Sending Mom Home

It is with great humility I ask for your help. My Mother-in-law, Miroslawa Gawronski, was recently diagnosed with Glioblastoma. An aggressive stage IV brain cancer.

Recently, she went into the emergency room with what we thought was a minor stroke. She was having blurry vision, trouble standing, slight paralysis on one side of her body. A week in the ER and several scans later, they found several brain lesions. Needless to say, we were in shock and paralyzed ourselves.. What does this mean? Where did this stem from? What do we do now?

Three weeks later, she was then admitted to a cancer specialty hospital. There, she spent weeks undergoing PET scans, CT scans, a colonoscopy, MRIs, a spinal tap, all the tests.. trying to determine the source of the cancer. Reluctantly, the last resort was to do a brain biopsy and there it was discovered she had deep inoperable malignant brain cancer cells… She was discharged from the hospital 2 days before her 65th birthday (that was the most difficult and depressing “Happy Birthday” to sing).

When she was in the hospital, all she would be able to muster over and over was, “dom”. Dom means home in Polish. When I tell you that this woman was the equivalent of “The Godfather” in her small town of Ozorkow, PL. I mean it. She was a formidable woman. Strong inside and out. She would, did and could do anything on her own. Over the past 20 years, she and her husband have worked tirelessly in America as painters, as a house cleaner in England and when she was in Poland, she was working on building her dream home, brick by brick. We had the fortunate opportunity to see the house nearly at completion last November. She would be outside all day and all evening working on the exterior, the landscaping, the driveway.. seeing all of her hard work pay off and her dreams coming into fruition. It is extremely sad to know that she will not be able to enjoy her home and her retirement with her husband for the rest of their lives together.

Her current situation is dire, she will be returning to Poland for the last time, on Thursday 6/22. No longer able to walk on her own, no longer able to speak coherently, no longer able to care for herself or her husband.

This July, she was scheduled to return to Poland for retirement. Now, the goal is to get her whatever the best treatment is to keep her around for as long as we can.

It is devastating because I no longer see her as “The Godfather”.. I do believe that when she is asking to go “home”.. she really is preparing herself to reunite with God, the Father. This gofundme is going to be used for treatments for chemo and radiation, to set her up with a hospital bed type setting and to keep her as comfortable as possible. Anything you can spare is appreciated and acknowledged. Thank you in advance for your generosity and prayers as we navigate getting Miroslawa “dom” as peacefully as possible.