Holding On

I had another dream about my mom last night.

I was at home and walked into the kitchen. And there she was! Just washing dishes. She looked just like I remember her from about 3 years ago.

I was so so happy to see her. We were both smiling. I ran over to her and hugged her. We holding each other and I didn't want to let go.

So I didn't.

My mom and I walked around the house hugging each other. It must have seemed pretty comical. Then one by one, people in my life tried to convince me that I couldn't hold on to my mom forever. It just wasn't practical. What if I needed to drive somewhere? I'd have to let go of her then.

But I refused to let go. I just kept saying, "But you don't understand. She's my mom!"

She Visits Me In My Dreams

I've been meaning to write about this for about a week now but I'm just getting to it. Sorry about the delay.

About a week ago, I had a dream that felt so incredibly real.

I was starting my first day of school at a new university and everything was going wrong. Absolutely everything. I won't go into all the details, but it was going so horribly that I somehow missed every single class I was supposed to attend. I was freaking out that my professors would drop my from the classes because I didn't show up on the first day of class. I was very nervous and scared.

That evening I was supposed meet my extended family at a fancy restaurant for dinner. I got there and just started crying from the stress of the horrible day. My aunts tried to console me, but it did no good.

Then I overhead my dad tell my grandpa "She hasn't said a word all day. I made her laugh about 4 hours ago but nothing since then." I looked up, and there was my mom sitting at the end of the other table in her wheelchair. (She looked like she did about back in May/June) Her back was to me, so I couldn't see her face. I got up and ran to her and sat in her lap and hugged her. She held me as I cried. We cried together. I said "It's going to be okay, Mommy."

I'll never forget this moment in the dream. I was curled up in her lap with my head on her chest and her arms around me. And she said in a voice as clear as day "It'll be alright, baby."

It sounded exactly like her. EXACTLY like her. Just like she used to say it to me when I was sad.

I started sobbing so hard. And then I started sobbing in real life. It was an absolutely terrifying feeling. I don't know if any of you have woken yourself up by crying in your sleep, but it's a pretty scary feeling. And I wasn't just crying, I was really sobbing. I was whimpering and going "waaahhhhh!". That's how I woke up in the middle of the night.

But after the initial terror passed, I just felt her with me. It felt like it was really her. She was really telling that she's looking after me and that "It'll be alright, baby."

Analysis of Two Corresponding Major Life Events

I had to write an essay for my Health Psychology class about a current streesor in my life. As you could have guessed, I wrote about my mom's death and her diagnosis almost 2 years ago as corresponding major life events. I got the grade back for the essay today. I got 100%! I thought I'd share it with you:

Analysis of Two Corresponding Major Life Events

I am currently going through the most stressful times of my life. This is not because I’m a full-time college student at a challenging school majoring in Psychology and double minoring in Mathematics and Ethnic Studies. This is the most stressful period of my life because my mom died less than three months ago.

Since her brain cancer diagnosis in January of 2011, I have been felt the weight of chronic stress. Not only has the death of my mother been a major life event, but so was her initial diagnosis. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale rates “major change in health or behavior of a family member” as #11, whereas “death of a close family member” is ranked #5. I’ve experienced both in less than two years.

However, I would rank what I’ve been through higher than #5.  For a daughter to lose her mom at the young age of 20 is especially stressful. It has required me to greatly readjust my life. Based on the stress I’ve felt over the last 21 months, I believe my event of losing a parent after a difficult battle with a terminal illness should be ranked #1 on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, tied with “death of spouse”. However, I’ve never been married so I cannot even begin to imagine what losing a spouse feels like for my dad and others like him.

My mom’s initial diagnosis was extremely unexpected; it had very low predictability. I was at home with my mom for 6 weeks during winter break prior to the diagnosis. Only one week after I returned to school, I got the phone call that my mom was in the hospital for a brain tumor. She had none of the normal symptoms of a brain tumor like a seizure or prolonged headaches.

As you can imagine, I had very little control during this entire experience. The 18 months from the diagnosis to her death seemed to revolve entirely around her. Even when I researched clinical trials that could possibly slow down the cancer cells, my opinion was not respected. I wanted so badly for my mom to beat this cancer, but I felt like my efforts to help her were ignored. The only decision I had control over was whether or not to move back home from school. I was attending a college 2,000 away from home and during the frantic period right after the diagnosis, I made the decision to leave the college I was attending and find a school closer to home.

I also categorize my experience with my mom’s initial diagnosis of stage four brain cancer as a novel experience for me. I had never even known anyone with stage four cancer. Finding out that my own mom had advanced cancer was unlike anything I had ever coped with before.

Following the Transactional Model of Stress, my primary appraisal of my mom’s diagnosis was obviously negative. The event was both a harm and a threat. As a harm, my mom’s diagnosis uprooted my college experience. I was no longer living 2,000 miles away from home. I could no longer hang out with friends. I was always working, studying, or spending valuable time with my mom. As a threat, my mom’s diagnosis threatened her life, and as a result it threatened our family life.

