Mothers and Daughters

I am now the mother of a 3 year old.  An amazingly caring, intelligent 3 year old.  She tests my patience.  She challenges everything I say.  She throws fits and embarrasses me in public sometimes.  She misbehaves and acts out.  And at the end of the day, I wouldn't trade it in for anything else in this world.
The reason I can think this way and appreciate all the little things my child has taught me (and will continue to teach me) is because I have been blessed with such an awe-inspiring mom.  I want so much to be like her.  She has been a source of support, laughter, inspiration and love throughout my entire life. 
Unfortunately, in September 2011, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer.  When they found it, the tumor was fairly large (I don't remember how big exactly).  It was decided that she would under-go chemotherapy every day, as well as radiation.  As a practice, they did an MRI of her brain to make sure there were no tumors.  There was one.  It was only a centimeter, but it was there.  My mom now had metastatic lung cancer.  This changed the treatment plan.  They would do Cyber-knife radiation "surgery" to the spot in her brain and give chemo treatments once every 3 weeks.  We continued with that treatment plan until March of this year.  My mom started coughing a lot more and was having pain.  They did more scans and found that radiation was the next best treatment for the tumor in her lung.  She had radiation 5x a week for 5 weeks.  After that, our family took a trip to Florida.  That's when the pain started to get worse.  Chemotherapy, which had been postponed during the radiation treatments, started again.  They continued to do scan after scan revealing nothing major, a few spots near her spine, which were treated first with general radiation and then with Cyber-knife radiation.  In all, she had 40 radiation treatments.  Through it all, we've continued to laugh.  In May, she was hospitalized for severe dehydration.  She was in the hospital, where they did even more scans (revealing nothing new), for 3 1/2 days.  She came home from the hospital and kept going to chemo treatments.  A week and a half ago, she was hospitalized again.  This time for such severe pain, she couldn't move or breathe.  She was put on pain medications and put through even more testing.  Something felt different this time.  I cried.  This was my mommy and I wasn't ready to start having to deal with this.  I talked to my cousin, whose mother also passed away less than 2 years ago from the same disease.  The same night, my cousin drove down.  We found out, on my mother's second day in the hospital, that there had been a significant change in the cancer since she was last at the hospital in May.  There were 40-50 nodules now in the chest.  The doctors spoke to us about DNR and hospice.  My mom was discharged from the hospital the day after we were told of the progression.  She is now on oxygen and continuing with pain medication. There is a nurse that comes to our house 2 times a week to check her vitals, O2 sats, and check on her pain levels.  We've got information on both palliative care and hospice.  The oncologist has informed us that the cancer has also started to invade the bone.  Next Monday, she will be starting a new course of chemotherapy, that has a chance of shrinking the nodules in her lungs and possibly making a difference in the bone as well. 
And you might think that you would walk into this house and expect to find very solemn people.  People who could cry at the drop of a hat.  But you would be so wrong. 
My mother taught me to enjoy the little things in life.  To embrace my morbid sense of humor.  She never stifled my ability to find the funny even in the darkest times.  If I laughed at a funeral, she would only ask me to make it less obvious and then find out what was so funny.  I have gained from her the ability to see humor in nearly any situation.  We joked today about marionette strings.  I can't tell you anymore than that because I'm still contemplating where they will come into play.  She has her roller coaster moments.  We have our weepy times, which are usually followed by moments of uproarious laughter.  I told her today that I was going to miss her. (please understand that the end isn't around the corner)  We cried.  And I told her that it was GOOD that I was going to miss her.  I wouldn't want to be someone that wouldn't miss their mom.  I told her that she could be 90 and I would still miss her.  She's my mom.  She the only one I have and I couldn't have dreamed up a better one.  I love her and hope someday that my daughter will feel this way about me.