"I won't live to see you succeed..." mum said, which attracted a scolding from my aunt.
I looked at mum, and there was an emptiness in her eyes, a blank expression on her face. In her eyes there was a hollow void, filled with regret, perhaps, over things that have not happened yet, over things nobody has any way of knowing how they will happen. I laughed and joked that I will go study hard now and quickly start my career as a successful lawyer! "So you can still see me succeed!"
Though I was laughing and speaking in a light tone, it was not entirely a joke. I know one day, perhaps not tomorrow, perhaps not next year, I will be what I want to be, and I will find a calling in life, and live and work with passion. But right now, my calling is being at mum's side on this difficult journey. Success is not necessarily always measured by the number of years you have worked or the number of degrees you have earned.
I was not here when the doctor visited today and broke the news, so everything that follows is based on second hand information. My aunt (mum's brother's wife) told me that doctor's assessment goes against a bypass surgery to reroute mum's duodenum to the stomach (bypassing the tumour growing there...). It probably won't be effective, for the food may just quickly pass through the body and leave through the intestines before being absorbed. Why go through pain and recovery of a major operation if that may be the outcome?
An alternative may be to surgically insert a feeding tube into the intestines and feed her liquids from now on. The tumour cannot be removed, for it has become advanced and is spreading to even the pancreas, and the large and small intestines (according to my aunt).
I still need to speak to the surgeon myself and hear the diagnosis and proposed plan of treatment from him and his team. But it sounds as if there are basically two choices: to proceed with a procedure and install and feeding tube to minimally sustain mum's life until cancer eventually takes her away, or to just go home and let things be. The ultimate outcome will be the same in any course of action: death. But one may be less torturous (I'm not sure) and less unpredictable (again I'm not sure... Who is ever certain with death?) than the other.
As far as I know, mum's initial reaction to the feeding tube is that it robs her of dignity of life, and she feels ashamed of having something installed in her nostril on a permanent basis... And if she is from now on to be fed through a tube, it is just to sustain her life for a certain period of time, and there is no guarantee that she will have any strength to continue to fight the spread of cancer. What could be a worse form of dying than cancer destroying every single organ in your body and consciously watching everything shut down one by one? Mum's body may be weak, but her mind is still clear and strong, and her pride I feel will be so tortured and her dignity so shamed if she were to rot away and be eaten from the inside by cancer...
And the alternative, of no treatment... Of letting mum "starve" in a way, is that better? How painful is it to starve? What are the complications of going hungry and not getting enough nutrients for the body to work, as she has been experiencing for the last three weeks? Is this "better" and less painful than the pain of cancer eating your body and soul?
I do not know, I simply do not know... I know too little about the medical facts and about the consequences of either courses of action to know what is better or what is best! All I know is I know mum would want the least painful option, one that would not prolong her suffering for much longer, for she is simply too tired, so very, very tired....
And I am getting tired too. Tired of set backs, tired of the unknowns and twists and turns, and so very afraid that I may have to shoulder a great responsibility that of shaping a decision that may heavily affect mum's course of life and cause her unnecessary prolonged pain and suffering...
I am again so very afraid...
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