A famous writer once said that when misery touches you, it doesn?t touch you gently.

When my mother first told me she had leukaemia, it felt like the fingerprint of misery was marking us both, and for months I couldn?t do much except cry. I was in graduate school at the time, and my mother, Diane Dismont, made a special trip to Miami to visit me and tell me about her condition face-to-face. It was unbelievable since she looked so healthy and didn?t yet have any symptoms.

Once some of the initial shock wore off, I found it difficult to even think about. It was frightening not only because it meant that my mother and best friend might die, but also because of the nature of the disease. I?d never known anyone personally with leukaemia. Before my mom was diagnosed, I had only heard of it affecting children and cats.

The idea of leukaemia, which is cancer of the blood, horrifies me. With cancers of the breast, skin, or prostate, for example, there is often a contained tumour that can be surgically removed or treated with radiation. Leukaemia is slippery; since your bone marrow is affected, how can you contain or destroy the cancerous blood coursing through every vein in your body?

There are four major types of leukaemia. The leukaemia that Mom suffers from is called chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) and it is quite rare. In the United States, only 6,000 people per year are diagnosed with CML. She is believed to be the only person in Bermuda with this kind of leukaemia.

The risk factors for leukaemia are not fully known, although there is some research which indicates exposure to external radiation may be a contributing factor. Leukaemia is, in fact, one of the primary forms of cancer people develop when exposed to atomic disasters like Japan?s Hiroshima. For this reason, we suspect that our years spent living in southern New Jersey may have exposed Mom to risks from nearby high-tension wires or unknown toxins in the environment.

When she was first diagnosed, it came as a shock since Mom had always been so dedicated to a healthy diet and alternative medicine. I remember as a child helping her baking fresh, whole-grain breads, and we were strictly forbidden to eat anything with artificial additives. I had never even tasted sugar-coated cereal until I was a teenager. When she found out about the leukaemia, she was therefore initially resistant to chemotherapy treatments. She was angry that her previous habits hadn?t prevented her from getting sick, and she didn?t want to fill her body with poisons.

She eventually accepted the chemo, but she has also decided to use alternative techniques such as acupuncture, QiGong, and Reiki for pain management. During the past three years Mom has been battling this disease, she has endured the ups and downs of the fight with her characteristic calm, good humour, and perhaps just a tiny bit of denial tossed in for flavour.

When the first chemotherapy medication caused her hair to thin and straighten, she cut her beautiful shoulder-length curls into a sharp, stylish bob and chuckled about the irony of loving the haircut she never wanted in the first place.

When the nausea and stomach aches caused her to drop more than 50 pounds in an alarmingly short period of time, Mom joked that it was the most effective diet she?d ever tried, and used the massive weight loss as an excuse to go on a shopping spree.

From the very beginning, she From the very beginning, she accepted the reality of her condition much more easily than the other members of our family.

The uncertainty of the first year was particularly difficult since we all felt so helpless when we saw how much pain she experienced daily, and how damaging the medication was to her body.

But even with her illness, Mom has been our rock and our centre; and eventually her positive attitude became contagious.

Although all of us, including Mom, still have our bad days where we feel our pessimistic worst, my initially constant tears have given way to an acceptance, and a somewhat macabre sense of humour that doubles as a very effective coping mechanism.

For example, I can only imagine how an outsider would have reacted to the day Mom and I discovered that ?sudden death? was listed as a side-effect of one of her pain-relief medications. Perhaps oddly, we both cracked up laughing.

?Who ever heard of ?sudden death? being listed as a side-effect for medication?? she chuckled. ?Wow, I must have something pretty hardcore if that?s part of the cure!?

Moments like these have made me feel like the leukaemia has truly revealed the strength of this gentle woman?s character. However, her indomitable spirit can sometimes pose a problem.

Like many people who have suffered a decline in health, Mom wants to be well and sometimes seems in denial about the seriousness of her condition. Too often she tries to go about her ordinary tasks as if nothing were different. This is encouraging on the days when her joints are limber and her stomach is settled. But on the days where her legs are swollen to the point where she needs a cane to walk and her face is drawn with exhaustion, I find myself tearfully reminding her that she?s suffering from more than the ?flu.

Now that she?s no longer responding very well to the chemotherapy, the bad days seem to visit her with more frequency.

The doctors tell us that only a stem-cell transplant will cure her, and that matching donors are rare and hard to find. For this reason, the entire family is becoming more adept at living one day at a time.

Maybe it?s because none of us, including Mom, like to think too far into the future. Mom encourages this attitude, reminding both of her children that the only time to live life is in the now. So we work through the pain, hold onto the thoughts of our daily joys, and wait.

We wait, hoping that time will prove to be Diane?s friend and not her enemy.