Welcome to our 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.
Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer after discovering a lump in her right breast. The mammogram indicated that she had a highly aggressive and extremely fast growing form of breast cancer that was feeding off of estrogen. ( Indeed, it was so fast growing that I watched the tumor grow from the size of a ping pong ball to the size of a baseball within a month and a half.) The mammogram also revealed that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. At that point, mom met with a cancer team that included a surgeon, an oncologist, a radiologist and others. The team explained that the removal of the breast was the best option even though she is elderly because left untreated, the tumor would be extremely horrific and painful. They ordered a CT scan to investigate whether the cancer had spread to other organs. It had not. So surgery was scheduled and, as you can see from the journal post, it was a successful procedure. Currently, we are waiting for mom to come out of post-op. We expect her to return home by Friday at the latest. She will have in-home health, palliative care, physical and occupational therapy. In a few weeks she will begin her radiation treatments. This is the part that has me most concerned. I understand that the radiation can be quite taxing physically and emotionally. They want to do six weeks of daily radiation (five days a week). That is quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to the hospital. I worry about how tired it will make her.
But I have been inspired by mom's resilient attitude and her faith has been so strong. I am convinced that her positive attitude will make the recovery process easier. For now, we are taking it a step at a time. Please send her your thoughts and prayers and comment on her site as she will enjoy reviewing the messages once she comes home. I will continue to update in the journal and track her recovery process.
