I’ll love you forever.

I decided for my first blog post, to tell my Mom’s story – a story of bravery, a story of family, commitment, support, love and faith.

Cancer. It’s a fickle bitch of a disease. Appearing as caution, multiplying quickly into fear with the ultimate goal of causing heartbreak and death to the ones we love. Millions of people across the world deal with cancer diagnoses every year.

In 2008, I was playing basketball in the championship finals in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. I took a break in the 3rd quarter to look up at my Dad sleeping in the stands. We were playing so well, my teammate and I got the flu that weekend, and we wanted this win so bad, much like all my teammates. We had this. Yet I couldn’t understand why my Dad, of all people who always supported me and watched me play, and loved every minute, was asleep in the stands. As the clock ran down, the buzzer rang, and we were provincial champions. We grinded all season and our hard work paid off. After the game, I met my Dad at the car for a long drive home, and he told me to call my mom.

Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. And because her immune system was compromised, I couldn’t see her. We got home, I waved to her in the window and left for my grandparents’ place, about 20 minutes away. I was 17, and at the time and the thought then of losing my Mom was devastating. A person I loved so much, who had taught me so much about love, compassion, fairness, and a genuine angel was going to be ripped from us as a family. As the months passed, we had to watch the procedures, and know how much pain she was going through. But like the badass she was and always will be, through chemotherapy and radiation, she rang the bell and went into remission. She beat the fucker.

We continued along and proceeded to live life of being thankful for every minute we had with her. I was now entering my first year of university, where my parents then took every opportunity to live life to the fullest. Travelling has always been a big part of my family’s life and brought so much joy to my Mom (long before she met my Dad). And when I took off to Acadia University, they took the opportunities to travel, and experience life outside of Nova Scotia. Mom remained healthy, continued being the strong and healthy person she always was.

In 2012, my second year at Acadia, I was in meal hall, having dinner with my girlfriend at the time, and I received a phone call from my Mom. It’s back. This time breast cancer. Chemotherapy, radiation, and double mastectomy later. She beat cancer for the second time. Too da loo, cancer.

Fast forward ahead to 2017. I’m working at Dalhousie University as an Instructor in Occupational Therapy, Mom is healthy to travel, my girlfriend (now fiancée) and I had a great spot in Halifax, NS and life is good. My Dad gives me a shout and asks if we’d be up for a Christmas trip to Portugal. We agreed immediately and started planning for our trip coming up in December. December rolls around and we have the trip of a lifetime. We’re witnessing this walking miracle, travelling across the world, going on day trips, eating international food, and just super thankful that we get to spend time with each other, in one of the most beautiful places in the world. The highlight of this trip, was spending New Year’s Eve with a 100,000 other people flocking to the main beach, popping champagne, partying in the local bars, and simply being present with Mom and Dad on the beach. The countdown to a New Year was upon us and it was just happy. Happy and content. The picture above is from a video I took on my phone that night. All I really remember was reflecting with Mom and Dad, watching the most terrible live performance we had ever seen, and laughing. To a beautiful year ahead. Or so we thought.

When we returned from Portugal, my mom came down with a cold. Coughing, weakness, and feeling ill for almost a month straight, she took the opportunity to use a blood work requisition and get tested to see if something was up.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It was back and this time, it was bad. The type of leukemia you don’t want. My Mom was admitted to the Victoria General hospital on February 5th, 2018 with more testing, needles, and a care team that were ready to go to battle with her. Early hope showed signs of possibilities of remission with chemotherapy. After a couple weeks, testing results indicated it didn’t work. As we moved forward, options became more and more scarce. I will always remember the day the oncologist came into the room to deliver the difficult news. These are your percentages with a stem cell transplant and without treatment. They were not good. Blunt, and direct.  My mom, who had been through so much over the 10+ years, wanted to be done with this disease, and wanted to have a quality of life during the dying process. She sat my Dad, my brother, and I down and told us her wishes. She didn’t want to go through with any more treatment and wanted to spend the last moments with her family, and not be in pain. This was one of the hardest days we ever had as a family.

I cried for hours on end, went back to tell some of my students at the time, that I needed to take some time away from work to be with my Mom, and talk with my boss about moving forward. The support from my Dalhousie family was amazing, and I returned to the hospital that night to be with my mom. My Dad took some time to get some rest, and I remember being with my Mom, my brother, and my fiancée, Erin. While we just heard the worst news possible that day, we couldn’t sit there and dwell in it. My brother and I asked Mom what she wanted, and she said some nice pizza. We had a fucking pizza party. We went to Piatto, got her the nicest pizza and salad in the city, and we went back to the room to be with her for the rest of the evening. We laughed, cried, and spent time with each other. It was beautiful.

