Mother died of Lupus, January 7, 1998 

It was 1992 when I first noticed that my mother was getting sick. I remember coming home to visit with two of my friends, and my mother began to have these horrible headaches until her teeth would hurt.

I remember asking, if she wanted me to take her to the emergency room, and she said, “Yes, I cannot take this pain anymore.” We headed to the hospital. While she was in the hospital she asked me to go home, go to her bedroom, and look inside her top dresser drawer, there I would find an envelope with my name on it. I never did go inside her dresser.

October 1997

I had a horrible dream of seeing someone in a casket. Crying in the dream and waking up crying. Later that night my mom called me and asked about my dream. Mother would always want to know about my dreams. Today, I know it was my mom who was inside that casket. GOD was preparing me somehow, but could not show me the real face inside that casket.

January 6, 1998

It was around 10:00pm. My phone started ringing and it was my mother’s best friend calling to tell me that my mother was in the hospital on life support. I made a heartbreaking decision, and on 1/7/1998, my mother was gone. My mother kept this from my sister and I because that is what a mother does, she protects her children. She would always say to me “Meke when you ever feel low or discouraged, repeat the book of Psalms 23:1-6.” It was rough for a long time. The following year I had a miscarriage, then the next year my brother was killed in a motorcycle accident, that he only had for two weeks. I was still grieving my mother’s death and now I had to grieve more.

I Diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, June 7, 2004

It all started around December of 2003. I started feeling pain in my left arm and shoulder then moved to my chest. I woke up one night crying, my left arm in so much pain. One night, I gasped for air. I knew something was seriously wrong. In May 2004, I was miss-diagnosed. I became worse. Therefore, this went out on, more medicine no diagnosis. I went back to the doctor, more X-rays, and a lung test. I did not have bronchitis or lung disease but there was a large mass covering my lungs; the mass was actually crushing my right lung, it was a size of a plate. Immediately, he called his colleague, one of the top pulmonary specialists in the country. I was sent to the emergency room there I was told I had a tumor that was crushing my right lung and I needed to have a biopsy, so that they could see what type of cancer. I felt very calm. I knew who was on my side (GOD). One of the nurses taking my heart rate stated how my heart rate went so calmly down, he had never seen that before after a patient being told they have a tumor. I went in for the biopsy the following Monday, and I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, T-Cell, which is rare with African Americans, they were hoping it was Hodgkin’s. Non-Hodgkin’s is usually with European and Native Americans over the age of 60. First chemo treatment, tumor shrunk 90%. I am a seven year, 4 month cancer survivor. Cancer could not claim me. GIG!

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