Recovery and Treatment (My Mom)

I just realized after going through my blog archive that I never updated my mom's treatment since she had surgery almost a month ago! I apologize to all of those people that I don't see regularly!

Mom's surgery was more than successful! It was remarkable!

It was a long day, but it was worth all of the time and care that was given. She went into surgery a little later than expected because when she got to radiology, the radiologist could not find the marker he had placed on the tumor previously because the tumor was practically non-existent!! They ended up doing an ultra-sound to find it, and put a nice little needle through to it, while using a styrofoam cup to cover it up! It was quite the site!

We waited for a couple of hours to get her squeezed back into surgery. The whole surgery took about 3 1/2 hours. It was a long 3 1/2 hours, but they were very good about keeping us updated. When the doctor came out to talk to us after it was all over, she told us that she took out 4 lymph nodes and about a cupcake size area in the breast, and she was very pleased with everything. When she sent it all to pathology, everything came back completely negative! Even the lymph nodes were clear!

Mom had a reaction to the anesthesia when she woke up so they ended up keeping her overnight, which was good. She was so out of it after surgery, there was no way she wouldn't been comfortable at home with us.

When they got the complete pathology report back a couple of weeks ago, they found that of the cupcake size area they took out, less than 1mm of it came back cancerous! In February, the tumor was over 6 cm large, and in 2 months with chemo, it came back less than 1 mm! Praise the Lord! God is good!

After surgery, she was declared to be 99% in remission! However, because they are unsure as to what triggered this cancer to develop (the common causes have been ruled out through testing - Progesterone/Estrogen, genetic, etc.) Mom is going to have to endure another 12 weeks of chemo. They are doing a different type which is not as aggressive, but now it will be every week. This puts her last treatment at the end of August. This is somewhat discouraging just because that's the first day of school, and she was hoping to get this all past her by next school year so she could just start fresh. After the chemo, she will later go through a round of radiation. So, we still have a long road in front of us, but so far, results have been very positive!

I was glad to get to be with her during this time. It also just shows me how strong my mom is. I've said it all along, but she's a trooper. And all of this is because of God. God is continuing to take care of my family.