The mom still wasn't getting better as the days passed and one night the children were all called to the hospital at around 1am by the husband. He was frantically saying they needed to get the hospital quick, that their mom was losing it. His exact words, “SHE WAS LOSING IT”. He didn't know what to do so they needed to get there fast. All her children lived close to the hospital and were there in under 15 minutes.

Before being allowed into her room the husband pulled the kids aside and painted a very horrific picture. One that stated that the cancer had already taken her mind, mind you she had only recently been diagnosed and there was nothing to prove what he was saying to be true. He went on to say she was seeing things and talking to people that weren't there. He repeated that the cancer had gotten her mind and that it was too late and there was nothing they could do about it. The youngest daughter, the one he had recently kicked out of the hospital, rolled her eyes because what he was saying made absolutely no sense, especially since she had only seen her mother hours prior and yes she was in pain and hated the circumstance, but was very much lucid.

The husband, seeing the eye roll quickly got upset and raised his voice and said that nobody had to believe him if they didn't want to, but he knew what he was talking about. Not wanting things to escalate the son told everyone to calm down. It was at that time that both daughters left the huddle in the hallway outside the room and went inside to see their mom. Nurses were there trying to figure out what was going on and trying to alleviate her pain.

Once the mother saw her two daughters she let them know she was sorry for them being called over so late and that she was fine. She was sweaty and shivering in pain, but still trying to reassure her daughters everything was okay. They asked her what was going on to which she said she wasn't going to lie she was in a lot of pain. She went on to say that she didn't know what the husband was talking about, that she knew what was going on and that she wasn't hallucinating. She added that she heard everything he said and he was the crazy one for saying the things he was saying. The daughters knew something had been wrong in what the husband had been saying. It wasn’t the first time he exaggerated a story to get sympathy and unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last. They were just glad they were there to see for themselves that things were not how he was wanting everyone to believe.

All three kids stayed further into the early morning to make sure all was well with their mom and she continued to show signs of the complete opposite of what the husband had originally stated. She was carrying on normal conversations and knew exactly what was going on. The doctors and nurses finally got her pain under control and the mom wanted to get some sleep. She tried to send everyone home, but the oldest daughter did not want to leave, not when her mom had been in so much pain and when the husband had been acting so strangely. Leaving her mom alone was just not an option. She would stay in that uncomfortable chair and watch over her mom.

It was later determined that the mom had a severe infection due to the bowel obstruction that had turned septic and should have been caught days prior which is why there had been so much pain. Due to the infection everything that happened after happened quickly and things turned from bad to worse.

The son called the youngest daughter one day while she was at work and said that their mom had been in need of a surgery and it had happened fast. There had been no time to call and get everyone there before she had to go in. He said that the surgery couldn't be finished as there was too much damage and she’d have to have a second surgery in a few days. He also stated that she wasn't doing too good and would have to stay with an open wound until they could go back in safely and try to fix her. She’d be sedated until then. Getting all that news at once was a lot to handle, but her whole family including brothers and sisters and mother decided to go to the hospital and make sure all was being done that could be done. Nobody expected to hear that an emergency surgery had been necessary and they were all extremely worried.

The mother had been sedated and a tube was inserted into her nose and down her throat to extract all the bile that was backing up due to the bowel obstruction. Surprisingly the mother woke up and was understandably scared and disoriented. She was crying and begging the nurses to take the tube out. They kept telling the mom that it couldn't be taken out for her safety. The mom cried and cried and fought to get the tube taken out, said there was something in her throat and she couldn’t breathe. Added that if they didn't take out the tube it would kill her.

Seeing all the commotion around her scared mom and having to hear her begging and frantic was too much for the youngest daughter. She began crying and had to be escorted out by one of her uncles. The mom's doctor was called in to help calm the mom down and the doctor took it upon herself to make sure everything was okay and decided to remove the tube, she wasn't sure what the mom was talking about when she complained that she couldn't breathe, but felt she was owed at least that much as they hadn't caught her infection in time. The mom immediately calmed down once the tube was removed and she was able to breathe and talk freely. She was soon put back to sleep to allow her body to recover. At around midnight everyone was told to go home and get rest, the mom would surely sleep through the night. Everyone was exhausted at that point so they took the advice and went home with the promise of returning in a few short hours.

That would be the first and last night that the mom would be left alone in the hospital.

Throughout the next week four more surgeries would take place in eight days. Those days were the longest anxiety filled days for the family. They were told before every surgery to be prepared that the mom would not make it. She was weak from the previous surgeries and was still fighting the very severe blood infection (sepsis) and all of this was taking its toll on her body. Hearing those words were heart breaking. The moms children were grief stricken, the whole family was. Having to prepare to lose their mom before every new surgery was too much.

