Celebrating Mama and sending our love to Papa Bear

UPDATE: 12/23/2023

On December 22, at approximately 10:00am, my mother—Michelle Lynn Whaley, our tireless fighter—was finally able to rest.

From March of this year to December, my father, Mark Whaley, has acted just as tirelessly in his own role. He served my mother faithfully during her fight with cancer, as loving and devoted of a caretaker as I’ve ever known him to be, and was there with her, holding her hand, at the very end.

The generosity everyone has shown my family in this time has been overwhelming, and the outpouring of want to help has only increased these past few days. There remains, of course, costs and expenses in need of covering: things separate from what closure my father will require in laying his beautiful wife of more than 20 years to rest.

This page will remain my mother’s only desired memorial, and the care we choose to show my father in the weeks to come were her one final concern. Any donations made from henceforth will contribute to her cremation as well as final medical expenses.

From the bottom of my heart, to all of our family, and each and every last one of Mom and Mark’s friends and coworkers: she loved and appreciated you, and so do we. Thank you all.

—

UPDATE: 11/19/2023

Hi there, Emily again.

Right now, I’m laid on an air mattress beside the hospital bed in my mother’s room, in the same spot I have slept for a week now. I came to visit not knowing exactly what to expect: the last time I came home, Mom had just been admitted to the ER. Hospitalization is always a mixed bag. On one hand, there’s no where safer for her to be, but on the other, it’s not home. Sure, it gives Papa Bear a break from his role of Mom’s primary caretaker, but then it’s an enormous amount of time being spent out of the house commuting for visiting hours—and of course he misses her.

Since returning home (this most recent time), Mom and Mark have definitely got their routine down to a science. Papa Bear really gets into the groove of things when he’s caring for Mom, and his experience really shows. This week, I got a small taste of just what goes into making sure Mom is comfortable and all the things Papa Bear does to care for her on a day to day basis.

It’s a lot, but both of my parents truly take it in stride. Mom has never shied away from the hand she’s been dealt, and she remains as much of a fighter as she’s ever been throughout this ordeal. And Papa Bear is a truly tireless presence: even when he’s working, he’s making sure Mama has her meals (he’s getting to be quite the cook!) and whatever else she may need.

We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving early, ensuring the whole family got to be together today and before I go home tomorrow. That was really what inspired my wanting to write this update: gratitude. I am so thankful to each and everyone one of you who donated to my mother’s cause. Your generosity was sincerely more than I ever imagined, and it’s still going! We’re still getting donations! It’s been amazing to see, and I’m happy to report that—even without having achieved the full goal of 50k—we have found a viable and affordable option, a heavy duty vehicular attachment (something called a Milford Lift) that will be being installed on my dad’s new car.

We are all very excited, because this will give him and my mom the opportunity to get in the car and go out again. They’ve always loved spending time together, whether it’s going to Target for a grocery store run or to the local Applebee’s for a nice little dinner date.

Your donations have gone such a long way to alleviating so much financial stress and square away a lot of things that shouldn’t be what either of my parent’s real focus is on right now. And come March of next year, they will continue to contribute to mom’s next calendar year of care, covering the out of pocket for their family health insurance.

So, from me, and from my entire family: thank you. Thank you for your continued support, because every bit—then and now—helps more than you could possibly know.

—

Hi, my name is Emily. Earlier this year, my mother, Michelle Whaley, was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. At that time, the oncologist gave her a conservative life estimate of one to two years. Naturally, this prognosis devastated our entire family. It is not an exaggeration to say that this woman is the sun in the center of our—me, my sister, and my father’s—universe. She is the glue that binds us together, a perpetual caretaker, an uplifting spirit, and our strongest support. In that moment, everything changed, and not because any of us wanted it to. Suddenly, my mom, a healthy, 54-year-old woman, found herself unable to speak. She struggled at work, a job which she has enjoyed and excelled at for more than a decade. The treatment administered, a vigorous regimen of chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy, while highly effective at the start, took a great deal out of her: it zapped her energy, it affected her physical stamina and mental cognizance.

Despite her exhaustion, and in the face of every unpleasant side effect and symptom, my mother remained the woman I had always known her as: a fighter, someone ready and willing to put in the work, the same tough lady who—no matter her personal problems—always puts the well being of her family first and wants to comfort them. She, my person, my “everything happens for a reason” mother, was hopeful, and because of that, so were we. Unfortunately, small cell carcinoma is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer, and highly prone to malignancy. It comes on quick, and it keeps coming back.

And it did. First, it was lesions on her brain. In that time, doctors struggled to provide my mother with medication that would ease her pain without turning her into a brain-fog zombie or make her so violently ill that she could barely move, let alone eat successfully, without throwing up. That lasted for months. But she overcame that. Then, it was a mass on her spine. Finally, my mom could eat, but now numbness had crept up both of her legs, one after another, to the point that she can neither feel nor control her body below the waist. Any person, even the most tried and true optimist, would struggle to maintain hope when faced with so many setbacks, and yet here my mom was—and is—cracking jokes about being a constant “worse case scenario” and still fighting the good fight, not ready to give up.

That’s Michelle. That’s my mom. She is who I aspire to be, she always has been, but never more than right now. None of us can imagine the hardship she has been through, but we can help. I come to you, as a daughter in need of her mother, as witness to twenty plus years of love and happiness shared by Mark and Michelle Whaley, with a hopeful heart that together we might ease the financial burden that my parents have unfairly found themselves having to navigate as of late. These are proud people, my mom and dad; Papa Bear works tirelessly to both provide and care for my mother, and their home, as it is now, is the one they intended on growing old in together. Of all the things someone should have to worry about in this trying time, being a one-income household should not be among them.

With my mother’s discharge from her rehabilitation center imminent, ensuring she has all that she needs at home is not only paramount, but has turned out to be a more complicated and expensive endeavor than originally anticipated. Besides adequately outfitting my parents’ home with the ramps necessary to navigate safely in and out, it has become clear that—for the long term—a wheelchair accessible vehicle will not only be more fiscally responsible, but also more comfortable, than continuing with medical transport. My mom’s trips to the hospital are frequent: her rounds of chemotherapy are a daily occurrence, and usually require routine visits lasting an entire work week, from Monday to Friday.

As her daughter, I understand how big of an ask this is. But I have also seen the people in my family’s lives band together in its darkest moments with an outpouring of love, generosity, and support. I want—Michelle needs—this to be one of those moments.