Yesterday = yes.

Guess what? We got a YES yesterday! That's a word we've missed hearing. And a word we look forward to hearing more in the coming weeks.

Warning: What follows is a long, detailed update about Mom's appointment with the surgeon yesterday and her upcoming surgery. If you don't want all the details, just know that surgery is a go and will probably happen in about two weeks!

My parents met with the surgeon, Dr. Behrman, for the first time yesterday (I would've gone, but I had to work sometime this week!). We were nervous about this meeting for a couple of reasons. One was that we knew nothing about this guy, unlike Dr. Tauer and Dr. Frederick, whom we've known and loved and trusted for years. This is a very serious and relatively uncommon (Mayo Clinic only does about 100 of them a year) surgery, so choosing the right surgeon was a must. And of course the other reason we were nervous was that there was always the possibility that Dr. Behrman could look at Mom's scans and tell us he didn't think could remove the tumor, which would obviously be devastating news.

But yesterday was a day of yeses, and we are so thankful. Dr. Tauer told us he would be more than willing to refer us to any clinic or surgeon in the country, but that, if this were happening to someone in his family, he'd want Dr. Behrman. We love Dr. Tauer and we know he loves Mom, so we trusted him. And Mom loved Dr. Behrman! When he first walked in, he accused her of a being a cat, since she clearly has nine lives. :-) He sat and talked with my parents for so long that Mom told him more than once that she didn't have any more questions, ha. He was very upfront about how difficult this surgery (the Whipple procedure) and recovery would be, and told Mom that he was not going to try to talk her into it. But he was very optimistic about the end result and wants to do surgery if she's up for it. She's not looking forward to it, but, as she told Dr B yesterday and Dr. Tauer six years ago, she's got two kids to finish raising (and probably some foster babies to love as well, if I know my mom), so she's most definitely up for it.

Dr. Behrman does 40-50 Whipples a year. He said he didn't need the endoscopic ultrasound that we thought he might ask for, so that's one less thing to we have to do in the next week. He did say that if he opened Mom up and found that the cancer was more extensive than they thought or that it was wrapped around one of the major vessels, he would not complete the surgery because it would probably be unsuccessful and/or too risky. Mom asked him, "So if I go in at 7 and you come out at 8, that's not a good sign, right?". To which he replied, "I'm not gonna come out at 8." ;-) At one point Dr. B told Mom, "Dr. Tauer said I was going to love you." And I think Dr. Tauer was right, because Dr. B hugged her and kissed her on the cheek when she left.   

So about the Whipple surgery . . . it's a 6-8 hour surgery. Dr. B will remove the tumor and any affected lymph nodes, part of the stomach, part of the small intestine, and part of the pancreas (hopefully). And then he will have to re-route and reconnect everything that's left. If he can't get clean margins around the tumor, he will remove the entire pancreas, which would result in Mom becoming insulin-dependent. He doesn't think he will have to remove the whole pancreas and is hopeful that she won't be insulin-dependent. But, right now, that's the least of our worries. After surgery, Mom will be in ICU for 1-2 days and in the hospital for 10-14, assuming she doesn't have any complications. It will probably be 3-4 months before she's totally back to normal.

When is surgery, you ask? Well, Dr. B wants to wait a couple weeks to let Mom completely recover from her pancreatitis and her obstructed bile duct. By the way, Mom is having much less pain now. :-) She's still very tired all the time, has almost no appetite, and is just generally uncomfortable, but all doctors involved have assured us that she should start feeling more normal in the next few days. And the not-so-whites of her eyes look much less yellow today! Anyway, we are thinking surgery will happen on the 17th or 20th. So, during the next couple weeks, prayer will be our chemo. We will pray that God will prevent her cancer from growing. We will pray that He will keep this tumor from spreading to lymph nodes or other organs and that He won't allow it to get anywhere near her major blood vessels. We will pray for peace and healing. We will pray for Dr. Behrman and his team. We will pray that, above all else, God will be glorified. We are so grateful to have so many people praying with us. Please feel free to share my blog with anyone you think will join in our prayer or with anyone you think will be helped by Mom's story. We can't say thank you enough to all of you - friends and strangers - who have prayed and loved us through this last week. We pray that God will bless each of you as you have blessed us. He is good all the time!