Jun 22, 2008 By Barbara Cloud 8 min read

Sen. Ted Kennedy’s diagnosis – a malignant brain tumor – has made me think a lot about my late mother. She died in January of 1975. Her only grandson Drew Harlan was to turn 4 within days. His fourth birthday but first real party had been planned for some time at our Pittsburgh home. It turned out to be the day of her funeral in Uniontown but nothing changed. While I was at the funeral and also taking care of my ill father, friends went on with the party – as my mother would have wanted.

It sounds a bit bizarre I guess. But you would have to have known my mother. You would have to have known my father needed all my attention that day. A 4-year-old would not understand that.

Television reporter Martin Bashir’s subsequent diagnosis of a pituitary gland tumor at the base of his brain also made me think about it. Brain tumors affect thousands of people, in varying degrees, whose names we never know.

And then, just recently, one of my best friends was diagnosed with a spot on her brain following an MRI and she awaits the biopsy report. Some years ago the son of another friend was diagnosed with a brain tumor, treated successfully by laser but within a few years a sudden seizure would claim him as he showered. He was only 30.

In any degree, such growths are fearsome – and fortunately, although they remain fearsome today, they are often treatable and in some cases, curable.

Still, brain tumor carries such a stigma – a hopeless feeling even though great strides have been made since my mothers condition was realized. She had the worst kind, like Sen. Kennedy. Cure wasn’t a word we ever heard.

It was 33 years ago she was told she had a tumor and I had never heard the term glioblastoma multiformae, which I would soon learn was among the deadliest of the tumors of the brain.

She died within three months of the diagnosis and subsequent surgery, performed at Shadyside Hospital. It was January. It was very cold. There was snow on the ground. I later wrote about the agony of those hours waiting with my father and sister. How could I not? Writing often takes away the pain – or at least allows you to share it.

It has been interesting, however, to observe the differences in the symptoms with different types of brain cancer. Mr. Kennedy had a seizure, and it was the followup examination which revealed the tumor to be the cause. Mr. Bashir fell, I believe, and his tumor was discovered when he was treated for the head injury he suffered. It can be deadly but was caught early.

My friend, Seima, awaiting results of a biopsy as I write, had tremors on her left side, off and on, until a bad episode called for an MRI. And the young man, Mark, blacked out on one occasion while working in a restaurant and a subsequent scan revealed the tumor. It was over 15 years ago.

My mother showed symptoms we couldn’t quite grasp just a few days before she went to the hospital. She had appeared forgetful, but that was somewhat her nature, so we overlooked it. My father was hospitalized at the time and it was when she told us they had allowed him to come home for a visit (which they hadn’t) that we realized there was a problem. She had also forgotten about some food on the stove one evening and allowed it to burn. Fortunately it was caught in time.

We rationalized each warning sign, but we did realize she needed to be seen by a doctor. The day she had her appointment at the hospital she was still “with us” and knew my name and appeared happy to see me as I walked down the hospital corridor toward her. I had driven to Uniontown from Pittsburgh that morning and she was awaiting a brain scan.

Her conversation was mostly about the turkey waiting to be stuffed at home. Who would take care of it? Thanksgiving was just around the corner.

By the time she had the scan, we had lost her to a kind of dementia we didn’t understand but felt sure would not be permanent. Just minutes before she had been worried about the turkey she was hoping to prepare for Thanksgiving.

And then it happened

As I left the hospital room, after the scan, she called after me, “Bobbie, don’t forget to take the cheesecake out of the oven.”

It stopped me in my tracks. Words I will never forget. She had never made a cheesecake. There was no cheesecake in the oven

And so, we lost her. Not yet physically, but she was gone. The only good thing we could hold on to was that she was laughing and talking and telling stories from long ago, non-stop. I never knew if they were real or imagined but she told them with great humor.

The results of the brain scan had to be sent to Pittsburgh so we didn’t know the seriousness of it immediately. When we did, the doctors said it called for surgery.

My father, a physician, also a patient in the Uniontown Hospital, when told where the tumor was located after scans were read – I seem to recall it was frontal lobe – spoke with great confidence as he seemed hopeful this was not as serious as we thought, due to its location. He was trying to convince himself, and us – but he knew better.

He had wheeled himself to her bedside from his room. A heavy smoker until age 70, he had emphysema. He was very weak. He sat there holding her hand. I’m not sure she knew who he was. I like to believe she did, but in many ways I was grateful she didn’t know what all the doctors were talking about. I loved seeing her smiling, obviously not experiencing pain. That was the blessing.

The crossover to this new world of hers seemed to happen in minutes.

When glioblastoma was diagnosed, she was moved after several days from Uniontown to Pittsburgh for the surgery. My father was discharged and able to accompany her, but he remained weak.

Thanksgiving came and went. So did Christmas. The tree we had bought remained in the corner of the front porch and was never decorated. My mother would not be coming home.

Although the surgeon never came and talked to us afterwards (I never forgave him) we were told in so many words – they didn’t get it all. No radiation or chemotherapy. When we saw her in intensive care we didn’t recognize her. She looked as if she had been hit by a truck, swollen and bruised. We were told to keep talking to her, asking her questions, to awaken her. Of course she would get better. She would beat the odds.

“Who is Ruth Howlett?” I asked her.

“She’s my sister.”

In fact, she named all her sisters, and there were five of them.

“Where are you?”

“In the hospital.”

I wanted to jump for joy. Right answer! She was cured!

When she first arrived at Shadyside, a group of doctors had surrounded her bed and had asked her questions – her name (she got it right), where she was, and then, pointing to me at the foot of her bed, a doctor asked “and who is that?”

I looked at her with great confidence, almost mouthing what she would say. “It’s my daughter, Bobbie.”

She looked at me and said, smiling assuredly, “That’s one of the nurses.”

My heart sank. She would never say my name again. She was sent back to Uniontown for “rehabilitation” within a week of the surgery but she only lived two more weeks and died at age 70. My father (Dr. Milton Harlan Cloud) would live three more years. He was 80

No, he wouldn’t really live. He would exist three more years.

I suppose the reason I am watching Sen. Kennedy is because his illness, like my mother’s, is grave and I ache for the rather grim prognosis as “a glioma of the deadliest kind.”

But I also am happy the senator is following his heart and takes to the open sea to sail as he faces his future, whatever it is, however long it is. That’s where he finds his joy.

My mother did not have that choice. Many people do not. Which is why it is so important not to put off things you want to do – or want to say.

If my mother’s tumor had not affected her memory, and she could have gotten out of her hospital bed to do what gave her pleasure – just one more time – she wouldn’t have gone sailing.

I do like to think she would have attended her grandson’s fourth birthday party. And maybe even baked the cake. But it would not have been cheesecake. I’m guessing chocolate – from scratch.

That same 4-year-old grew up and recently became a father (and I a grandmother) of Grace Elizabeth, whose middle name honors her great grandmother, the late Elizabeth Fell Miller Cloud.

I am reminded, also, that in sorrow we are often eventually rewarded with joy.

Barbara Cloud is a Uniontown native and newspaper columnist.