bomb

This last month my sister hasn’t been herself. She has had no appetite. All she does is sleep. Has lower back pain. Can’t keep any food down. Shortness of breath. Bloated abdomen. Two weeks ago she went to the ER in search of an answer. X-Rays were taken, nothing was seen and she was sent home. This past Friday she went again. This time my dad went with her and told the doctors he wasn’t leaving without an answer.

They did a CAT Scan.

And found a very large mass in her abdomen.

They called a doctor in Denver immediately and a surgical consult was scheduled for Tuesday.

On Monday, Mary said she couldn’t wait until Tuesday. Something had drastically changed. She now couldn’t breathe without stabbing pain. They went to the hospital in Denver.

John and I met them there and Mary could barely stand. Her breathing was shallow and her stomach was significantly larger than the day before. They hooked her up gave her pain medication through an IV and waited for word from her doctor.

At 10pm she was transferred to a room and a morphine drip was started.

On Tuesday afternoon, she met her doctor for the first time. Her surgical consult involved a lot of words and terms we weren’t quite expecting.

Tumors.
Very large.
Destroyed ovary.
May not be able to have children.

“You have ovarian cancer.”

“We don’t know what stage and we don’t know how bad until we get it out and biopsy it. You will lose one ovary and fallopian tube, possibly both. I won’t know until I am in there. I will do everything I can to keep it.”

—

This morning, the doctor sliced my sister open and found the disease all along the right side of her body.  Two very large tumors sitting on top of each other, one engulfing her ovary and tube, the other floating and attached to the Omentum [a fatty apron attached to your stomach] She found the cancer had traveled up to her Diaphragm and was only in a “lesion” form. She sliced that off. She also found a couple “suspicious looking” lymph nodes and she took those as well.

Mary has Stage 3C ovarian cancer.

She will start chemotherapy in 3-4 weeks.

But the doctor emphasized several times the importance of the fact that they got all the cancer out.

Stage 3 cancer wasn’t the news we were hoping for.

But, there is some very good news. The left side was untouched. Her ovary and fallopian tube are still there and her uterus was also cancer free. She found cancer right next to her kidneys, but they were fine as well.

We won’t have a prognosis until Friday or Monday.

Tonight, Mary is feeling much much better with the weight of the tumors gone. She can feel a difference with the pressure being relieved and she can lay down for the first time in over a week. Her back doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t hurt to breathe.

She will be in a lot of pain over the next several days, but different pain and pain that can help be managed.

One day very soon I will write the beautiful testimony of God’s faithfulness and goodness in this situation. One day very soon I will write how Mary has grown and how we’ve seen an incredible change in her life and heart before this even started. One day soon I will share where I am at and how we are. One day soon I will do my best to answer all the questions you may have while reading this.

But tonight, I just wanted to give the facts.

I’m tired.
My head hurts.
I miss my husband and daughter.
And I need to turn my brain off.

So. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your support and love. For those of you finding out this way, I am very sorry. We have barely had time to process this ourselves.

We have quite the road ahead of us.