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newlenoxpatriot.com SOUND OFF
the New Lenox Patriot | December 13, 2018 | 17
Social snapshot
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From NewLenoxPatriot.com as of Monday,
Dec. 10
From the Assistant Editor
Learning from a two-time
1. Toughness earns Mahoney All-State recognition
2. The Dish: Cooper’s Hawk brings upscale
cooking, abundance of wine to New Lenox
3. Girls Basketball: Celtics suffer first loss to highly
ranked Mighty Macs
4. 10 Questions with Conor Smetana, Lincoln-Way
Central wrestling
5. Officials talk infrastructure plans, rebates
Become a member: NewLenoxPatriot.com/plus
New Lenox Fire Protection District posted
this Dec. 6:
“A HUGE thank you to McKenna and her
friends for helping us out by raising money
through several bake sales over the summer!
You deserve this and more!”
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“A little snowfall sure does give the trail
scenery a boost, doesn’t it? The scene last
week along the Old Plank Road Trail (Photo
courtesy of Carter Wright)”
@WillCoForests, on Dec. 5
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Megan Schuller
m.schuller@22ndcm.com
My mother looked
up at the nurse
with confusion
and frustration. She could
not say her own name, nor
did she remember who I
was when I came to visit
her. Her brain was being
taken hostage, and all she
or I could do was wait it
out.
Nearly everyone knows,
or knows of, somebody
with cancer, but we never
quite expect it to hit so
close to home, let alone
double jeopardy the same
person within a year.
After covering a Lincoln-Way
Community
High School D210 board
meeting on Nov. 15, my
sister told me that my mom
was admitted for a possible
stroke to an intensive
care unit. After test results
came back we realized that
possibility could not have
been more wrong: There
were two large, cancerous
lesions in the left side of
her brain wreaking havoc
on her body, disabling her
motor and cognitive abilities,
and placing her in a
near-vegetable-like state.
My heart sank like a loose
anchor in the ocean.
cancer survivor
Questions raced through
my head faster than I
could bombard the doctors
with them. I couldn’t
fathom how a recent lung
cancer survivor suddenly
developed cancerous lesions
in the brain. I soon
learned, to my surprise,
that it was more common
than I thought. According
to Mayo Clinic, brain
metastases (secondary
brain tumors) occur in 10-
30 percent of adults with
cancer. My mother had
now become part of those
statistics.
I stared at her surgeon
with a blank expression
as I tried to digest what
he was telling me: Cancer
cells can break away and
be carried to other parts
of the body, but once they
reach the brain, the chemo
she had done for the lung
cancer is no longer effective.
The condition, called
metastatic lung cancer,
is named after where the
travelling cancer originated
in the body. The lesions
had grown so large that
they were causing severe
swelling, which inhibited
speech and motor skills on
the right side of her body.
She received emergency
surgery a few days later,
and the surgeon eliminated
what he could.
We thought we were in
the clear. Intense physical
therapy and direct brain radiation
were the next steps.
Until three weeks later
when we found out the lesions
had began to regrow
during the time before
when radiation was scheduled
to start. What the road
ahead is for my mother, I
am uncertain.
I do know that while
this news has blind sided
my family, I’ve learned a
lot from this experience. I
was quickly reminded how
unpredictable life can be,
how devious cancer can be
and the amount of strength
it takes to overcome such a
situation.
I had never been so
heartbroken as when I told
her that her cancer had
come back, more aggressively
than before. She
looked at me with tears in
her eyes, begging me to
take her home instead of
going through direct radiation
therapy and a second
surgery.
“Not again,” she pleaded
with me. “I can’t go
through this again.”
Since her surgery I have
been confidently telling her
she was now a two-time
cancer survivor and the
worst was through, while,
unknown to me at the time,
it was not. I still continue
to try to radiate positivity
in the hope that it will keep
her strong through this until
she achieves remission.
Suddenly all the little
things and differences
we had didn’t matter as
much to me. The weight
of the things that fueled
our differences seemed
lighter and more distant
in memory. I think that’s
a lesson that everyone can
take away from watching
someone battle a serious
health condition like
cancer.
The body fights like hell
against itself. Everything
— from the cancer, to the
surgery, to the chemo and
radiation — takes a toll on
the body. The worst part
was every time we thought
we glimpsed remission, it
faded further and further
away.
While I cannot predict
the outcome of the war
waging in my mother’s
body, I am confident that
we will come out stronger
together because of this,
and I know that I will hug
her a little tighter every
time I see her, my soonto-be
three-time cancer
survivor.
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