Jody Bell

This journey started 22 years ago when Jody was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 37. She battled with chemo, radiation and multiple surgeries and won. Years later our baby brother, Bobby was diagnosed with Thyroid and then a few years later bladder cancer and again he won. Then our oldest sister Rita Lewis was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and did not win her battle, passing away 10 months later from this horrible disease.

 

To say we are devastated, that again this ugly word has become part of our vocabulary, is an understatement. Jody’s journey started late June of this year, thinking she had a bad case of food poisoning. With no relief of symptoms, she started the never-ending road from Dr. offices on to specialists until she was sent to UAB for biopsies. The diagnoses being Stage 3 Adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.

 

She has a Medical Oncologist as well as a Surgical Oncologist in charge of planning her treatments. The first plan of attack, is to give her four very strong chemo therapy treatments, (the side effects are unbelievable), with one week in between each. Re-scan in hopes the tumor has shrunk, then possible radiation. If all of these procedures are a success, they are hoping to remove the tumor. I’m dumbing all of this down in hopes that this is exactly how it will go.

 

So far Jody is having trouble keeping her white cell count up, so that she can have the chemo every other week. Back at the beginning she needed a stent placed in the common bile duct to release fluids that were building up in the liver and pancreas. That has had to be replaced because it stopped doing its job and she became jaundice again. She is having a really hard time controlling the pain, and eating is almost impossible. Her energy level is around a 3, and it’s all I can do not to cry watching her struggle.

 

Please help me pray that her body will match her spirit in this fight.

 

Much love,

Brenda (BeBe)