A General Update
Ok, I thought I'd put some notes down as a general update, as I am not sure everone knows what is going on with Mom.
So, Mom has some - as of yet not fully diagnosed - cancer. This cancer seems to be on her duodenum (sp?), in her liver, and in her lung. That means the cancer has metastisized and there are probably many more legsions though out her adomen.
This, of course, is very bad news.
On the brighter side we hope that we find out in the next few days if the cancer is from her earlier bought with breast cancer. If it is, there are several treatments, such as hormone therapy that may help her.
Right now one of the immediate dangers was that the liver has become malformed, and there is a large tumor on the duodenum. (I really have to look up the spelling on that.) Thus they had to insert the tube that is draining the bile from her liver because the tumor has closed the bile ducts from her liver to her gall bladder. Thus the inderted tube that has been successfully draining the bile from her system.
The next step is to see if we can determine the cell type so we know how to attack the cancer, and if we can successfully have a treatment that won't do more harm than good.
After that the mass on ther duodenum, which threatens to close off the colon below the stomach, has to be irradiated. We will probably be starting that immediately, at a local hospital in Boca Raton, to see if we can shrink that tumor successfully.
Today, Mom had a lot more energy and was quite talkative. Dad and I are going up to the hospital every day and try to be there from the early morning until the evening. Today Mom got sleepy around 4:30, so we let her rest, but yesterday we stayed until 7:30, as visiting hours end at 8:00 pm. She looked good while her energy lasted, as you can probably see from the video posting for Michelle. She was much better today than yesterday, after she got out of surgery to install the shunt from the liver.
We are plying her with cookies and soon, chocolate milk.
So, right now it's just a matter of keeping our fingers crossed as to the cancer type, to see if it comes back as more treatable.
So, Mom has some - as of yet not fully diagnosed - cancer. This cancer seems to be on her duodenum (sp?), in her liver, and in her lung. That means the cancer has metastisized and there are probably many more legsions though out her adomen.
This, of course, is very bad news.
On the brighter side we hope that we find out in the next few days if the cancer is from her earlier bought with breast cancer. If it is, there are several treatments, such as hormone therapy that may help her.
Right now one of the immediate dangers was that the liver has become malformed, and there is a large tumor on the duodenum. (I really have to look up the spelling on that.) Thus they had to insert the tube that is draining the bile from her liver because the tumor has closed the bile ducts from her liver to her gall bladder. Thus the inderted tube that has been successfully draining the bile from her system.
The next step is to see if we can determine the cell type so we know how to attack the cancer, and if we can successfully have a treatment that won't do more harm than good.
After that the mass on ther duodenum, which threatens to close off the colon below the stomach, has to be irradiated. We will probably be starting that immediately, at a local hospital in Boca Raton, to see if we can shrink that tumor successfully.
Today, Mom had a lot more energy and was quite talkative. Dad and I are going up to the hospital every day and try to be there from the early morning until the evening. Today Mom got sleepy around 4:30, so we let her rest, but yesterday we stayed until 7:30, as visiting hours end at 8:00 pm. She looked good while her energy lasted, as you can probably see from the video posting for Michelle. She was much better today than yesterday, after she got out of surgery to install the shunt from the liver.
We are plying her with cookies and soon, chocolate milk.
So, right now it's just a matter of keeping our fingers crossed as to the cancer type, to see if it comes back as more treatable.
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