With all of this happening around the holidays Christmas was spent at the hospital with the fifth and final surgery taking place on Christmas Eve. Christmas dinner consisted of turkey sandwiches with potato chips in the waiting area, but the family never complained. The hospital was the place that they all needed to be, it was where their mother was.

Thankfully the mom survived all five surgeries that week. She was a strong determined mother and wife and she proved she wasn't ready to go anywhere.

After the mom's first surgery while they were in trying to fix her obstruction the doctor made a discovery. She was actually in stage 4 of her Pancreatic Cancer. Her previous diagnosis of stage 2 had been wrong. This stage was in fact incurable. That even though their mother fought as hard as she had to survive all five surgeries in those miserable eight days she still wouldn't live long. The doctor said that their mom had maybe one year left with them.

One year...

One year wasn't enough time. They had all just gotten used to the idea of her doing chemo and the extraction surgery for a full recovery and now they were told that was no longer the course of treatment. That now they could only try to prolong her life with her incurable disease and even if they did it would only help for a year, maybe.

This world was cruel, God was cruel. How could he help this woman fight so hard to stay alive for her family only to take her away in a few months? (If you think you go through something like this without questioning your faith you're wrong.)

No one knew how to give the mom this devastating news and honestly no one was looking forward to doing it, but it was decided that they would do it together as a family once the mom had gotten a little bit of her strength back.

The next week and the weeks that followed would be spent in the hospital in recovery. It was during those weeks that the woman's children began to observe what they considered to be bizarre behavior from a husband who claimed to love his wife.

The mom had expressed while awake to please never leave her alone. She begged her children and husband to make sure she was never ever left alone. Although they weren’t sure where that request was coming from they all promised her that they would make sure she was never alone.

Everyday the woman's children would get to the hospital around 4am and they'd leave around 11pm. During these times it had been observed that the husband would not spend much time in the hospital room with his wife. It was witnessed by many that his phone was always glued to his ear. It was seen that on at least one occasion at 4am when the daughters arrived for the day the husband was found asleep in the waiting room and not in the wife's hospital room. Even after promising they’d never leave her alone. There was no telling how many hours she’d been left alone, no telling how many times she’d woken up to see that she was alone, to see that the promise they all made her was broken. And in both daughter's eyes the only person to blame was the husband.

That action and subsequent betrayal to their mother caused unbelievable anger in the daughters. How dare he leave his wife all night alone when she had previously begged the family to never leave her alone? Not wanting to speak a word to the husband both daughters left him sleeping where he was and went in to be with their mother. Once he woke up and saw them there he'd know that they knew he'd left her alone. The only thing they hadn't expected was for him to act as if he'd done nothing wrong.

On that day both daughters asked what was going on and why he was never in the hospital room. His response was that he figured her daughters wanted that time with their mom, that they were always in the room so he was giving them their time. The thing was, the daughters were always in there because yes they wanted to be there for their mom when she would briefly wake up, but it was also because the husband was never there. They HAD to be in the room or she’d be by herself which she vocally requested to not happen.

That conversation didn't change his behavior. He continued his distance. The timing of the moms surgeries and month long hospital stay coincided with one of the daughters winter work vacation. The daughter had a month off of work and she offered to spend every day of her vacation at the hospital so the husband could continue to go to work. He’d expressed that he couldn’t miss any work. (Even though he had weeks left of paid vacation time. He never wanted to use them. He rather work and have them paid back to him.)

That meant that the daughter would get to the hospital at 3am and was to leave around 1pm because the husband got off of work at noon. The daughter had her own daughter at home and a fiance as well so the household chores needed to be done and dinner needed to be made so the evenings needed to be spent taking care of her house. That agreement was hardly met and the husband never got to the hospital on time. He would find any and everything he could find to do after he got off of work. He rarely got to the hospital before 4pm and lots of times later than that.

There was never any accountability of other peoples time. When the daughter would talk to the husband and ask him to try and get to the hospital on time he made a big deal about it and asked what needed to be done by the daughter that she had to leave so early and basically tried to make her feel bad for not wanting to spend more time with her sick mother. It was both insulting and infuriating to the daughter. This was witnessed by the other daughter on multiple occasions as well. And his I can do what I want nonchalant attitude only angered everyone further.

The husband’s bizarre behavior increased once the mom was released from the hospital. To say he took advantage of the woman's children was an understatement. From expecting them to pick up his husbandly slack, (hanging all the curtains, mounting multiple TV's, putting together new furniture, setting up alarms on all doors and windows, cutting all his fresh fruit for him) to getting them to buy or make dinner so he could "save a few bucks" all the while disappearing for hours at a time. But if you asked him, he'd say he did nothing wrong. To anyone who would listen he was the one being mistreated. That tale too, would only get worse as the mother's disease progressed. Just wait, you'll see...

Start Chapter 3 - Going Home