Why I use social media to help my family stay strong while my sister fights stage 4 cancer
There are days you scroll through your social media accounts and cringe. Politics, hate, passive aggressive statuses aimed at people who hurt us and too many selfies to count. Seriously folks, can we go back to the days when we used Facebook to post our lunch? For me, social media is the force I need to help my family get through a struggle I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
It’s 1,024 miles. That’s the distance between me in Charlotte and my family in Nebraska. There, 1,024 miles away, my sister, Lisa, is battling stage four cancer.
Lisa went to the emergency room on Jan. 12, 2017, for a rash that wouldn’t heal. The doctors discovered a tumor in her colon, cancer in her lymph nodes and tumors in her liver. One was the size of a baseball.
The stage four colon cancer had spread to her liver. Doctors gave her six months to live.
The days that followed were a blur of phone calls, texts and Facebook messages about oncologists, chemo, metastasis and a ton of words I had never heard before (thanks, Google).
My mom lives about three hours from Charlotte, in a tiny mountain town in Virginia. We sit here on the east coast feeling helpless most of the time. I remember my first phone call with my mom when we got the news. I spent an hour telling her Lisa will get through this, she’s a fighter. We’re a tough family of broads.
I hung up the phone, called my best friend and went to her house to cry all night.
Chemo started almost immediately. In May, an appointment was made at Johns Hopkins for a consultation. My mom doesn’t fly (tricky when your family’s halfway across the country), so I booked a flight to be there with my sister and my nieces, Melanie and Maggie.
Melanie is the oldest and handling all this by herself, basically with no help or support. Most days, she’s hanging by a thread. Her little sister, Maggie, has autism. During my 36 hours in Baltimore, I think she asked my sister at least 700 times if she (her mother) was dying. All I could think is, “my God, how do they do this every day?”
Back to that Johns Hopkins appointment – the liver team gathered and a doctor briefed us. Lisa and Melanie had their hearts and minds set on surgery. They were told Lisa was not a candidate and they both completely fell apart. I stood there fighting back tears, focusing on every word the doctor said so we could regroup. Surgery could be an option one day, but not now.
When we got back to the hotel, I took Lisa down to the gym and we called my mom. It was a phone call full of faith, belief, positive thinking and “we will get through this.”
Last year was filled with emergency trips to the hospital, infections, consultations, chemo, bad days and some small victories.
I let my mom handle all the phone calls because I know my sister is sick of talking about cancer and getting peppered with questions every day.
As for me, as a public figure in Charlotte, I’ve been very open about my sister’s fight on social media. On Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram. All of it, the good, the bad, the pleas for help. I use the hashtag #LisaStrong.
Why? More than anything, I need my sister to know that she’s not alone on some cancer island. She needs to know there are more people out there who care besides my mom’s tiny Appalachia church.
From Nikki Wolfe’s Instagram
Cancer sucks. There are more bad days than good. You go down the wormhole of depression and it’s sometimes impossible to talk yourself out of it. On days when she has a big appointment or feels like giving up, I post on social media asking for prayers or support to lift her up.
Some of you don’t even realize the impact this has not only on her, but all of us. Cancer affects more than just one person in a family. It touches everyone — physically, emotionally, financially.
You know the nights when you can’t sleep because your mind is going a million miles an hour? Thoughts of things like to-do lists, work, why didn’t he text me back?, and is my straightening iron unplugged? — you know, the stupid shit we stress about in life.
I still have those nights, but now there’s a new set of thoughts that take over — is my sister going to get through this? Is Melanie losing her mind trying to handle it all? I’m the baby of my family by 20 years — what will this do to my mom?
Then I start to think about all those times that work or life got in the way. Did I screw up all these years by not taking my mom back to Nebraska for more visits?
You start to second-guess life choices and beat yourself up over the what-ifs.
I do have a job that keeps me really busy and does keep my mind from going to all those places during the day. The one downfall of throwing a ton of events is that you have those days where you want to be sad and not talk to another human being, but what choice do you have when it’s your event?
Last week, my sister was rushed to the emergency room. They told her the cancer had spread to her stomach. For three days, I think it was the first time I ever really questioned my faith — and everything. I have always been the rock of the family, but I crumbled hard.
On Friday, there was a major turning point. We learned the doctors were wrong (seriously, am I going to have to sue this hospital at some point?), the cancer had not spread to her stomach. Her mets had actually shrunk by over three centimeters each and show even more dead tissue. (This is called necrosis. The things you learn when a loved one has cancer).
So, why share this story? We’re all affected by this horrible disease in some way — a family member, loved one, friend, pet. It’s everywhere. If it’s not directly impacting you, it’s tearing at someone you know.
You’ll have maybe six months. That’s how my sister’s story started. But 378 days later, I am more hopeful than ever that she will beat this. To everyone (friends and strangers) who have reached out to our family in some way, shape or form, from social media, to texts, to Go Fund Me donations — thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
More than anything, thank you for keeping us going each and every day.
#LisaStrong
From Lisa’s Facebook
Photo: Nikki Wolfe
This story was originally published January 26, 2018 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Why I use social media to help my family stay strong while my sister fights stage 4 cancer."