I Took My Mother For A Dose of Poison

I took my mother for a large dose of poison last week.

Sound crazy?

It gets crazier.

I actually did it two days in a row.

That double dose of poison is a gift. I’m so thankful to have access to pump it throughout her body.

What kind of daughter does such a thing?

The kind that’s hoping to save her mother’s life.

I shared last week, Dear Reader, how my mother has been diagnosed with lymphoma.

The poison I’m talking about are the drugs that make up her chemotherapy.

The things it might do to her body certainly gave me pause.

“As we start administering the drugs,” the nurse explained, you might get violent shakes, difficulty breathing, increased heart rate.”

She brought home her point by gowning up and double-gloving as she spoke.

The same poison that threatened to throw my mother’s body into spasms is also the best bet to slam the lymphoma into remission.

And so I took my mother for poison.

It’s possible you’ve done some done something like this, too, Dear Reader.

You suspend logic when something is too big, weird, scary and counter-intuitive to wrap your head around it.

Take your tiny baby to the pediatrician and watch her scream as the doctor plunges shots into her perfectly plump, squishy thighs.

Drop your dog off at the vet for surgery to get him neutered. (I’ve yet to meet a man who doesn’t cringe at that idea.)

Leave the love of your life because you know,  ultimately, you two will be toxic together.

How do you it?

How did I do it?

I think it comes down to one word.

Hope.

Hope that you’re headed to a better place than here.

Hope that your dog will lead a healthier life once he’s healed.

Hope that your child will have a lifetime of protection from terrible diseases long after her tears have dried.

Hope that a healthier, better relationship awaits you once your shattered heart pieces back together.

Hope that my mother’s lymphoma responds to the chemotherapy.

“We don’t talk cure,” the doctor explained realistically this week. “We go for remission that can last 10-20 years.”

At 78, that’s a place my mother would love to get to.

Amazingly, Mom didn’t experience a single one of the side effects the doctors and nurses warned her about.

Still, I was glad to be by her side for this first go round.

She should be in the clear until her next treatment 28 days from now.

Which means, 26 days from now I’ll get back in a metal tube and fly 35,000 feet in the sky to be by her side again.

Talk about crazy!

Here’s hoping Round Two goes as smoothly.

I’d love to hear your story, how you suspended logic to get you or a loved one to a better place.

I’ll share the stories with Mom as we pass the hours dripping that beloved poison into her body.

Find more uplifting stories on my website, DarynKagan.com

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio.

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