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- My mom was diagnosed with stage III endometrial cancer in 2014.
- At the time, I was living almost 600 miles away, but wanted to be her caregiver.
- My employer made accommodations so that I could fly to her side every three weeks.
It was a typical workday in the fall of 2014. Confined to my desk in gray-toned cubicle purgatory, I was sifting through uninspiring emails and conjuring excuses to avoid scheduled meetings. Though I cannot remember the exact October day, the phone call I received is one I will never forget. It was the day an ambulance rushed my mother to the hospital — and the day “cancer” became a routine topic of conversation in our household.
After numerous blood draws, biopsies, and MRIs, the results were crystal clear: my mother was diagnosed with stage III endometrial cancer . I will not get into the complexity of staging, but knowing that there are only four stages of this specific type of cancer was a dose of reality that I kept to myself as long as possible. I remember my father asking me outside the hospital room to be honest, and I said, “It’s not good.” But I also knew my mother, and anyone who knew her as I did understood she would not be going down without a fight.