Tag Archives: cancer

Friday – Biopsy Reveal

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Finally! It’s Friday and Jennie took Diane to see her doctor to find out what she’s facing. This is where you should hear a drum roll, right? Well, that didn’t happen.

They got to the doctor in plenty of time but the biopsy wasn’t there, yet. So close to an answer but there wasn’t one.

But, the doctor began working on a solution to Diane’s headache issue and a new one that just popped up yesterday: she has numbness in her lower left jaw. The doctor found suspicious bumps on Diane’s forehead so ordered up an MRI with the hope it could be done today, like right away, then he left for a meeting with another doctor about something. While he was gone the biopsy appeared and the MRI was scheduled for next Monday.

When the doctor returned, he read the biopsy report and relayed that there’s more to come on that bit of news. He did, however, let our girls know that what he saw was not all bad news. Considering all the negative info we’ve received to this point, that was actually good news.

Then they came back home.

Crafty Jennifer got on her phone and started dissecting the info she found in the report provided so far. She explained it to me and Jeff but it was tricky territory with a lot of big confusing words that only she could understand. It was still mostly confusing when she switched the big words with normal ones.

I’ll do my best to share what I think I understand with the understanding that I’ve got a lot to learn about cancer and the language and terms used to describe it. OK?

The purpose of the biopsy was to discover the point of origin. As best as Jennie could tell, it looks like they were unable to determine the specific origin so gave it an acronym name. Digging further, Jennie went on to cancer defined in that manner is very rare and could have laid dormant in her body for decades before waking up. This bit of knowledge swiveled our heads back to 1977 when cancer visited Diane the first time. That one was believed to have been completely eradicated when they pretty much removed all her girl parts. Maybe they didn’t.

So now, we wait some more until Diane’s doctor receives all the info about what’s going on. During that waiting period she’ll have her MRI and the Doc will analyze it.

The really sad part about all this waiting is that she’s suffering a great deal of pain and can hardly eat anything without severe nausea. The battle continues with no defined plan about how to win.

So, if you pray, please add Diane to your list. We can use all the help we can get.

If you have a notion, send her a few words of encouragement by responding to this post. She reads it.

Thanks.

It’s Tuesday – Biopsy Day

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We made it through the weekend ok, but it wasn’t as good as the days she spent in the hospital. Being surrounded by busy nurses, day and night, has its advantages over a tired old man. Honestly, the tired old man has the unselfish help of his children to make the right choices, or to do the tasks for him.

Mostly, my job was to ensure Diane got oxygen when she needs it and feed her when she gets hungry. Since she‘s eating like a sparrow, it’s a pretty simple job. consequently, since she’s eating less, so do I.

This morning Jennifer showed up right at 7am to transport her Mom to Good Sam for the biopsy procedure. That left me, all alone, with a list of things to do while alone. Not one of the items on my list referred to me taking a nap, but that’s what I did.

Normally, I take directions pretty well, but my head isn’t working very well lately.

For this day I only forgot to do two things – replace light bulbs in the bathroom and give Max a bath. Not so bad, right. Sadly, those are the only things on my list so it was a total failure. My only defense is that I had a few other things on my mind.

Jeff came to the house and cleaned out the gutters that have needed attention for a few years. That is another thing that was on a list, once upon a time. Now it’s done. That just goes to show you that if you wait long enough, things get done.

Jennifer returned Diane home early afternoon. She was still a little under the influence of the fentanyl that was used to sedate her for the procedure. They made 4 holes in her abdomen to get the samples they needed. It’s our understanding that the biopsy results will be revealed by her doctor when she visits him next Friday.

We’re both very interested to hear the results.

Diane on a better day last September …

We Have Cancer!

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For the past 5 years or so Diane has been dealing with what she calls “polka dot lungs”. That’s what all of the CAT scan images she’s seen look like to her, so that name sticks. Her doctor kept putting off biopsy’s because it didin’t appear that the polka dots weren’t getting bigger and the danger of performing a biopsy wasn’t justified because of the biggest one’s position, just behind her heart.

The we took our trip round Oregon which essentially ended in Fossil, Oregon where she visited the Emergency Room for what appeared to be a bad kidney infection. She was treated for that with a dose or antibacterial meds that seemed to take care of it. Briefly.

When we got home on September 18th, she was able to see her doctor who ordered a CAT Scan with Contrast. Doing this opened a more specific world for the polka dots. Turns out they were spots of metastasized cancer from a tumor on her left ureter, we think. The PET Scan may reveal a different source. Regardless, it’s cancer, and she’s littered with it.

This morning, at 0945 we checked Diane in to the Nuclear Imaging department of Good Sam Hospital. This is something she’s been striving to get for a while now. She saw her urologist a few days ago and received conflicting info on what needs to be done.

She was originally scheduled to have a PET Scan today but after the doctor met with her he thought the next step was to give her a stent in her left ureter next to the kidney to stop the severe pain she’s been experiencing. But, the PET Scan was never cancelled so we acted on the knowledge we had. No followup info was provided regarding the stent surgery until she was taken to perform the PET Scan. It was the right choice as her doctor spoke to her on her way to the test then came back and talked with me. Turns out they had hopes to piggy back the stent surgery after the PET Scan today but instead they will do it tomorrow afternoon.

As I type, she is getting the PET Scan done and it’s supposed to take about an hour. Then, there’s another 30-minute part that has a name I cannot remember.

1050 – The first hour of the PET Scan is over and I’ve not heard anything from the nurses so I’m putting this away until I get some news.

Diane finally finished around noonish so we could go home. She was in a lot of pain and hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday,

I fixed us two can’s of soup; vegetable beef for me, and chicken noodle for her, I ate all of mine, she barely touched her’s. She did eat a yogurt which pleased me because she needed something for her stomach to churn on.

It’s now 2130 and she still hasn’t eaten anything but that yogurt. Neither of us can wait for tomorrow so she can get the stent installed and make the pain stop. I’m helpless with this and cannot tell you how brave she is to tolerate the pain knowing what’s causing it.

I’m stopping here. Pray for her surgery tomorrow to be a success,