My mom passed away in her sleep earlier this week. It was the end of a four-year journey that started with a surprise stage IV lung cancer diagnosis in April 2018. It was a surprise because she never smoked.
Also, for the thirty years that she was a nurse, she not only took very good care of herself but browbeat us and her family to do the same. She got my father to stop smoking. She managed his diabetes. She made me get a colonoscopy before I got married because I one day saw blood when I went to the bathroom and we have a family history of colon cancer. She never missed a medical appointment and did “everything right.”
I am sharing below a letter I wrote to her, in her memory, because it was her love for me and her support, and our painful journey in the healthcare system, that inspired me to run for Congress. I want to fight for millions like her because you shouldn’t need a physician and lawyer as a son, who knew how to research clinical trials, knew the right questions to ask and landmines to sidestep, and who wouldn’t take no for an answer, to have a fighting chance.
My mom was a fighter. She survived four years of cancer, autoimmune encephalitis, Parkinsonism, and physicians who tried to convince her to withdraw treatment six months in. During that period she got to see her first granddaughter graduate from college. She got to hold her third grandchild in her arms months after he was born. She got to check off her bucket list having breakfast at the Ahwahnee Dining Room in Yosemite Valley. She got to hear my speech announcing my run for Congress, and the last thing I told her before I kissed her during my last visit home a month ago, was that I was going to win this race for her.
Dear mom,
You told me that as you laid in the delivery room at the county hospital the morning I was born, you worried that the physician hadn’t arrived yet after you had been in labor for hours. As you once said, I was coming into the world, whether they were ready or not. When I had to have emergency surgery on my hand at 18 months old, you sewed a glove to protect the bandages on my hand that I wore for months. When I had influenza at ten years old and slept for days sitting up in a chair in the living room, you stayed up all night with me telling me family stories so that I wasn’t alone. As a child, you drilled me on everything from multiplication tables to English grammar and always reminded me of the gift and opportunity that education can bring. As a child, you inspired me to become a physician when I saw you give a woman CPR and save her life when we were out shopping. You taught me how to put an IV in when I was 12 years old, using yourself as my patient. And you told me I could go to medical school when you couldn’t. You were a nurse for thirty years who took care of everyone in our neighborhood, even our neighbor Mr. Brown – who helped set up our farm and gave me my first job – when he was dying of colon cancer. You even encouraged me to continue to medical school when my best friend committed suicide when I was twenty years old and blamed myself for his mental health challenges.
You once told me that through my journey in medical school and law school, taking the oath of office to become a Naval Officer, and time overseas in India and the Middle East, I was showing you and dad places you never knew existed. But I wouldn’t have been able to do any of these things if you hadn’t bought used Shakespeare books at yard sales and made them part of my summer reading as a child. I am who I am because of you.
When I was in Iraq you sent me care packages every two weeks. I called you before every flight because I didn’t know if that was the last time I would hear your voice. You welcomed me home when I returned.
When you were diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer, you were already starting to show signs of autoimmune encephalitis but we didn’t realize it. We wondered how could this happen because you didn’t smoke and I realized even as a physician, we don’t focus enough attention on the one in five people who get lung cancer without smoking. That we sometimes focus on the averages rather than the person in front of us, and I was afraid that was going to happen to you. When I brought you out to California to make sure I was involved in your care, read everything about the latest treatments for lung cancer and the five-year-old SEER data, I was angry that the first oncologist said you likely had six months to live without even having reviewed your full record. I was shocked when we were encouraged to withdraw care a month later when you were unexplainably unresponsive in the hospital. But just like you did with us as children, I wouldn’t take no for an answer. We fought, we changed hospitals, and you got the treatment you needed.
When I was bringing you back to Michigan six months later and you had no memory of the weeks you spent in the hospital, the brain biopsy for you I had to approve, afraid of the procedure, the weeks I visited you in neuro rehab bringing you extra food to eat, learning how to help you walk, you said to me, “you have done a lot for me.” I teared up in disbelief that you said that because I responded with what I felt, “you would have done the same for me.”
Four and a half years later, after surgery, treatment, weight loss, and a recurrence of your encephalitis, you passed away peacefully in your sleep. It’s not the plan we had: you, in your nineties, spending your last days with my family in California. But it was the best we could get. You inspired me to run for Congress, not for myself, but for you, and so many other millions of patients that I know we have the technology and innovation to give a better chance. I am running because the healthcare system you dedicated your life to, I trained in and work in, did not work for you the way it should have. I’m running because you don’t have to be Democrat, Republican or Independent to realize our healthcare system and politicians aren’t working for us – you just have to be human. I’m running because enough is enough and the time is now for us to stop fighting each other and work together for a better chance for all of our families. Thank you for helping to be my why and thank you for being the greatest advocate I will ever have.
Love,
Your son
ABOUT: Kermit Jones is a Democrat, doctor, and Navy veteran running for Congress in California's 3rd District. Help him flip this seat by donating today ➞ [link removed]
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