First things first (for the non-facebookers) - MOM'S HAVING SURGERY AT NOON TOMORROW! Praise God that her CT scan showed no significant changes!
Yesterday Mom had about a week's worth of appointments and tests in seven hours. She had a CT scan, a consult with Dr. Martin, pre-op registration, blood work, a chest x-ray, and a consult with anesthesia. it was a whirlwind, but an efficient whirlwind. We can't say enough good things about the care Mom's received here so far. We had a great meeting with Dr. Martin. Mom loved him. He obviously knows a lot about pancreatic cancer; he does these surgeries 2-3 times a week. He said that Mom has a retroperitoneal recurrence (in same area where the cancer originally started), which is common. What is very uncommon is that that is the only place the cancer appears to be. Usually pancreatic cancer metastasizes to other places when it recurs. The fact that Mom has no metastasis is what gives us a(nother) chance to get rid of it. If, after opening Mom up tomorrow, Dr. Martin sees cancer anywhere else, he will not be able to complete the surgery. He said there's about a 10% chance of that happening. Obviously this would be devastating, so we want to pray that the CT scan is accurate. Scar tissue from Mom's Whipple surgery could also present a problem, so we want to pray that Dr. M will be able to reach the tumor easily. Once he reaches the tumor, he will not remove it. He will place the nanoknife probes around it and "zap" it, hopefully killing every cancer cell inside. if the nanoknife works, the tumor will die and turn into scar tissue. However, we probably won't know for a while whether the nanoknife was successful or not. Lots of lessons in trusting God here. :)
The surgery is scheduled to begin at 11am central time, but one of the nurses yesterday told us they may be able to get started a little early. It should last 2 - 3 hours. We've got people covering Mom in prayer from 10am to 2pm. Feel free to join them and feel free to pray after that time, just in case surgery goes long. Mom will probably come out of surgery and go home with a feeding tube called a J-tube in her stomach. Dr. M does this for all of his patients to make sure they don't lose too much weight. This will be temporary and will be removed when Mom's doctors (probably her Memphis doctors) feel that she can maintain her weight without it. Mom will likely spend tomorrow night in ICU and hopefully move on to a regular room on Thursday. Dr. M expects her to be in the hospital 4 - 5 days, provided there are no complications.
The non-medical portion of our stay in Louisville so far has been the most stressful part. I'm too tired to tell that whole story right now, but I do want to say thank you to everyone who's offered to help us find/pay for a new place to stay. The hospital hospitality house was not at all what we expected or what Mom needed, and we've been overwhelmed by all the offers of help and housing we've received - some from complete strangers. We are currently in a new, clean hotel room. We probably won't stay here the whole time, but it's working for now.
Here are the prayer requests for tomorrow . . .
- Pray for Dr. Martin, the anesthesiologist, and the rest of Mom's health care team as they try to provide her with the best and safest care possible.
- Pray that Dr. Martin will see no metastasis when he opens Mom up tomorrow and that he will be able to proceed with surgery as planned. Pray that he will able to effectively destroy every part of this tumor and that this surgery will be completely successful in making Mom cancer-free!
- Pray that Mom will have a smooth recovery with no complications.
- Pray for Jamal and Tekia as they go about their days in Memphis tomorrow. Tekia will be taking achievement tests at school, and Jamal will likely be hanging out at home (he's homeschooled). Jamal especially seems very worried and he will probably have the hardest time waiting for new about Mom.
- Pray for Jared and Shelby and their kids as they wait for news in Little Rock.
- And pray for Dad and me as we wait in the waiting room. Pray that God will give everyone in our family his perfect peace and that we will trust him completely throughout this journey.
- Also, pray for our friend Kate. Kate is the 29-year-old daughter of some of Mom and Dad's friends, and tomorrow is a big day for them as well. Kate was recently diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer and has her initial consult at MD Anderson tomorrow. Pray both of our families will end tomorrow with so much HOPE!
- Most importantly, pray that God will use every part of this journey for HIS glory! Pray that He will be glorified by what happens in Mom's operating room tomorrow and that each of us and those surrounding us will get to see Him in action.
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine . . ." Ephesians 3:20
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