Palliative care. The first time I had really heard of palliative care was the day after mom was diagnosed. A gynecological oncologist spelled out moms options. She said if my mom opted not to do chemotherapy they wouldn’t do surgery and they would just refer her to palliative care for comfort care. Of course as we all know mom did do chemo and have surgery and have a heck of a 3 and half years + filled with lots wonderful memories as well as struggles.

But anyways here we are back to the start and palliative care. When I think of palliative care I think of comfort and giving mom the best quality of life she can get at this stage in the game. Which as of late hasn’t been much. She looks great, I know! Except for when she doesn’t. Since returning from Disney she’s left the house 3 times. Solely to go to doctors appointments. And it’s not for lack of motivation, she has things to return to Home Goods and a store credit to take advantage of. She just has a lot going against her these days with the cancer and her bowels and now a sinus infection.

So anyways palliative care. So we get in there and I’m feeling like ok this is going to be potentially good. Comfort care. They send a woman in to go over her medication list. And it was not comforting and she was actually pretty rude. They’re relocating her (shocker!) luckily to another location. She was just not who you would want going on this “journey” with you. It was a rough start.

But then her actual palliative care nurse came in and I felt like I could breathe. She made note of all of mom’s issues. She set a goal of being able to get her out of the house and get things more under control. She listened to mom’s concerns. She left the room to go look things up so she could think of the best plan possible. She said mom is very much alive and she wanted help her achieve some quality of life. It was comforting.

It’s hard being at this point. It’s hard seeing such a strong independent person have to fight so hard to feel like the person she was before. I am BEYOND thankful for every second we have had and I know we have been beyond blessed for everything we have been given and we hold onto that. But it’s still just really hard.

Today was an appointment that no one with cancer really wants to have. The appointment where you are ending treatment but not in the fun you are in remission way but in the nothing is working and we have nothing left to try way. Mom’s CA125 is well above 10,000 which means the chemo she was on did not work. She isn’t eligible for any clinical trials because of her resistance to certain classes of chemo drugs, her PARP resistance and the location of the cancer. Also we got the results back and she isn’t a candidate for immunotherapy.

He told us that once she became platinum resistant there really wasn’t anything they could do to extend her number of days. And by giving her treatment that isn’t working they were just taking away her good days if she’s stuck on the couch due to side effects. He told her to plan some vacations and to live her life.

We then went up to get her port flushed and our favorite chemo nurse was there. She gave mom her very first treatment and incidentally also gave her her last treatment. It was emotional to say the least. She gave us hugs and we were able to thank her. Over the past 3 and a half years she listened to our stories, answered our questions and laughed at our jokes. She was our chemo angel and I will forever be grateful for her.

The next step will be for us to meet with a palliative care team and they will help guide us through these next steps. Our hearts are broken but we are determined to make the most of our time together just as we have over the past 3 and a half years.

As always thank you to every one of you. Your prayers and kind words have meant more than you can know.