Share your story of your lost one.

My story starts July 2003.......my phone rang I was living with girlfriends at the time and my caller ID was my mom. I thought to myself it was a weird time for her to call it was late evening and she usually called in the afternoon....I knew instantly something was wrong....the bad news was shocking "Sarah I have breast cancer" followed by the most obvious suggestion "but don't worry everything is going to be o.k." DON"T WORRY? yeah right mom I thought but I couldn't muster up anything to say I was so shocked and SCARED! So began her fight.....radiation, surgery (First the lump then the lymph node dissection, hormonal therapy, and then the removal of the whole breast) and chemo. As of 2004 she was in remission and pretty healthy. She started growing her hair back and seemed fully recovered in August 2004. On September 9th I received a phone call from my stepdad and he told me my mom had been admitted to the hospital. WHAT?? She had been feeling under the weather for a week or so...what was going on? I went to St. Josephs to see her and for a day and a half the doctors had no answer....she was getting sicker by the minute....so we pulled some strings to get her transfered to U.C. Davis (Anecdote: She wanted the ambulance to go threw Mcdonalds drive thru and get her some fries.....shows she was still in good spirits despite all of this....gotta love her!) U.C. Davis admittd her and found that she was having liver problems and that she needed surgery but she was to weak to get it right away so they had to wait. I got to visit her several times and it was hard becomes she was pretty out of it but I spent the night because the nurse said she would be able to sneak me in for more visits (they were short since she was so weak and they wanted her to be strong for surgery) In my visit to her around 4am on Sept. 12th I was sitting at her bedside when she was sleeping and she suddenly awoke and looked straight at me and smiled. "I love you" and went back to sleep....that was the last time I saw her alive....she went code blue and they tried to get her to hold on but she swept away into heaven. Weeks later we finally got the autopsy results and they had found that her cancer had returned undetected and had spread to her liver and lungs (failure of the two was the cause of her death). We decided to have her cremated and we spread her ashes at Dillon Beach (A place where we often vacationed and to come to find out the palce she was conceived) Before we spread her ashes we had a beautiful Celebration of Life ceremony for her. My mom is greatly missed by all her loved ones....Gone but never forgotten. RIP Mommy Susan Lynn Leffler 06-01-59 to 09-12-04

My dad found out he had cancer around fall of 1995. That was my senior year in high school. My parents kept the news from us for a couple of months. They decided to break the news in Dec. 1995. They did not want us to get scared. Of course we were going to get scared! We were young, we relate cancer to death, and our daddy was our life!!! We had to live our lives like nothing happened except the numerous trips to the hospital.

The cancer he had was called nasalpharyngeal cancer. Say that 10 times fast. He went through several treatments of radiation, went thru remission, and found out months later that the cancer never really went away. The doctors suggested he had to undergo chemotherapy. That was late 1996 to 1997. He lost his hair, lost some weight, and even lost his spirit. He was no longer the same person. He tried all sorts of ways to fight the disease, you name it, he did it. Of course the cancer was here to stay.

His last year he was told that he had 6 months to live. My dad took that literally. He did not want to eat. He sometimes did not take his meds. He just gave up. It was so frustrating because we all wanted him to fight for his life. He just accepted his fate and he was slowly dying before our eyes.

The last couple of months were the toughest. He could not sleep because he was in constant pain. He was always crying. You dont know how much it hurts to hear your dad cry. My mom would be at work and he would have me call her to come home. We all felt helpless because we could not make my dad's pain go away.

Daddy seemed to be feeling better when his brother from Texas came down to visit. He was in such good spirits that I almost forgot he had a terminal illness. We would constantly have family come over to visit my dad. We all noticed that his memory was dwindling during one of these family visits. He would think we were in a family gathering that took place months ago. He would mix up people's names. He was totally losing it.

There was one night when Ate Lynn and I were sitting in the bedroom while my dad was in deep slumber. He was talking in his sleep. He was crying for his mom. It dawned on me that he did not have much time to live. A few days later he passed away. We were all hoping that he would make it for his birthday, but he was 11 days shy.

I felt numb at the funeral. I could not believe this was happening. I see people crying there eyes out and here I was not knowing how to feel. My dad made me promise not to cry at his funeral. I kept my word. I did cry every night after that for the next couple of months.

You never get over it. At times I would see a middle-aged man resembling my dad. I would find myself doube taking. Of course that's not him. He will always be in my heart.

Daddy, mahal kita.
July 27, 1948 - July 16, 1998