My secondary appraisal during this first event was that I was not prepared. I did not have many internal coping strategies ready for an event like this and my external resources at the time were minimal.

After an 18 month battle with brain cancer, my mom died this past July. This event felt very different than the initial diagnosis a year and a half earlier. But in fact the only difference was that it was expected and not a surprise. I had predicted that she was going to die relatively soon. I had been telling myself for months that my mom was probably going to die. I didn’t want to give myself false hope and then feel shocked all over again, like I was with the diagnosis. However, the anticipation of her death for months before it actually happened was also very stressful. I wanted to prepare myself in the best way I could, but I didn’t know how. I felt like I didn’t have any control.

In fact, I felt like I had even less control than when she was first diagnosed because I could no longer search for clinical trials and treatment options that might fix the situation. In order to maintain some sense of control, I took on the responsibility of planning things like the obituary and the funeral. This helped me feel a sense of control and purpose.

My mom’s death was also a novel experience for me. I had never seen a dead body before. I had never experienced a death of a close family member before either.

My primary appraisal was also obviously negative. I viewed it as a harm, like the original diagnosis. But instead of also viewing her death as a threat, this time I also viewed it as a challenge. I lost my mom. That is a harm I will have to cope with for the rest of my life. But the challenge is the important part, the challenge of incorporating this entire experience into my life perspective and honoring my mother’s life in the process.

This is part of my secondary appraisal. Since my mom’s diagnosis, I have developed a strength that I did not know I was capable of. This is my new internal resource. I feel prepared and I can use this newly developed strength to cope with any future stressor. Another part of my secondary appraisal is my new external resources. Over the 18 months of her battle with brain cancer, I met many people who were experiencing or had experienced very similar situations to the one I am in. I am able to talk with them and get the perspective on how to handle difference situations and emotions.

However, I am also going through a difficult grief process. The sadness and sense of loss I feel presents itself in the form of stress. I am much more easily stressed over daily hassles. Studying for a test sometimes feels like an impossible task. This is because stressors are additive. A daily task of studying for a class on top of the stress of losing my mom makes me reach overload and exhaustion very quickly. I feel exhausted a lot. I have felt exhausted many times for the past year, just as Hans Selye predicted in his model of the General Adaptation Syndrome. I hope in time, as I find a way to cope with my mother’s death, I will no longer feel mentally exhausted as often as I do now. I will overcome this major stressor in my life.

 

Money is the Root of all Evil

I think I've talked about money issues on my blog before, but I really just need a place to rant right now.

My dad has long been pestering me about money. He constantly tells me to get a job. He tells me to fight with my school to get as much financial aid as I possibly can. He's even tried to use my student discounts to buy things for himself.

And yet, time and time again, he spends money on things that no one would normally consider buying when you are low on cash. Earlier this year, he bought my mom a brand new laptop. What in the world would my mom do with a laptop? She had the cognitive mind of about an 8 year old when he bought it. Guess what happened. She barely used it. What a surprise.

He also bought her a Kindle Fire. Again what would she do with this? After losing motion on the left side of her body, my mom developed hemispatial neglect. This meant she couldn't read the words on the left side of the page.


This is a picture my mom drew of her sister.
You can see that a lot more detail is drawn on the right side.
She forgot the left arm entirely because of her hemispatial neglect.

We ended up mostly using the Kindle Fire to play her music after she had fallen into a coma-like state. Not exactly a worth-while purchase.

And now that my dad has received my mom's life insurance money, he isn't spending it any better.

While he still pesters me to get a job and made me take out thousands of dollars in student loans, he's bought another laptop, a new ipod (when he has a fancy Android), has planned several vacations to places like Hawaii and Los Angeles, and has decided to get a $1500 dog from a breeder. (I think getting a dog is a horrible idea altogether because both my dad and my sister are so busy, they don't have time to take care of a dog. Plus our house is filled with my mom's Persian rugs. Imagine what a puppy would do to white silk Persian rugs? But if he really wants to get one, why not get one from the local shelter?)

He's also donated thousands of dollars to the UCSF Neurosurgery Department. I don't have a problem with this, except that he made me take out the same amount of money in student loans. Isn't the point of life insurance money to help pay for things like college as if my mom were still alive? I can already tell that next year when I'm applying for financial aid again, my school is going to say "You seem to have received a lot of untaxed income this year. Why are you claiming you can't pay the full tuition price?" Because all the money will be already spent and I will have to take out more loans in my own name. And my dad will complain to me that we're not getting the same amount of scholarships as we did last year.

In 2 years my sister will be going off to college. I worry for her. My dad should use the money for our education. That's what my mom would do. There's a reason why she was in charge of our family's finances. She was so much more pragmatic about it.

Also, she'd never ever ever get a pet dog. She hated pets. But I guess my dad and sister always wanted one, and now that Mom's dead they can finally get their dog.

The Last Text My Mom Ever Sent Me...

