My new ducklings have rescued me. (long op ahead...)

[JaeG]

What an incredible woman your Mum was. And what an incredible son you are to have taken such good care of her. She lives on in your love for animals. Thank you for sharing your story and we're all very glad you are here.

Sir this is a community, more importantly this is a FAMILY! And what the neat thing is there is no family member you must see here so you have all the upsides of a family and few of the down sides. welcome brother!

So well put - what a perfect way to say it!

 

[drumstick diva]

Your mom raised you to be a beautiful person like herself. I am sure she looks down on you and smiles.

 

[AzraelRedeemed]

These ducklings have rescued me.

My mom passed in May and I had cared for her for 3 years in her battle with AML, Ovarian and Skin Cancer the Ovarian cancer treatment is what caused the others as some more extreme therapies as hard on the body. I was her daily caregiver and nurse for the last 3 years and that was only made because my brother owned the company that I worked at here in Texas.

I first began caring for my mom after our stepdad died suddenly at work in Arkansas. My mom has trigeminal neuralgia and I had to move back to the farm in to help her after his passing. That was in 1980, Northwest Arkansas. I met my future wife shortly thereafter and eventually, moved to Minnesota to continue my career. We married in Eureka Springs, AR 1984.

My mom went on to help run and chair the Madison County Pet Shelter (now Paws and Claws Pet Shelter) in Huntsville, AR and for the next twenty years our family just made life happen.

2010, my life changed forever. My mom was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer Stage 3. The mass was big and surgery with chem was only option and we were explained all the risk of associated outcomes.

The invincible Polly Potter. Madison County's Pet Shelter Rescue mom.

I spent the next month with her while she had the surgery and recovered and started chemo. 6 months later she was cancer free and we all breathed again and she went back to work on the pet shelter.

She started a thrift store with her friend Carol and they used all the money from the store to fund the pet shelter. The Paws and Claws Thrift Store in Huntsville AR. It is still there so if any of you are near, give them a look as they love people and welcome anyone who loves animals.

3 years ago, my mom called me and told me the dr had discovered she had leukemia. AML to be exact. The dr told her she had 3 months to live. My world dropped away again.

I flew immediately to her and we went to dr again with me and my questions. It was bad. AML is a fast killer we were told 3 months to 5 months max. We went out to dinner after and sat stunned. The next day I called MD Anderson Cancer Hospital and asked if they could see my mom. I had the dr in AR send all her records and within several hours, I got a call back.

There was a study at MD Anderson with AML and a specific gene marker that they had identified in my mom's blood work that they received from the DR in Fayetteville and we were asked if we could be there in 24 hours to see the Dr. Of course we can, this is my mom.

Long story short, we flew down to Houston, checked in at the Hospital and they started her therapy within 3 days. She was admitted and isolated and we could not see her for 30 more days except through glass in a small room attached to hers.

The trial medications (chemo) worked. Her AML went into remission, but she needed daily chemo, daily, forever, if she wanted to live. We understood that this was stolen time and we set about doing our best. she was frightened weak and in pain and I tool care of her daily needs, visits to MD Anderson were 3, 4, 5 sometimes 7 days a week for booster chemo and more tests, after all, this was an experimental study. My mom, at 80 years old somehow managed to get into a closed study simply because her blood markers matched the study parameters perfectly. It was tough. Other opportunistic cancers decided to give her a go. She developed an aggressive Sarcoma on her leg that grew at a massively accelerated rate.

They could not operate, they told us to prepare for the worse, 6 months maybe less...ok. Breath.

We asked what our options were and they said none, they can't do anything. I broke down in the Dr's office and told them NO! My mom was their study patient and we hated the word can't. But I was determined and they all loved my mom as her personality through all this was incredible. She was always smiling and singing and walking the halls and no matter how bad she felt, whenever she met anyone she always tried to make them feel better. Everybody at MD Anderson knew Polly. Tough as nails. Nice as pie. Polly.

I explained to the Dr that I had been on the internet, yep, the internet and had heard about how they use a thing called Cryoablation to kill off surface cancers and they were experimenting with using it for solid mass deep tissue tumors unrelated to Sarcomas, especially due to their spider like nature, sarcomas are not usually targetable. Well, we didn't care we wanted to buy more time and they agreed to try another pioneering technique and it worked.

They were amazed. Now if you search, you can see they are using it more and more.

The massive sarcoma on her leg fell off. Since we could not do surgery, 1 1/2 years ago, I began to daily care for the massive hole in her leg muscle, an open wound the size of my fist.

I became an expert at wound care. I have an entire mini ER setup in my home. I can stop bleeding and perform minor procedures to stabilize a wound.

This was my life for the last 1 1/2 years. 6 months ago, despite everyone prayers and diligence my mom passed peacefully in her sleep. Polly Potter.

My brother sold the company to his partners and retired prior to my mom passing so he could spend some time with her as well. We miss her greatly. The Paws and Claws Thrift store and all of Huntsville, miss my mom. Rescue dogs, cats, horses, and all livestock misses my mom.

1 week after her passing, the day after I picked up her ashes to take to AR to be buried near her husband on their mountain, the new partners pulled me into a meeting and told me I did not have any vacation time and that I needed to make some kind of "Gesture" to the company for all the time off I took over the last several years (while my brother owned 62% of the company and he was President.) I did not realize it at the time but this was the point when I broke.

The next weekend, on a Sunday, the new president of my brother's old company, called me drunk during the football game and began to accuse me of deleting data off his phone. He yelled, cursed and said horrible things. I began to tremble and shake and could not stop crying. The shaking got worse. I hung up and crumpled to the floor in the dining room and sat there shaking and crying. He called back and mumbled something about he had reset his phone by accident and apologized, 'Are we good?'...I stuttered something and hung up.

I returned to work for exactly 3 days, on Friday, I went into the controllers office shaking and trembling and crying and I could not catch my breath. Through prayer and grace, she calmed me enough for me to go home and I called my brother, crying driving, telling him I could not go on anymore.

The next day he went with me to my physician. The dr. asked me a few questions and immediately pulled me from work. I went on 3 months leave to try and recover, but to no avail, they found some problems in my colon and I needed surgery to remedy that, so, I resigned as Director of IT. The surgery happened pretty fast, in October 2017 they did the deed and I began to recover, I am well now.

I know this has been a long post and I appreciate this being a place where I can share. I had to let this out. This is the first time I have talked or posted anything about this publicly, but my Mom's legacy is strong and I will honor her ability to rescue lost souls.

Her last request to me was 'Walk gently on this earth and care for the animals and do no harm."

I will honor that request. Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

Not sure how all of this sounds, but this morning as I was taking care of my new duck babies, I realized that they had rescued me.

Peace and may god bless you all,

Patrick

This is my mom...
https://www.thepetshelter.org/newsletter.html

I would love to speak to you I too. Am living a duckling salvation story & which isn't. So uncommon for animals to do... I once did equine therapy

 

[RatchetRev]

This pulled on the good ol' heartstrings. I thank you for sharing this story and send a big hug your way.
This story has reminded me that I am going threw a hard time right now and to just let my animals help me keep plugging along.

 

[Clubber1234]

I am so so sorry for your loss