Arlene Pfeffer

Welcome to Arlene's CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting the site, and we encourage messages. Although Arlene doesn't have access to a computer, your well-wishes will be passed along through her daughter, Colleen.

As many of you know, Arlene had some pretty major health challenges in the 1990's. She suffered from a perforated ulcer that resulted in the removal of part of her stomach, the pyloric sphincter, and a portion of her small intestine. This resulted in her reduced weight and a struggle to keep the pounds on. A few years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, but pushed through to a full recovery and remission.  Despite those challenges, she has led a relatively healthy life to date. 

Arlene's latest health chapter started about a year ago. Without going into too many details, there was some unusual health-related things going on that she brought to the attention of her local doctors, but they provided her with relatively simple thoughts on the cause of the problems, and therefore simple treatments. Fast forward to early July...

Shortly after celebrating her 57th wedding anniversary, her husband Loren took her to the emergency room for abdominal pain. As discovered when she had the perforated ulcer, Arlene has a very high pain tolerance, so if she states she's in pain, she's in a lot of pain. The doctors in the ER took a CT scan and also removed a great deal of fluid from her lungs. Based upon the findings of the CT scan, she was referred to an Oncologist in Woodbury.

On July 17, 2017, Arlene, Loren, and her two children (Doug and Colleen) met with the Oncologist to try and glean clarification of the CT test results and determine next steps. The fluid removed from the lungs tested positive for cancer cells with markers pointing towards its origination in the pelvic region, and the CT scan viewed by the Oncologist created a suspicion of uterine cancer. Upon a physical examination, the Oncologist diagnosed Arlene with stage 4 uterine cancer with metastatic to the lung. 

As noted before, support, words of hope, and prayers are welcome and appreciated!