I've talked about being my daughter's caretaker, but not about the extent of her care. I keep going back to the beginning, when she was first diagnosed, and the events of the timeline leading up to her passing. I feel a need to write about this, rather than keep playing it over in my head. In early 2005, my daughter complained about having pain. She would not talk to me about it, saying it was female problems, and she knew what it was and she just needed to go in for a simple procedure. I kept talking to her, trying to get her to make an appointment. She kept putting it off. My daughter was extremely stronged willed and private. The worst her pain got, the more I pushed for her to go to the doctor. She would get mad at me and tell me it was personal. In July of 2005, her pain reached a level that she asked me to take her to emergency. She was diagnosed that night with cervical cancer. She was stunned, and cried all evening. She went through chemo and radiation , and had a radical hysterectomy in Dec. of 2005. After recuperating from surgery, she was doing great. She went back to school, and was working part-time for college credit. She started Summer school in 2006, but after a month, she got very sick, and collapsed with kidney failure. She was diagnosed terminal, as a result of her cancer recurring. She was given 6 to 18 months. My daughter was in complete denial of her being terminal. Stints were inserted between her kidneys and bladder. In Nov. 2006, she had kidney failure for the second time. She was then given 8 months. The stints would no longer work, and the doctor suggested letting her kidneys fail, rather than her suffer the process of dying from cancer. He used the phrase "dying with dignity". I certainly didn't want her to suffer, but I wasn't willing to let her go, and no mattter when or how she died, it would be with dignity. She was still in denial about being terminal and insisted on treatment. Nephrostomy tubes were inserted into her kidneys in her back, with a bag on each side to urinate. In April, 2007, she had serious kidney infection. In July 2007 she was admitted to the hospital with colon obstruction. The doctors wanted to do a colostomy, but she refused, and after 3 weeks, they sent her home. One week later, I took her to emergency (a different hospital), and she was told she had "weeks, not months", but without surgey, she probably wouldn't last more than a week. The doctor suggested removing her nephrostom tubes and dying from kidney failure. Once again, the phrase "dying with dignity" was used. She rejected that "option", and agreed to the colostomy/Ileostomy. She was told she would be released in about 5 days after the surgery. She stayed in the hospital for 5 weeks, and was then sent home under hospice care. She was still in denial, but I beleive she knew by then that she would not survive. Her last 3 months were difficult, but her pain was well managed by hospice. She stopped eating and began to lose weight. I took care of emptying and replacing her colostomy bags, and emptying her urine bags. She would ask every other day to be taken to the hospital so they could fix her. It was difficult to get her to understand that there was nothing they could do, and I would have to take her off hospice for the insurance to cover hospitaliztion. A few weeks before she passed, her nephrostomy tubes began leaking. I made a decision to take her off hospice and take her to emergency to fix her tubes. I had to carry her to the car, but I was unwilling to have my daughter spend her remaining days laying in urine. We had to go through the whole process again to get her back under hospice care, but so be it. Her last week was remarkable. She faded very fast. Her last three days she was unresponsive, staring into space, without blinking. I had to put eye drops in her eyes to keep them moist. I also had to keep her mouth moist. On Nov. 27, 2007, my granddaughter was laying beside her, and my daughter focused her eyes on her and blinked 3 or 4 times, took two deep breaths, and she was gone. The last thing I did for my daughter was to replace her colostomy bags after she died. I could not let her go to the mortuary without having empty, clean bags. I beleive that if my daughter had regular checkups, she would probably be here today. I think when she started feeling the pain, it was probably too late. Medically, HPV is the most common cause of cervical cancer. Realistically, not getting regular checkups is the most common cause. I beleive my daughter never complained about having cancer because she knew she could have possibly prevented it if she had regular checkups. My daughter was 39 when she died. She was strong, courageous, and died with dignity.