What Causes This Type of Cancer?

Better days. 1978.

(Written February 17th, 2012, edited October 6, 2013) I can't help becoming selfishly annoyed when I read posts on social networking sites by well meaning friends in regard to my relationship with my recently deceased mum.  “Your mom was such a sweet woman.” “Her love for you really showed.” “You were so close.” Ugh. Do these people remember at all the many nights I cried because I couldn’t give my mum a call to say “hello” without her screaming at me, saying, “What do you want?!” or “Goddamnit, why do you always call me when I’m eating?! Can’t you call me at a better time?!”? I couldn’t have a conversation with her for more than ten minutes, as she’d turn something I said into a “judgment” coming from me, though judging was never my intention. She’d scream, not allow me to speak, then hang up, where I wouldn’t have the opportunity to right my supposed wrong, explain my intentions, nor apologize. I was always an annoyance to her, at least 80% of the time. An inconvenience. She had me at the very young age of twenty-one – I presume that could be quite inconvenient when you want to be a famous singer, or painter, or model, or . . .

I was always the “good girl” in my eyes. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs. Read, read, read. Save money, pay bills on time, have no outstanding debt. Eat healthy. I don’t know who I was trying to prove myself to as Mum would have much rather had me as a drinking buddy that could bitch about not having money, not being able to afford the bills, how my stomach hurt all the time, then grab a burger and fries at McDonald’s—to wallow in the mud together as unfortunate swine.  

In this very moment, I am missing her so much that I half wish I had spent some time with her in the manner, as she wished. However, I know in my heart and mind that these activities are what ultimately took her life.

As she was wheeled in to surgery on December 7th, 2011, my step-father Bill, my grandparents, younger sister Kelli, my husband Shyam and I walked her to her room. The nurses let us in to hug her and wish her the best of luck. We were told she’d be going in to have a hysterectomy as she had ovarian cancer – though they wouldn’t know until they went in at what stage her cancer was. As we were walking down the hall leaving her behind, trusting they would treat her well, she called out for my husband Shyam. She wanted to give him a hug. She always took a strong liking to him and it brought tears to my eyes that she had made that effort.

“She should be done in about four hours, so sit tight.”

Twenty minutes after she went under, Dr. Rodriguez entered the waiting room where we were anxiously awaiting the “good” news. Kelli had left for work, Shyam had left to run some errands, so it was just Bill, my grandfather, and I.

“We’ve discovered it is not ovarian cancer that Donn has, in fact her ovaries are fine. We’ve discovered stomach cancer. There is a large tumor in her abdomen and it has metastasized to other organs in her body, including her intestines. This does not look good."

After everyone began to hug, sob, and curse the heavens, I somehow gathered the brain power to ask, “What causes this type of cancer? Is it hereditary?”

“Well, there are mainly two causes. Either you’re of Asian descent, which your mom is not, as far as we know, or heavy drinking and smoking.”

All this time, I’d been the bad guy when asking my mom to please stop drinking and smoking. She hated me for that. Hated me. She wouldn’t talk to me for months on end because I even mentioned the word “drinking” over the phone. I distinctly recall standing in front of her when I was 12 years old after catching her snorting a powdery white substance, saying to her "If you don't stop, it will kill you one day." I was right, and now I was livid.

*Disappointment, Please.

“We’ll be OK Mum, you can go, we’ll all take care of each other,” my sister and I sobbed. We repeated this nonsense to her over and over and over. Could she sense we were lying? In death, surely one gets closer to the spirit world and can finally see through bullshit lies being told, I thought. I didn’t agree with our promises at all, especially knowing the state of cold separation our family had retained for years apart from the past few months when we were forced to come together and care. My dream of being a close, caring family had finally come true, but under these set of circumstances I’d gladly take the disappointment I had come to know so well. I hoped we would take care of each other, that the family environment we’d built the past few months would remain—that I could continue hosting family nights with dinner and board games—but it wouldn’t be the same without her infectious laugh, her charismatic draw, and her special set of dysfunctions she unapologetically brought to the table.

Excerpt from chapter one | wild horses | Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir

*A Wrinkle in Time, or Thirty

After struggling with the decision, I find it’s important for me to include this chapter of the story, introducing my mother as an innocent little girl, because until I saw her as one, my heart was often cold toward her and I didn’t quite understand her at all. I always loved her with a hunger and deep aching in my chest and sought after a relationship, a friendship, a comforting mother-daughtership with her until the very end, though I was also a bit guarded and awkward, which always proved to be empty and unfulfilling.

We all begin as pure, irreproachable little children having vast hopes, big dreams, unbridled laughter, and intense inquisitiveness. We go about life and our feelings are hurt, others let us down, we fail, we succeed, we win, we lose, and every last one of those moments, those scars, whether treasure or trash, wind up displayed on our faces as we live and age, like a billboard for all to see, to cherish or to reject.

Expectation and sorrow walk hand-in-hand—you can’t have one without the other. And they shape us into who we become, if we let them.

