<p>My mom was diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer 4 years ago. She has been on 3 different types of chemo and handled it all pretty well, but the last chemo cycle just ended and it looks like it didn’t work. Her tumor counts (CA125) are very elevated and she’s having lots of ominous symptoms. She goes back to the dr the end of April for another CT scan. She’s known since she was diagnosed that her odds of surviving 5 years were 20 - 40%. </p>
<p>I live 1000 miles away, so there’s not much I can do. D (16) and I will be visiting her next week during our spring break. </p>
<p>I was walking thru a store today looking for a birthday card for my nephew and noticed all the Mothers Day cards, and it dawned on my: this may well be my mom’s last Mothers’ Day. What do you get your Mom for her last Mothers Day? It’s not even like I can do something really nice for her or spend time with her, since we live so far away.</p>
<p>Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also I am a little nervous about how this visit will go and how D will handle it. </p>
<p>(Not worried about Mom’s care, Dad takes care of her and my Brother is nearby. Brother was useless for years but has finally shaped up).</p>
<p>Our Hallmark has lots of nice frames…many with lovely quotes. I would dig through your old photos and find one of you and your Mom from years ago. Maybe a childhood photo, maybe a photo of you and her at your high school graduation. Find a photo that brings back the happiest times that you spent with your Mom and put it in a lovely frame. It will be something she can look at when the end time comes. Or you could put together multiple photos and add your own captions in a photo book you put together yourself on a site like Snapfish. Good luck Lafalum and God bless.</p>
<p>Your visit next week will be what she wants most. Take a nice photo of the three of you. Keep a copy for you, and make one for her and frame it.</p>
<p>We are in a similar situation. My Mom is also far away (in Florida). We visited in February, and hope to visit again soon. We were hoping she could go to S’s college graduation which happens to be on Mother’s Day this year. She probably won’t be able to travel, but she knows she will be there with us in spirit! </p>
<p>(My Mom (Nana) was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer last April ( a year ago). At that time her Doctor told her she had 6 months to live. She has been doing chemo and radiation. She has had some rough times, but her Doctor just changed the chemo. The last chemo medication was making her very sick. So far this month, she is feeling a little better…I just called her. I have another sister who is there this week.)</p>
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<li>Cross posted with OaksMom (great minds think alike)</li>
</ul>
<p>My only thought, in addition to the photo suggestions, above, is that you take the time to write a short, focused note to her filled with your love, respect, and admiration. Tell her what you have learned from her that you are passing to her grandchild. I think any mother would love this.</p>
<p>Can you read poetry onto a tape or CD that she can listen to? Or sing if you have a sweet voice? Can someone make a one-hour video of you reading her poetry, that she could play on her tv many times? etc</p>
<p>Well, Lafalum84, for my mom’s last Mother’s Day (she had brain cancer) I took her to her favorite ice cream shop and treated her to an ice cream sundae. And I gave her a blank card which I simply wrote, I love you. As she progressed I recorded her favorite music and stand-up comics on CDs, and just put them on shuffle in her room, she let them play for hours on end.</p>
<p>Derive comfort from getting the time with her that you can. And breathe.</p>
<p>I am so sorry. These Mother’s and Father’s Days are rough when you see all of the cards etc out. For my dad’s 70 th birthday, I made a book of “70 Reasons Why We Love you.” Each page referenced a fond memory. Some pages made by my children, some included pictures of all of us together. Great for me to convey and wonderful, if I don’t say so myself, for him to read. Then, each year I added a page to the book, until he too, lost his battle with cancer. I was able to convey my thanks and love to him for all he was to me. My thoughts are with you.</p>
<p>What might you get her if she were not sick? Try to not focus on the “last” part of it as much as the “I want to do something nice for you because I love you” part. </p>
<p>My last visit to to Mom was 6 weeks before she died. She had mentioned to me that she had lost weight and really needed some new soft knit shirts since she spent most of the day in the recliner. She used to love shopping and as I was growing up we would spend whole days on mall trips (we lived in a small town w/little shopping so had to drive an hour and a half to get to the mall). Those were great Saturday adventures.</p>
<p>So I went to Kohl’s and bought bunches of knit shirts so she could “shop” through the bag for the few that she liked the best and then returned the rest when I went home. She wore a new shirt every day during my visit and was so pleased to have something nice and new. We spent a lot of time remeniscing and laughing about fun things we had done together, not focusing on the “last” part. I did give her a card saying what an inspiration she had always been to me and how I admired her faith, strength and courage and hoped to live my life in such a way.</p>
<p>Six weeks later, I took all those little worn shirts out of her closet and did not think the cost at all wasted because of the happiness and normalcy they brought her for a little while.</p>
<p>I love the idea of photo book and personal tapes. Personally, I found a “fan” style folder to hold pictures, which FA could look at in the last weeks. Before my MO died, I would bring nice body lotions and rub them on her. She also enjoyed having roses nearby. Gifts of favorite music and movies are wonderful suggestions.</p>
<p>L84, I would suggest that you continue to call often just to chat. I’m glad your D is going with you; she will observe your sensitivity and learn about handling loss and be a comfort to you.</p>
<p>Mother’s Day, FA’s Day, and the upcoming Passover sedars are difficult. I know I too feel the empty seats and the foreboding that this will be my Aunt’s last Sedar (she got a terminal Dx yesterday).</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation with my father during his last Christmas. We came home from Germany to see him, knowing it might be our last chance, and he died that April. I did take a photo of him with our children that I treasure, but it was not something he would have wanted a copy of - at that point he was a shadow of his former self. </p>
<p>I had a really hard time buying him a Christmas present. In the end, I just couldn’t find anything that I thought was perfect. I had bought my h a zipper sweater (popular in Europe) and ended up wrapping that up for my dad instead at the last minute. He apparently used the sweater nearly non-stop. As he got more frail, he got cold more easily, and the sweater was easy to get on and off, and looked nice. My mom wears the sweater now.</p>
<p>My sister bought him several sets of sweats - his surgeries made his regular clothes uncomfortable, and he could stay in the sweats all day, in bed and out. </p>
<p>Also, his appetite had diminished, and there wasn’t much he felt like eating. I used to mail him some of his favorite treats from Germany, which he picked at, but at least he knew I was thinking of him.</p>
<p>Great ideas. I think that when you visit with your D and give your mom your love that will be the greatest gift. Some of your cooking, pampering and company is what she will appreciate.</p>
<p>There are picture frames now that you can download pictures onto for a continuous slide show. My husbands holds 140 pictures I think. You can get them at the large electronics stores. It may be nice if your mom becomes frail, just set it up within eyesight. They were quite pricey at christmas though. As a mom, I agree with other posters who say tell her what she has meant to you, it would mean more to me than any other gift. My thoughts and prayers are with you.</p>
<p>So sorry for the sad situation. Losing a loved one is just awful.
