Talk:Melinda Finster/@comment-28211916-20161124192828/@comment-30796761-20180905203537

It's stated that she was in the hospital for an extended period of time until her passing via Chas's explanation of her journal.

This implies a terminal illness, breast cancer seems most likely as it would explain Chuckie's implication in Chuckie Vs. The Potty (Potty training is "worse than the time my mom put me on the bottle,") that he was weaned from her breast seemingly early. (Though it should be noted that breast cancer is not the only possible reason for switching to the bottle. It's not uncommon for a perfectly healthy woman to have to switch at any given time due to inadequate lactation, my stepsister did both for this reason).

She had to have died sometime before Chuckie was a year and a half old as in A Step at a Time she's not present or addressed in the flashback of Chuckie's first steps. Nor is she there when Chas brings a newly toddling Chuckie to the Pickles house in Tommy's flashback.

@LichKing1234: Just because breast cancer is survivable doesn't mean it can't be terminal. Perhaps it wasn't caught early. She couldn't have been more than 34 becuase Stu was 35 in 'Blizzard' and presumably, the adults like the babies are in the same age range. I'd wager she was between 30-33, too young to have been getting regular screenings. It could have been an agressive form of cancer and not necessarily breast but ovarian, stomach, colon or several other types that spread radpidly. It might have even been caused by exposure to a pestiside she was using in her garden. Round Up weed killer was taken to court recently under the accusation that it caused cancer.