Tomorrow represents the removal of what remains of the words that tore out our hearts on the evening of Friday, January 31st when the doctor called to confirm Mom’s diagnosis. Mom will be having a partial mastectomy with reconstruction tomorrow at Vanderbilt. The surgical oncologist feels confident in the surgery & the surgery choice. While this is the least invasive of the 3 options, she feels confident that Mom’s chances of “local” reoccurrence (reoccurrence in the breast) are still very minimal. Since they will be leave part of Mom’s breast, to decrease the chances of local reoccurrence, she will have to undergo 6 weeks of radiation, Monday through Friday. While this won’t be pleasant, if all goes as planned, she will be done with this marathon by Thanksgiving!

 

Please keep Mom in your prayers & thoughts tomorrow & the days following. And for the surgical oncologist & the plastic surgeon who will be performing the surgery. Specifically, and possibly what is so important about after surgery, pray that the percentage of dead cancer cells are greater than live cells when they remove the tumors. Why is this important? Since Mom has an aggressive type of breast cancer-triple negative-the chances of her cancer coming back systemically (somewhere else in the body) are greater than locally (in the breast). They won’t know what this percentage is until they remove the tumor, test the cells, and determine the number of dead cells vs live cells. 

 

Tomorrow is a big day. As we enter the 13th mile, we have so much to be thankful for in this terribly hard year. We also know that we have a hard mile left but, as a family, we believe the ending of this particular story is already written. We believe the battle has been won & Mom just has to push through to the finish line. 

 

Wins: negative COVID test so surgery won’t be delayed

 

Specific prayer requests: lots of dead cancer cells, no nausea, surgeons’ hands, no nausea, dead cancer cells, no nausea.