Where on Earth has Bookerworx Been?

Well….isn’t that a good question. To tell you that story, I need to tell you this one first. Fasten your seatbelts, you are in for a very, very bumpy ride.

In summer 2024, my husband and I bought a new house. Hubs’ plan was grad school for an amazing new career path (much more about this later) which led us to central Texas from New York’s Hudson Valley. (Sic ’em Bears!)

We spent the rest of 2024 moving our stuff across the country with way too many Pods and cross-country trips. We had a ton of family events that required us back in NY and we basically just continuously drove across the country until the end of 2024. We arrived back to our home in Texas, with not many boxes unpacked and decided January 2025 would be the time to start getting settled. We spent New Year’s Eve driving, got to our house at about 9pm and spent most of the next month trying to sort boxes, unpack, fix things that were busted around the house, get settled around the community, etc.

My Mom, who we lived with when we were in NY, was having some stomach issues and went to her doctor. We all thought it was just a reaction to a new medication she was taking. She had stomach cramps, was nauseous and was experiencing some acid reflux. She looked like she had lost weight, but the scale wasn’t dropping at all. She also felt bloated. Her GP sent her to a gastroenterologist, and they thought an endoscopy would be in order, but sent her to get a CT, “just in case.” January 31st, 2025 was a Friday. She got her CT that morning. I can remember her calling me afterwards saying how it went really well and the tech was so nice. Mom told me that the tech said that “she’d get her results super fast….the doctor’s offices are so quick these days, you don’t have to wait like you used to.” My heart sank. That sounded like the tech saw something and couldn’t say and was going to ensure it got a rush. I kept my mouth shut and waited. About two hours later, she called me back. Her Gastro doctor called her, and broke the terrible news. She had several masses, one very large one on her ovary and his office was going to contact the Oncologist’s office to get her in.

Insert your expletive of choice right here.

I immediately booked a flight, said goodbye to my husband and dog, and returned to New York on Monday, February 3rd. I didn’t know it then, but I would not be back to Texas until July.

What transpired from there is mostly a blurred nightmare. I managed to get her into an overbooked Oncologist’s office that Wednesday with the help of the Gastro doctor and by being ‘persistent.’ We’ll go ahead and use that word for it. If I hadn’t fought, her first appointment would not have been until March 18th.

Immediate concern was all of the fluid buildup. She wasn’t actually bloated, she was full of fluid and needed a procedure called a paracentesis. (This is why she looked like she lost weight, but the scale hadn’t gone down.) They biopsied the fluid and some tissue. We waited for the results. The oncologist thought from the scans that all roads led to Ovarian Cancer, but we couldn’t confirm anything until that biopsy came back. We also went for several other tests, scans and imaging. When the results came back, they didn’t show ovarian cancer at all. It wasn’t a hormonal cancer. The Oncologist immediately called the gastro doctor and they did an endoscopy the following day. The Oncologist suspected a rare Krukenberg tumor. It’s basically a fancy stomach cancer that throws a tumor to the ovary, so it presents as ovarian cancer.

That ended up being the final diagnosis. Stage 4B gastric cancer, a Krukenberg tumor. In less than three weeks from that final diagnosis, less than two months from that tumor-riddled CT, she was gone.

She started chemo and the next day was so weak and her blood pressure was so poor the oncologist sent us from their office straight to the ER. She would never come out of the hospital. That was a Tuesday. She died the following Friday….ten days later. Remember when I said her first appointment was supposed to be March 18th? That was the day we went into the hospital. She died March 28th.

The world as I knew it would never be the same.

For those of you that know me, you know that it has always been my Mom and me. My husband had a great relationship with her, too. She treated him like a son, not just a son-in-law. Being an only child to a single mom, we just were always ‘us.’ She was the person you could talk to about anything. She gave great advice, usually didn’t judge and definitely looked at the whole situation when you needed some help.

I miss her with every fiber of my being. My heart will never be whole again. There will always be a piece missing.

She could be a pain in the butt sometimes, but she was my greatest cheerleader, my biggest supporter and never hesitated to show me how proud she was. She was the ultimate example in Self-Care.

Grief is a very mean animal. It does things to you. It takes things from you. It’s different for everyone and it’s simply impossible to get through….yet we do. I have no idea how, but we do…..I think it’s because, well, what other choice do we have??

I was very lucky. I was able to step away from work and deal with everything physical: the funeral, the burial, the paperwork, the estate. I was very lucky. I had clients that understood and let me step away and push deadlines back indefinitely. They trusted me and I am so very lucky about that. I never could have stepped away from work without that support from my clients and I never could have gotten to where I am now without my husband, my family and my friends who are my chosen family.

There’s much more heartache and loss to add to this story….many more family members and friends have passed in the last year, but that’s for another time. Now, I need to focus on catching you all up on what I have actually been doing with the business.

It was extremely slow-going because my brain was honestly not functioning and my studio was not unpacked. Now, my brain is working better, but I definitely do not feel like it is back 100% and I’m not sure it will ever be…it’s so hard to focus. My studio is unpacked and quilting has commenced. Original Designs and Patterns have been created, but not yet published. I have taught again and now, actually, have a new residence for teaching at a local quilt shop. I’m excited about it and it feels good, but let me tell you: leaving that interview when I found out I got the job and trying to pick up the phone to call my Mom and tell her just about ripped what’s left of my heart right out of my chest. I felt like I was in that Indiana Jones movie.

I struggled to tell anyone. My husband knew (he knows everything), but I really struggled to tell anyone. So I’m doing it now. May you be among the first to know that I will now be teaching regularly at Ultimate Sewing Gallery in Waco, Texas. I will update my calendar here with my upcoming classes, and as ever, I will still be available to teach privately within a few hours’ radius. I also have submitted a quilt to several competitions and am awaiting results of whether it will be accepted to the exhibitions….more about that in another post.