researched enough to know that the five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is 45 percent, mostly because tumors originate deep in the body and often have no diagnosable symptoms. That allows the cancer to spread before it is detected.
Ovarian cancer draws much less attention than breast cancer because it is uncommon. A woman has a 1.37 percent lifetime risk of being diagnosed with this type of cancer.
Getting my sister through chemotherapy for six months in 2013 required a lot of cheerleading.
It turned out that Mary had an allergy to the most commonly used chemicals and we learned there are a couple hundred combinations to choose from, some more effective than others.
Sis was pleased that her hair would only thin with the new chemo because she had dreaded the thought of being bald.
I loved her fuzzy head but she was not so thrilled to have one strand of hair every two inches. I offered to put beads on the follicles but we decided that the look would resemble the Score Four game pegs so that idea was discarded.
Instead, we found cool hats and I loaned her matching earrings.
In November of 2013, my sister finished chemo and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
Doctors gave good reports and she was excited to return to life as normal and focus once again on her job as a teacher and school administrator.
Then the side aches began and a CT scan revealed that Mary had a large tumor on her liver.
At that point her odds of survival plummeted. But my sister was determined to live and refused to acknowledge the possibility that she could die.
She has a 21-year-old son and couldn’t conceive of not being around for his eventual marriage and her opportunity to spoil grandchildren.
Sixty percent of Mary’s liver was removed in January of 2014. She was told that the new tumor had originated from a cluster of cells that escaped her ovaries. It was a sarcoma, a cancer that was aggressive and prone to invade other areas of the body.
Because of that, the doctor told us to expect another tumor on her liver — news we did not share with Mary.
Sure enough, her liver was soon invaded by another tumor and four more began growing in other areas of her body. The new one in her abdomen quickly became the size of a lemon.
Mary was told there would be no more surgeries and sought help from Cancer Treatment Centers of America after OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University) informed her there were no experimental treatments available to her.
She spent the summer of 2014 undergoing a second round of chemo, this time traveling to a CTCA clinic in Arizona.
When her tumors showed signs of growth in July, doctors switched her to a stronger dose.
Then her blood platelet level dipped so low that she could no longer receive chemo.
Three new tumors were found in her lungs about a month ago. And the tumor in her abdomen grew so large that it began interfering with her digestive functions.
Last weekend, Mary was admitted to the hospital because of severe pain in her abdomen and her inability to hold down food.
She was gently told by a palliative care team two days later that she needed to prepare for death because it would come soon.
Shortly after hearing this news, she wistfully told me, “I really wanted to live.”
I told my sister that no one had battled harder and she would be remembered for her courage and perseverance.
The fight is over and we, as a family, have accepted that it is time for Mary, a woman of strong faith, to go to her eternal home in Heaven.
She is being made as comfortable by morphine, and other narcotics, as possible.
I find myself studying her face now as she sleeps, trying to memorize her features.
I think about all the opportunities we missed to spend time together.
She is almost five years younger, we lived in different cities, were busy raising children who were 10 years apart in age and had very dissimilar personalities.
Now it is too late.
What I can do is make my baby sister feel cherished during her last days on earth.
She squeezes my hand when I arrive in her room, and sometimes gives me the ghost of a smile, so I know that still matters.
Now that we are staring her death in the face, one that did not follow the natural order, I ponder the reverberations.
My parents are getting up in years so dealing with this heartache is going to put their health at risk.
Mary’s son, Andy, is only beginning to understand that his world has become a much harsher place at too early an age.
But those are worries for tomorrow.
Today, we wait and pray that Mary’s journey into the next life is peaceful and as pain-free as possible.
Both the tears and memories flow freely as we keep a vigil by her bedside.
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