LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Tethered to an oxygen machine, Jill Brzezinski-Conley held her husband Bart's hand as they lay in bed Thursday and told him she sometimes wishes she died when she collapsed in their apartment in November — instead of lingering for another month, spending Christmas in the hospital and going home this week on hospice.
"Would that have been easier?" she asked him, her voice raspy from shallow breath and choked-back tears. "It's like it was a miracle I woke up from that, but woke up for what?"
Bart grabbed her other hand. "I was not ready. I couldn't have taken it then," he said, his voice breaking, too. "If you could know how good you have been to this world, for hundreds of people ... Everybody loves you. I love you."
"I love you, too. So much," she replied, tears spilling now.
Conley's breathing grows short as the year closes. She has chosen not to try a last-ditch chemotherapy. She left Norton Brownsboro Hospital by ambulance Wednesday night and spent New Year's Eve surrounded by loved ones at home.
Conley, whose battle with incurable breast cancer is being chronicled in USA TODAY, has been fighting the disease for more than six years, and it has spread to her bones, lungs and liver. But through her pain, the 38-year-old has continued her dying missions — to grow her cancer charity, Jill's Wish, and spread her belief that not even fatal illness can erase beauty.
She's been in and out of the hospital for months as her disease has progressed and was last admitted the day before Christmas, when doctors told her the cancer had spread further in her lungs. She now needs her oxygen tank nearby at all times. Doctors gave her the choice to continue cancer-fighting medicines or not.
"She and Bart decided ... she was just too weak and couldn't handle another chemo," said Conley's mother, Rosemary Duchon.
Oncologist Dr. Janell Seeger of Norton Cancer Institute said she talked to Conley and her family about moving on to comfort measures, or palliative care, through the regional hospice organization Hosparus, after it became clear the cancer was worsening in her lungs. Conley asked how long she has to live, and Seeger told her she likely has weeks, not months, although "that's just a guess."
Before leaving the hospital, Conley thanked the doctor for all she has done. "We told each other we loved each other," Seeger said, adding that shepherding a longtime patient through the end stages of cancer "doesn't get any easier" no matter how many times she does it.
Conley's mother-in-law, Betty Conley, said it's been excruciating for the family, too. "I just wish there had been another option," Betty Conley said. "We just want her to keep living forever."
Before leaving the hospital, Conley was tested for the BRCA "breast cancer" genes; Duchon said results should be available in about a month. She wants to be sure family members know whether they are extra-susceptible to the disease that has wreaked havoc on her life.
Since getting home, Conley has wavered between sadness, anger at her situation, and gratefulness for the life she's had.
"While other people are celebrating New Year's, I'm doing what? Counting the days till I die," she said. "I still wouldn't change my life for anything, though. I hope my legacy goes on."
Duchon, who lives in Las Vegas but is now staying in Louisville to be with Conley, said it's been "brutal" to see her daughter suffer. "Still, somehow, some way, your strength comes out of nowhere."
She said she'll stay strong even after Conley dies.
"I'm going to be fine. I know there's an afterlife," she told her daughter. "It just makes me so proud how you have lived. It's been a privilege to be your mother. It really has."
Duchon and the rest of the family thought that they would lose Conley after her November collapse, when she required CPR from her brother and suffered a seizure on the way to the hospital. After pulling through, she was looking forward to going to Betty Conley's home with Bart for Christmas Eve and spending one last holiday with the family.
Instead, her untouched stocking remains on her mother-in-law's mantle, her unopened gifts under the tree.
