I thought she was a goner.

That January, my mom, Gale Hassell, writhed in pain in the neurological intensive care unit of Allegheny General Hospital. She’d been through two 12-hour surgeries to clear clots that blocked blood flow from her brain.

The doctors weren’t optimistic – her condition was unique – and my three teenaged sisters and I worried as events beyond our control unfolded.

She was awake the morning after the second surgery, but had a vacant look in her eyes as we explained we were her children.

“You poor things!” she said, not knowing who we were.

There isn’t a word that describes the feelings of sadness, fear, hopelessness and helplessness I felt then: My mom didn’t know she was my mom.

Even before that frightening moment, we’d been through a lot for four kids. Fewer than six months before her illness, my dad collapsed at the deli counter of Brookfield Giant Eagle and died of a massive heart attack.

A couple months after his funeral, my mom discovered the pencil-eraser-sized lump in her left breast that turned out to be cancer.

The subsequent chemotherapy brought her condition – lupus anticoagulant – to light, and she developed the blood clots.

As the 20-year-old “man of the house” I had to make life-and-death decisions for my mom. We opted to trust the doctors, whom we talked with several times a day – and to pray a lot.

Things turned out in our favor. Mom has made a full recovery – and found love and remarried, to boot.

The American Cancer Society recently named her one of its “Voices of Hope.” As such, Mom will be sharing her story at cancer society events in the months to come.

Having lived through it, I can attest to the power of her story. It’s concrete evidence that cancer is no longer a death sentence.

In the early 1980s, when my Aunt Alberta was diagnosed, the “C” word was dreaded and meant almost certain death. That’s not the case today.

Mom accepted her diagnosis without fear. She was already grieving after suddenly losing her husband of 22 years that hot August morning in 1995.