Laura FitzGerald

Now, while I can’t express or explain the emotional turmoil my mother has gone through, I can explain our story, and my experiences of the phenomenal woman that my mother is. When I was 4 years old my mother and father had split, leaving my sister and I to visit our father 4 days every month. This arrangement continued until I was 11, when sadly my father passed away. Leaving my mother to help clean up her children’s emotional trauma, all while having to deal with her own feelings, and now lack of spousal support. The emotional turmoil continued for us, struggling everyday to deal with the great loss in which we had suffered. However, 3 years after the death of our father, our mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Now while it may seem impossible, I remember the moment I had figured out that she had cancer, before she had even told me of the matter. It was when I was 14, my sister 11. We were at my sisters dance studio watching her practice her routine, when my mother had suddenly hunched over in pain, clutching at her stomach, her face showing emotions that I had never seen before. You see, my mother has always been a strong person, never complaining about how she feels, emotionally or physically, so to see her in that amount of pain, had to mean that something was seriously wrong, and the first thought that had come to my mind was cancer. Sadly, a few weeks later, my suspicions were confirmed when on a Saturday, my sister, mother and I were sitting in our living room, discussing going to a trampoline park with her friend and her son. When suddenly she looked at us with overwhelming sadness in her eyes and breathed out the words that I will never forget, “I have cancer.” My sister ran off crying, but I sat still for a few moments, looking at her in shock, when I said “I know,” and then continued to discuss the plans for the day. You see, I had already accepted the matter a month previously, but was still shocked that I had been correct. My sister came back a few minutes later, looking more calm, but still with red eyes, and tear stains on her cheeks. We continued on with our day, until a couple weeks had passed when she told us more detailed informarion about her diagnosis, stage 4 colon cancer, terminal. This news had greatly upset me, because although I knew of her disease, I had no idea of the severity of it. With the knowledge that this thing living inside her, was eventually going to kill her, wrecked me everyday. (I sometimes go into her room in the middle of the night to make sure she is still breathing.) The doctors tried everything they could to shrink/kill the cancerous cells, and the tumors coating her insides, yet it was to no luck. After months in the hospital, surgery after surgery, leaving her with a six-pack made from scar tissue, and countless battles lost, my mother had decided to forgo anymore surgery and stuck with chemo as her main form of living. She participated in several trials all with no positive outcomes, different chemo regiments that had no effect, and even overnight stays in the hospital that lasted months, leaving her children to be stuck at home with their aunt to take care of them. After about a year of all of these different treatment methods, my mother was finally living at the house pretty much full time, when suddenly our grandmother moved in permanently. Sadly her stay was short lived when at the age of 88, she suffered from seizures that within one month of frequently having them, caused her to pass away. Yet, life still wouldn’t cut her a break when in 2019, the hospital my mother had worked at for many years was bought out. Leaving her without a job, having to get insurance she can’t afford, and leaving us with no steady source of income. You see, my mother is the strongest person that I’ve ever met in my life, she has suffered through countless losses, what with the loss of her own father at age 11, the loss of her husband, the loss of her mother, the loss of a job she has been committed to for years, and the loss of hope for a future with her children. However, she still carries on everyday, helping us move through our own struggles, mishaps, victories, and life decisions, all with the knowledge that it is short lived. Our family is suffering financially because of the situation we’re stuck in. Bills upon bills that have been left unpaid. Foreclosure is sure to come soon. Thousands and thousand of dollars in debt that cannot be paid off. My sister and I have tried everything we can to ease the situation, but it seems as though nothing is going to fix it. This is a story about a widowed mother of 2, battling stage 4 cancer. All while continuing to support her children’s dreams and emotional needs. This is a story about my mom, Laura Kay Fitzgerald, my hero. Please, if you can, share our gofundme, anything helps. She died May 19th at 9pm after a long battle. She died peacefully and not in pain