The Curveball I Never Saw Coming by Diane Tremblay

The Curveball I Never Saw Coming
by Diane Tremblay

My name is Diane Tremblay, and I am a five-year breast cancer survivor. My daughter, Erica was there with me every step of the way on my cancer journey. Little did I know that slightly more than three years after my diagnosis, our roles would be reversed.

On December 1, 2014 my son-in-law called, “Mom, can you come to our house? Erica and I just left Dr. Scott’s office. Erica has inflammatory breast cancer, and it has spread to her bones.”

I will never forget that call for the rest of my life. This type of thing happens to other people; it doesn’t happen to my child. I didn’t know where to turn. I didn’t know how to make this sick feeling in my stomach go away. I didn’t know what to do for my daughter. On top of a stage IV breast cancer diagnosis, my daughter was three months pregnant with her second child.

Erica began chemo treatments at the end of December. Before chemo began and before she lost her hair, she wanted a family photo taken. A photo that showed by all appearances, a happy and healthy family.

She had a total of five rounds of chemotherapy, and two days after each treatment, she was admitted to the hospital for two to three days. Her last treatment was the end of March, and like all her previous treatments, Erica was admitted into the hospital, except this time, she never went home.

Sadly, the treatments did not do what the doctors hoped. I wanted to spend every moment I could with my daughter, but I was diagnosed with shingles, and my husband and I were forced to stay away for three weeks. We could not challenge her fragile immune system with our desire to be with our daughter, so we settled for talking with Erica by phone several times a day.

The day came when we were finally able to visit Erica. We were so happy to be able to see and hug our daughter again, but when we walked into her room we saw her staring into space. I immediately knew something was really wrong, and when I questioned her, Erica told us her doctors wanted her to think about her advanced directives.

Those words came as such a blow; I thought I was going to pass out. I tried to be strong for my daughter, and I told her that we were not going to give up hope, and I insisted my daughter not let anyone tell her differently.

My husband and I prayed every night. We often stopped at the hospital chapel and prayed. I begged for a miracle. I begged God not to take Erica from us.

On April 28th Josh called to say our granddaughter, Ella would be born the next day. I cried with excitement. You see, I never thought for one minute we would lose Erica. I was thankful Ella was going to be born early. An early birth meant cancer treatments and surgery could begin and this awful disease would be eradicated. The next morning, our hearts were filled with joy and gratitude for our beautiful, healthy screaming little angel.

The reality of our devastating situation revealed itself once again, later that day. I was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit holding Ella when a case manager came in and asked who will take care of our granddaughter when she went home. She asked if we had everything in place. I looked at the case manager, and thought, I need Erica.

We went to the hospital every day and stayed late into the evening. Erica would comment on how tired I looked and she confessed to me that she was worried about me. That was Erica. She never complained or worried about herself. We prayed together each night, and ended our visits with “I love you to the moon and back, to infinity and beyond times 1 million times 2 million.”

As faithful as I am, I often asked God why? I asked Him why He needed Erica, when her family needed her more. Her husband needs her. Her children need her. Her brother needs her. Her father and I need her. Erica was a fantastic mom, devoted wife and absolutely wonderful daughter, and I just could not understand how God could take her away from us?

On June 23rd at 1:00 in the afternoon, Erica took her last breath as our son, Ryan finished singing Amazing Grace.

I go to the cemetery several times a week to visit Erica. People ask if that is a healthy thing to do. I am here to tell you it is. I talk to Erica, I pray with Erica, I cry with Erica, and I do need to go there.

Erica has been gone for almost three years, and people are still afraid to speak to us about her. Maybe it is because they are afraid that they will upset us, and truth-be-told, it is quite the opposite. When people don’t talk about Erica, we feel they may be forgetting her. We don’t want anyone to forget how amazing she was. We want Erica to be remembered always.

Sadly, people we once called friends, no longer keep in touch with us. Or, well-meaning people have insensitively told us things like, this is our new normal, or you have to go on with your life, or you have your granddaughter, Ella now. This is not normal at all. Parents are not supposed to lose their children. These words have hurt us rather than helped us. Our lives will never be the same. Our hearts have holes that will never be filled. Yes, we do have Ella and we love her with all our hearts, but Ella cannot replace Erica. No one can.

On the flip side, we have friends that contact us frequently and when we are together, they ask questions about Erica. They know we need to talk about her. When we meet new people, and they ask about our children and grandchildren, we just cannot get used to telling them we lost our daughter, Erica in 2015.Telling them we have an incredible son, Ryan is so easy.

We lost Erica, but she lives on through her two beautiful children, Cade and Ella. Our grandchildren have their mother’s smile. Ella is a true miracle, because Erica gave up her own life, so that her baby girl could live. How blessed we are for these two little ones, and three more grandchildren from our son and his wife. It is how my husband and I can continue on.

The love of our family and our faith gets us through each day. We pray every day that God is holding Erica’s hands. My husband tells me we don’t have the answer as to why God needed Erica so early, and when we have the answer it will not matter.