The digital picture frames are great. Is she comfortable with technology? I also love the idea of having people make audiotape messages to her. There is a really cool service called a voicequilt, where you can have friends and family call in and leave messages for your mom. Then you give her the “voicequilt” as a gift. Its great!</p>
<p>*** edit*** here’s the link [VoiceQuilt</a> Personalized Gifts With Voice Messages And Recorded Voice Memories](<a href=“Thanks For The Memories | VoiceQuilt”>http://www.voicequilt.com/) A friend did it for her H’s birthday-- he loved it! The nice thing is, you get to make a copy of all the recorded messages and keep it forever!</p>
<p>Gilda Radner once said, “I have a theory now that cancer cells hate laughter and jokes and songs and dancing. They want to leave when too much of that is going on”</p>
<p>I’ll echo justamom - my father was a big Jean Shepherd fan, and we listened and laughed to all of his recordings during our last Fathers Day together. If there is any type of music, show, comedy, movie etc. that your mother loves and you can share together, that is a great idea - I got my father the first season of “Two and a Half Men” on DVD - a show that he absolutely loved, would watch reruns of every night and struggled to stay up to watch the new episodes every Monday night, but he passed before I got to give it to him. After going through this journey myself, my thoughts and prayers are with you, your mother, and your family…</p>
<p>I, too, have taken this journey. Don’t remember what gift I gave my mom from me for that last Mother’s Day, but we gave her a special mug that was inscribed with a meaningful quote (from Flavia, I believe) and a nice little teddy bear. We said the mug was from my son, who was a baby at the time. She loved it and used it often. Nowadays, when I’m feeling lost without her, I get the mug out and have a nice cup of tea and remember her through smiles and tears…Very therapeutic! </p>
<p>Bless you. I will remember you and your family in the days ahead. It’s absolutely dreadful to lose one’s mother.</p>
<p>A bit ironic, I’ve given Mom several photo albums over the years. They’re on the shelf. Empty. The photos are still all in the drawer! Maybe we’ll go thru them when we’re there next week. I like the idea of taking a photo of Mom, me and D and putting it in a nice frame for Mothers Day. I just hope it won’t seem like I’m leaving DS or Brother out! But DS is in college and doesn’t have spring break next week so he’s not coming with us. DD put together a photo album of her and her brother from early childhood until recent, and included pictures with her grandparents, and gave it to the grandparents for Xmas 2006. They loved it.</p>
<p>Another irony - my neighbor’s mother passed away this week. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer just a couple months ago. I went to the wake this afternoon. Message to all women - if you have bloating and digestive issues that last more than 2 weeks, talk to your GYN. Most drs will send you to a gastro-dr, but those are also ovarian cancer symptoms. There are MANY women who were told they had digestive problems of one type or another for 6 months to 2 years before someone finally figured out they had ovarian cancer. Gilda Radner was one of them. Ovarian is treatable if it’s caught early, but due to the vague and misleading symptoms it’s rarely diagnosed until it has spread.</p>
<p>Hopefully Mom’s symptoms are more reflective of being on chemo for a long time, instead of being progressive disease. That’s an optimistic take on the situation, and I guess I’ll chose to believe that until/unless the end of month CT scan tells us otherwise.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone again. I know I’m not the only one who is/has dealt with this, but it’s hard not to feel guilty because I’m not doing more. Most people I know with an ill parent live near the parent and are very involved in their care, but I am 1000 miles away. I feel like I don’t know what to do, and I’m not sure I could do it even if I did know. Thank you to the others here who have gone thru the same thing.</p>
<p>In fact my mom has ovarian cancer. What a nasty thing. She is in round million of chemo, but looks good though bald.</p>
<p>Last weekend my little daughters and I gardened with her. We got her yard all ship shape and sat outside all day long. Since I have given up trying to find “stuff” to give her, we were happy with this effort. My mom loved it and she never would have gotten to it.</p>
<p>Grejuni, that’s the type of stuff I wish I could do. Good for you!</p>
<p>Just talked to Mom, she sounds a little better. I am beginning to think it is the wear and tear from the chemo causing her symptoms. Doesn’t solve the problem, but it means things might not be going downhill as quickly as I had feared.</p>
<p>Be thankful you still have her- mine died suddenly (heart) over 25 years ago, before any grandchildren or I met my H. Not sure if it is better to go that way or have time to say goodbye. Please do not spoil your remaining time by dwelling on “this is the last…” for events but enjoy them as you usually do.</p>