The last text my mom ever sent me was from May 10, over two months before she died. Her mind was too much like a child's to work a cellphone after that.

The text she sent me reads "I love you & miss you very much."

I love you too Mommy. And I miss you so so much.

Just Another Day in Calculus Class

My Calculus professor is a cheery man who likes to chat with his students. Today , right before class, he looked at me and said, "How is your day going?"

I responded, "It's going okay."

"Just okay? It's a beautiful day! What could be troubling you?"

I said to him, "You really want to know?"

Mind you, this is in front of the entire class. This was not a private conversation.

"Sure! What's bothering you?"

So I said, "Okay... Well I'm kind of grieving right now. My mom just died 2 months ago" (at this exact instance, every single person snapped their head to look at me. It was just like a scene in a movie) "so I haven't had a good day in awhile."

Suddenly his face dropped. His eyes actually teared up. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Was she young?"

"She was only 52."

"That's so young... Cancer?"

"Yeah. Brain cancer."

Then there was silence. After about 30 seconds, he said "There have been so many medical breakthroughs, but there's still a long way to go."

And with that, he started his lecture.


At first, my eyes were teary. My bottom lip wouldn't stop shaking. But after a couple minutes, I felt empowered. I was raising my hand more than I ever have. I felt confident and capable. I want to make my mom proud and show everyone that I'm just as strong as she was. I'm her daughter. She taught me how to be strong. My strength comes from her.

The Psychology of Health

I'm taking a course this semester called Health Psychology. I thought it would be about the psychological impact of being diagnosed with a severe illness. We might get to that topic at some point, but for now, this class is not at all as I expected. (I checked the syllabus and looks like we'll spend just the last day of class on cancer. Just one day.) So far we've disgusted the health benefits of making good health choices. This doesn't sound too bad, but I don't think I've ever gotten more frustrated taking a class than taking this one.

The textbook for my Health Psychology class.

First day of Health Psychology, my professor asks us to fill out a one-question survey. She asked each of use to rank how much we value our health, on a scale from 0 - 7. I decided to be honest and I wrote 3.

I've never been that healthy. My mom made us eat healthy foods growing up. She made us eat a serving of broccoli and a glass of milk every single night until I was in college. I absolutely hated it. She would beg me to work out with her (she exercised every night), but I'd always refuse. "Exercising is boring," I'd say. She wanted to me to exercise so bad, that she actually gave me roommate at DePaul University $20 for taking me to the gym one time! My mom really cared about her health. She never smoked and very rarely drank (and when she did, it was usually a margarita!). She ate a health diet and took daily vitamins.

Even before my mom got sick, I obviously didn't value my health very much. Probably because I was young and ignorant. And like my mom always told me, "you think you're healthy because you're not overweight, but that's not what being healthy means."

But when my mom got sick, I was in total shock. My mom always talked about how my dad didn't take care of his health and that it'll catch up with him one day. And that she didn't want me to grow up like him. But to watch her to struggle and then lose her life to cancer, why should I value good health? Good health can't prevent cancer. It can't prevent death. My mom was one of the healthiest people I knew, and she died of cancer.

My professor read though all the responses out loud, and most people wrote 6. There were some 7s and 5s. But when she got to mine, she said "Huh. Well 3 is kind of low." Yes, I know I should value good health more. My mom would want me to. But after everything I seen in the passed 2 years, it's hard to believe that having good health habits will really help me in the long run.

My professor told us that 75% of all deaths caused by cancer are attributed to lifestyle choices and health behaviors of the individual. [35% attributed to poor diet, 30% attributed to tobacco use, 7% attributed to sexual behavior, and 3% attributed to over-consumption of alcohol]

I realize that 75% is quite a high percentage and I understand why our professor is trying to convince everyone to be healthy, but I can't help but get so unbelievably frustrated during this class.

She told us about a study from 1965 to 1990 that found that healthy women who did 7 good health behaviors [didn't smoke, rarely drank alcohol, ate a balanced diet, exercised, got 7-9 hours of sleep every night, ate breakfast everyday, and didn't eat between meals] had a 43% lower mortality rate that women who didn't do any of these good health behaviors.

My mom did all of those things. She was healthy. Then why is she dead? It's not like she was killed in an accident. She died of a health problem. She died of cancer.

I don't know the exact reason for this, but as my mom's got sicker and sicker she stopped caring about her daily vitamins or a good diet. There were times when she ate two ice cream cones a day. She didn't seem to care. I'm not sure if the brain tumor had affected her reasoning so much that she just wanted to eat whatever she wanted. Or if she decided that she was going to die anyways, so what was the point in taking multivitamins? Or maybe she was so incredibly frustrated that decades of healthy diets and exercise and doing everything right didn't count for shit. That's what frustrates me the most at least. And that's why I wrote 3 on that survey.




Update:
Right after I wrote this blog post, I decided to go to the gym. I probably haven't gone to the gym8 months or so. Maybe I actually am learning from this class. Or maybe I exercised because I know my mom always wanted me to.