Excerpt from chapter two | tiny dancer | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Jealousy & Aircraft Carriers Don't Mix

While cleaning out Mum’s garage after she passed, I came across an old, black vinyl bank envelope, First American Title Company gold emblem on the front, zipper open, overflowing with papers, books, and seemingly hundreds of random clippings of Three Dog Night concert publicity ads. A manila envelope stood out from the rest with my name written across the top. “Goldmine,” I thought. I quickly placed what appeared to be a priceless treasure trove into my Prius for a later investigation.

A few months later, when I finally felt emotionally equipped to inspect such past paraphernalia, I pulled the mysterious envelope out. My name was on it, after all. No need to feel as if I'm committing espionage now, though I often feel as such when examining Mum's things. 

Mixed in with clipped coupons for items such as No nonsense pantyhose (expiration date 09/30/83), Purina 100 cat food (expiration date 11/30/83), and Cocoa Puffs breakfast crack (NO EXPIRATION DATE!), was an invitation from my second grade teacher, Miss Scott, to join my classmates on a summer field trip to quietly, and in single file line, invade the USS Kitty Hawk Naval aircraft carrier. 

After curiously pondering the fact that I'd never known Mum to use a coupon, not to mention what they were doing in a manila envelope with my name on it, a wave of resentment suddenly and surprisingly hit me as I was reminded the reasons given as to why I was not allowed to join the mob on that highly anticipated incursion.

 The engine room beckoned my inner-most seven-year-old curiosity contraption. I wanted to witness first-hand those waterproof doorways Miss Scott so eloquently described. What did twenty stories above water look like, exactly? At what length would the flight deck have to be in order to launch a supersonic F-14 Tomcat from it without it landing on the ocean floor?

Though a decidedly peculiar topic of study in the second grade, I'd become obsessed. The carrier's identifying number, 63, became etched in my mind and I still refer to it as lucky and use it for pass codes and such.

My lack of freedom to pursue this intriguing special interest came in the form of a completely foreign concept and belief system. Mum and Nana whole-heartedly believed Miss Scott, with her tight-to-scalp red curly locks, elongated face, large teeth, and mint-green polyester garb that went swish-swish-swash when she walked, had 'a thing' for Papa. I seem to recall her asking him once to don his uniform in class for show and tell; he was a Navy man after all. So Mum and Nana didn't fancy Miss Scott in the least bit, and were quite insistent on keeping me from attending the military ship overtake extravaganza.

I cried. A lot. 

Cocoa Puffs. Hmm. This could be fun.

*Drugs, from the perspective of a nine year old.

Mum’s drugs, to me, were comparable to that annoying relative everyone seems to have—the loud mouth that has no regard for what is going on around her. Let’s call her “Auntie High”. . .

Those friendly with “Auntie High” tend to become like her, careless and obnoxious. Those who avoid her tend to be the ones left to clean up the mess. Like a tornado, she vacuums everything and everyone up around her then drops them back down to the floor, shattering whatever propensity toward security and authenticity one might have had. Always creating a mess to clean up, physically or psychologically, the users sleep it off the next day in a darkened room, non-users expected to sort it all, whilst wondering “Where can I safely dispose of these razor blades?” and “How can I know for sure this is flour?”

I’d notice that the moment drugs entered the room, everything changed, everyone felt different. They were now what appeared to be programmed robots that looked like people you knew but were, in fact, not. When these hyper-cyborgs sat on our sofa, it was as if this warm place that just the night before was a source of comfort on which chocolate chip cookies and Charlie Brown’s Christmas were enjoyed, was transformed into a dark and lonely place where imposters laughed and didn’t listen to each other, though they talked an awful lot, rather loudly. Even if hidden in the quiet darkness of a bedroom closet, one could always tell when the drug was about.

Excerpt from chapter fifteen | changes. EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR

*Excerpt from Chapter Twenty: Hold Your Head Up

(A fourteen-year-old's perspective: finding Mum had become a mistress.)

“How long could a sexual act take?” I'd wondered aloud. It’d been hours. I’d hoped he hadn’t killed her. He was a pretty heavy guy. Rather fat, in fact.

I would often concern myself with the thought of how the buttons remained on Jim’s business shirts. I imagined his stomach to contain the kind of force shared only by a can of tightly packed Pillsbury biscuit dough, so was tempted to cover my face when in front of him for fear they’d pop off and “take an eye out”, as my grandmother would have said. I believe my interest in physics began when I pondered the mystery of how his tiny black belt was able to support his baggy dress pants whilst having two negative factors working against it--a wide, flat rear-end and gigantic protruding belly. Six inches up in back, six inches down in front. Inanimate objects have often brought on deep compassion from me, and his desperately thin belt was no exception (although I was assured the poor thing was well relieved when his mistress was around as it was finally able to take a holiday well deserved).

Excerpt from chapter twenty | hold your head up | EVERYTHING'S HUNKY DORY: A MEMOIR