2020 hasn’t been great so far. Under the mundane every day stuff there is a layer of... 🤔 fear? It’s like my fight or flight reaction has been triggered but I’m not moving yet.
The thing is, I know the most stressful stuff this year is yet to come. The next few months are going to be hard. Like really so, so hard. I have no idea how I am going to deal.
Mom
My mom is not well. On New Year’s Eve she was rushed to the ER via ambulance. It was a terrible night. After a series of tests the doctors determined she has kidney stones. SUPER painful... but manageable. But in the midst of their tests and scans the doctors spotted something else... on a fluke really.
There is a legion. In her pancreas.
I work at a hospital... so you know,I know a doctor telling you they see a legion in your pancreas... these are NOT good words to hear. Not good words at all.
Since the initial visit to the ER she has seen a specialist, a radiologist, a surgeon and she has had a biopsy. Each of them has recommended surgery - A procedure called a Whipple. They will remove half of her pancreas, part of her stomach, part of her small intestine, the gall bladder, bile ducts, maybe some lymph nodes and possibly a bit of liver... depending what they see. The surgery is meant to take 6-8 hours. After, the chance of infection is high and she will likely be hospitalized for two weeks, with another two months of recovery.
The operation was scheduled for March 26. The shape of the growth and mom’s lack of symptoms had led the doctor’s to believe the tumor would not be cancerous. But today her biopsy results came back...
The biopsy came back as “suspicious”.
What the F does that even mean?
Getting a biopsy from the pancreas is hard. Apparently the sample wasn’t big enough for a definitive diagnosis. 😢 But the sample is suspicious. So they moved mom’s surgery up to February 7th.
Mom and dad told me this morning.
And I feel like I’m drowning...
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A lot of 💩 went down today. The nurses are on strike where mom will have her operation. If they weren’t, her surgery would have been this week. Then a scheduler messed something up. So her operation is postponed to February 25. (They are trying to find an opening sooner.) Everything is spinning and uncertain. I am so sad and afraid and worried.
And we won’t even know what the growth is until after surgery. 😪
If you are a prayer, please pray for my mama.
If you have healing thoughts, please send them to my mama.
If you are an atheist, a Buddhist, a Jedi, if you worship the spaghetti monster and you have a minute... please send positivity to my mama.