Anyone who knows my Mom, knows how much of a special and caring person she is, and throughout her 30 years of nursing and caring for others in the ICU, I knew how much impact she had for people in Nova Scotia, and across this beautiful country and world. She’s rare. She’s the type of person you want your children to learn from, your partners to work with, your friends to spend time with, and your teachers to meet. She’s the most beautiful soul and person I know, who provided so many, with hope, and courage that she didn’t deserve to go out with waiting until she was dead to celebrate such a special life. So why don’t we celebrate before things get bad? Why don’t we set something up so that way when she goes home, and is still able to function, that people can come say goodbye? Pay tribute to the person that she is and always would be in so many minds. Let’s celebrate her life with her so that people could get the chance to say goodbye and be with such a special human being, at least for a few hours. Until she passed to a better place.

So that’s what we did. Family, friends, community members, came together and put together a day I will never forget. A day that set a new path for celebrating lives that have touched us, and lives that are close to our hearts. March 5th, 2018, Mom walked to her rocking chair at the Best Western Conference Room in Bridgewater, NS to be greeted by friends and families from near and far who wanted to come and say goodbye. Over 400 people showed up that Sunday to form a line and say goodbye to my Mom. With many sending regrets due to cold and flu season. Hundreds of people. The staff at the Best Western were amazing. The energy in that room was like no other I had ever experienced before. NBA games, concerts couldn’t touch that. My mom showed that day that a life full of caring, compassion, and faith in the human spirit leads to positive impacts on people around you. Love, courage, and hope. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been a part of.

So now we move on to the parts we were all dreading, but the parts we knew we had to prepare for. Nursing care. Positioning, medications, and waiting for your mother to die. Palliative Care started March 9th, 2018. This is where I felt the most sense of community. We needed help. My Mom had such a close bond with her siblings, those within the medical community in Lunenburg County, especially with those who had worked with her over the years, that these nursing sisters bonded together to be there for us as a family and provide Mom with the best care while she was dying. And together with food, with visits, and continuous scheduled nighttime support and relief, my mom was cared for by a community of love and hope that showed the strongest connection possible. My mental health plummeted. I could barely function doing distance work, I put my OT skills in place where I could, but I was burning out, and we needed the help. And our community of friends and family answered. Around the clock food and health care service was always there. Her siblings and nurses provided the care my mom deserved, and she was surrounded by love.

As the days progressed, and her condition worsened, we did our best to provide her with comfort via morphine, and anything she needed we were there. We knew the time was ultimately coming, and one night, while I was at my best friend’s place in Bridgewater, I received a call from my Dad, telling me to come back to the house, because it was likely time to say goodbye. When I returned to the cottage, I laid down by my Mom, said my goodbyes, and held her hand. I had witnessed death and few times before, so I knew what this meant. Slowing breaths, grey complexion, disoriented, and little to no communication, my Mom who was the first love of my life, and a person I loved so much, was passing on to a place where she carried so much faith in. Mom had passed.

A sudden gasp of air. A return to a cognitive morphinated state, and my mom stating, “I’m not going anywhere yet.”

As the weeks progressed and the same regiment of medications and blood work, my mom started getting better. She started eating more, regaining her energy, and her hemoglobin numbers began to rise. April 2018 was where our wishes to spend a bit more time with mom came true. She started a new chemo pill, began decreasing her morphine, and after all of this time, and expectance of death, my mom’s blood work returned to normal. She beat leukemia again.

So, what does this all mean? Here are some thoughts:

Life is too short to get caught up in the small stuff. The bickering, the fighting, the sadness, the hate. Reflect on it and try to let it go. What truly matters in life is when we show up for the people we love and care about. That we’re consistent and we do our best and forget the rest.

I’ve struggled with believing in religion for 20 some years now and have had many of conversations with my family over the years. With being so science driven in my education, it became quite difficult for me to see otherwise. But folks, what I saw that night with my family in that room, in my mind, had nothing to do with science and everything to do with a greater power. A power of community that came together on March 5th, 2018 for a celebration of life, support, and passion for compassion. A family of siblings, nurses and friends that came together to support a friend in their supposed last days. An overall sense that if we show love, if we show that we care, and we show how much courage and hope they bring us, that even in the darkest days, we can find light. And that light is what carries us through.

Today my Mom lives at home, just outside of Bridgewater, NS. She’s a living miracle who I feel fortunate to have learned from, to have been with in these times, and who gives me hope every day. She paints, she reads, she socializes, she stays strong in her faith to God, and she lives every day to the fullest. Like I know she is to many others, Cynthia Snyder is my hero.