Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Several readers of my Facebook account to which this blog is imported have inquired about my Mom's health over the last few days so I thought I'd write up an update and a few other thoughts.

For those who don't read about my life over on my Facebook profile let me bring you up to speed. About two weeks ago my Mom coughed up blood a couple of times over the course of an evening and a morning. As she is suffering from COPD (basically a combination of emphasema and chronic bronchitis) she decided it would be a good idea to see her pulminologist to make sure this wasn't a problem. The doctor, having a sense of what might be going on I think, took an X-Ray and found a large mass in her left lung. What followed was basically a week's worth of tests and biopsies to determine the exact nature of the tumor and its location. Initially, the news was pretty dire I guess: large cell tumor iint he upper lobe of her left lung right on top of a major pulminary artery. The location of the tumor seemed to make it inoperable and the type of tumor made it a poor candidate for chemotherapy as did my Mom's COPD. The treatment was going to be radiation to try and shrink the tumor but the survival rate past one year was pretty low (40% I think).

As she was being tatooed in prep for her radiation treatments, the supervising oncologist came in and told her and my Dad that things might be a lot better than he had hoped. From the latest PET scans, it looked like the cancer might not have invaded the major pulminary artery and they might be able to take part of her lung and get the tumor. So she was scheduled into surgery on Friday. The doctor told her and my Dad that it was 50/50. She was scheduled to go in at 7:30 am and the doctor said that if he was done by 9 am it was bad news-the cancer had invaded the artery and they couldn't remove it.

I spoke with both my parents on Thursday night and I could tell that my Mom had a real peace about everything. On Friday morning I kept checking my phone here at work and as the hours ticked by with no message on the voicemail I began to get excited. At 2 pm my time (12 or so Salt Lake time) I called my brother and got word that the doctor hadn't come out to see them with bad news. My Mom was still in surgery. The surgeon ended up having to remove her entire left lung as he kept finding cancerous cells all through its tissue. Fortunately, he didn't find any in either of the lymph nodes associated with the lung which was fantastic news. Right now the physicians are all cautiously optimistic that they got everything.

While I haven't talked to my Mom as she was in ICU until late last night, the word from my Dad is that she's doing very well. They have her sitting up and doing a variety of breathing exercises to make sure her one remaining lung is strong enough to provide all the air she needs. Apparently she's begun taking in small amounts of solid food which is very good indication that she's on the road to recovery.

To everyone who has been praying for her, my Mom and I say thank you. I think knowing that there were so many praying for her helped her to find the peace that the apostle Paul talks about that "passes all understanding."

For me personally this has been an interesting time. When my Mom initially called me to tell me the news, I could tell what it was going to be from the moment she spoke. I could hear it in her voice. Like many who have been given the diagnosis of cancer, she couldn't tell me the news bluntly, as if she was afraid that by telling me how bad it might be, she might make it worse for herself. My wife and I had gone through this ten years ago when her father was given the news that his cancer had metastisized. Her parents had called to try to tell us and they couldn't just come out and say it and we were left with the impression that things weren't as bad as they were. This time, I sort of assumed the worst, especially as my Mom talked about radiation. They never told me about the chances but from the sound of my Mom's voice I knew that they weren't very good.

To be honest, I had been waiting for that phone call for twenty years. My parents have both smoked since their years in high school and that was fifty years ago. I know the some of the science and most of the statistics related to smoking and cancer. I knew that it was a matter of time before there was a phone call. The funny thing was that it came just like you might expect in the movies: late at night just as I was falling asleep after a long day during a long week. After we hung up I just sort of sat there and let it all wash over me. I wasn't really sad or angry or anxious but sort of resigned. I had prepared myself for twenty years for this one phone call and had played all of the scenarios out in my mind. Of the ones I had imagined, this was pretty benign. I was still able to talk to the affected parent; there hadn't been a stroke or massive heart attack that stole them away nor was the diagnosis a "two weeks to get your affairs in order" kind of thing. That may still happen but it hadn't happened that night. I began to think of how I would try to spend some time with her as soon as my school responsibilities allowed. The only thing I got really frustrated about was my work situation. If I taught at a K-12 school, I could have the school find me a sub and I could go out for the surgery to be there to support my Mom and my family. If I was at a larger 4-yr institution with other physicists then they could have covered my classes for me. However, like most of my colleagues at 2-yr colleges, I am the only one qualified to teach my subject and we must meet so traveling out to SLC was problematic to say the least.

So I did what I could over the phone and that was good. My brother lives in town there so he was able to help out a lot and I really appreciate what he did. We're still trying to figure out how to get out to SLC over the summer to see my Mom and everyone else but for right now I'm very thankful that things have turned out so well to this point.

Thanks for Reading

The Physicist   Link Me    |