It was the 5th of December 2011, two days before my 15th birthday. I was sat there, waiting for the sound of the keys to hit the door lock. The anticipation eating me alive, it then opened. Both my mum and dad walked in with two artificial grins on their faces, their eyes red and puffy holding back the tears which were about to flood out at any minute… I knew this was the point where our battle begun.
It started of as breast cancer, which within a few days also turned into lung… Two whole years of non stop chemotherapy and radiotherapy and pills which we couldn’t even read the name of. I was 15 at this point, normal 15 year old girls are into make up and boys, learning about love and relationships not medications and doctors names like myself. I didn’t really mind though as I’d of done anything for my mum!
A few months passed it was 2012 and my mum was struggling to catch her breath and walk up and down the stairs without panting, yet again we took another trip to the hospital to find out the lung cancer had created fluid on her lungs. We knew this was a bad sign, a week in hospital having a plural drain fitted which went from her lung to her side. My dad had to be shown by the doctors how to drain it to save her from making the trip every day, I’d often walk down the stairs ready to leave for school and see my mum leaning over I’m the kitchen whilst my dad was helping her drain the fluid.
Then by 2013 everything was starting to look up, until June. My mum discovered she had a hernia! We rang the doctors and they removed it as quickly as possible. My mum recovered within a few days. But then in August her tummy started to swell and grow with no explanation she found she couldn’t hold food down and anything she ate she brought back up within a few seconds. Days past it grew bigger, yet again another trip back… Only this time this was her last one, at the start of September we found out my mums cancer had grew in her bowels, stomach,breast, lung also they found something on her brain… We then got told she only had s few months left to live. Only we did not let this stop us, we carried each day out living it to the fullest. My mum and dad were together for 20 years however never got round to getting married, on Monday 14th of October they exchanged vowels. The next week she started to deteriorate slowly.. Friday night we had to call a doctor out as she couldn’t speak and was in pain… Saturday morning came and my mum made the brave decision of going into a hospice, I watched as they wheeled her out of the house knowing that was the last time she’d ever be in it… I met her at the hospice, she was too drugged up to really recognise what was going on around her as the pain grew.
Sunday night I got told I should say my goodbyes as my mothers liver and kidneys stopped working… I stood at the bottom of my mums bed collapsed to the floor hysterically crying, tears slapping my face and told her how much she meant to me, I can remember to this day the exact words I said, the exact flowers that were on the side cabinet… My last words to my mother was that I loved her to the moon and back and would make her proud, make her spirit and memory live on in me.
On Monday morning the 21st of October at 6:45 my mother passed away in the arms of my dad! Her battle was finally over and she could rest with no pain by her mothers and fathers side in heaven… She passed away the exact same time I was born, I’m now 17 years old and proud that I am my mothers daughter.
In memory of Tracey Taylor
1968-2014
Katie Taylor