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the Mokena Messenger | December 13, 2018 | 13
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“CONGRATULATIONS Mokena Burros Jr.
Varisty Cheerleaders on your POP WAR-
NER NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!!”
Mokena Burros posted this on its Facebook
page Thursday, Dec. 6
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“The Lincoln-Way Central National Honor
Society collected 168 toys for Toys for Tots!”
@LWCentralKnight posted this to its Twitter
account Dec. 3.
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From the Assistant Editor
Learning from a two-time cancer survivor
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.
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
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.
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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