All my life I’ve heard kids saying how their mom was their hero. This was never the case for me when I was younger. Of course I have always loved my mom, but it was quite hard to like someone who often drank to erase the memory of a bad day, who stayed in an abusive relationship that not only put her at harm, but our family and a number of other things. After multiple years of repetition, she finally realized something needed to change. 

Roughly four years ago, my mom moved to Hutchinson and started her second chance at life. When I was younger, she sometimes wouldn’t go to work because she was too hungover to go in. Now she has worked at Kwik Shop for about two years and is currently a manager. She hardly ever drinks because she knows she could be called in at any minute and has a lot of responsibilities as a manager. She doesn’t let anyone abuse their power over her and puts her kids before everyone else.

My mom has worked constantly for four years to be everything but the person she used to be. Although it took a lot of convincing, I believe she has finally succeeded.

We have faced many challenges and have been able to conquer all of them. However, the most recent challenge may be harder than any others we have dealt with.

In December, my mom had to get a total hysterectomy because she was told she had ovarian and cervical cancer and that would cure it. The surgery ended up not going as planned, and I was on vacation with my dad when she found out. She told her Facebook not thinking about the fact that I too have Facebook and could easily find out. I called my mom sad and furious about the fact that she told her Facebook before me, but she didn’t want to upset me while I was on vacation.

After taking oral chemo for a few weeks, she went to the doctor for a check up. The doctor told her she had stage three ovarian and cervical cancer and it had moved to her abdomen. Note: there are only four stages of ovarian cancer and, at this point I was freaking out. Don’t look on the internet about this stuff unless you like to be frightened even more. Did you know the chance of an ovarian cancer patient making it five years is 39% depending on what stage it’s at, what other places it has spread to, when the cancer was treated and lots of other factors? Just don’t look on the internet. It’s full of lots of misconceptions.

My mom had to shave her hair off on Aug. 22 because the chemo was making it fall out. Aug. 23, I asked my mom what time she had to get up in the morning.

“3:30,” she said. “You wanna do my hair? I’m thinking boxer braids.”

Instead of crying about it, we laughed for roughly 10 minutes. This is something I will remember for the rest of my life because sometimes you just have to make jokes about bad things or it’ll get to your head.

Anyways Mom, I love you and I will give you the best boxer braids you have ever seen, as long as you keep fighting strong, and we’ll conquer another challenge together.