#1 · Dec 01, 2008 20:15 UTC
You all know what our family has been going through lately. My dad died 4 weeks ago last Saturday. My mother has not been feeling well, having pain in her stomach and trouble breathing. The doctor said it was probably just stress. If finally got so bad that he scheduled her in for a Cat scan last Wednesday. By then she was having sharp pains in her side, she couldn't eat, and she couldn't hardly breathe. When she left the appointment, he told her that if she didn't get any better before he got the tests back to go to the emergency room. By Wednesday night, it was so bad that she did go to the emergency room.
Her doctor met her there with the cat scan. He said there was a softball sized mass on her ovary, and that they needed to do surgery right away. Thursday morning, while we were at the hospital, they said she had fluid surrounding her lungs, so the doctor drained it. She immediately felt much better and was able to start breathing normally again. Probably because they got 1.5 liters of fluid from around her lungs!
The surgery was Saturday morning (4 weeks to the day after my dad died). They removed the mass, along with her ovaries and several other things. The diagnosis: Stage 4 ovarian cancer. He doctor said that it was all over in her abdominal area, but the good news was that it had not yet gotten into any of the major organs, but it was "surrounding them all."
She is in Intensive Care but is doing much better and they just told us they are moving her to a regular room in the cancer section this evening. She is going to get one chemo treatment while she is there, and they hope to have her home by this weekend. She'll then continue her chemo treatments every three weeks. When we asked her doctor point blank, she said "we can not cure this, but hopefully the chemo can slow it down."
My mom (like dad) has been very healthy. The last time she was in the hospital was for gall bladder surgery, 18 years ago.
What is next? :o :o
Her doctor met her there with the cat scan. He said there was a softball sized mass on her ovary, and that they needed to do surgery right away. Thursday morning, while we were at the hospital, they said she had fluid surrounding her lungs, so the doctor drained it. She immediately felt much better and was able to start breathing normally again. Probably because they got 1.5 liters of fluid from around her lungs!
The surgery was Saturday morning (4 weeks to the day after my dad died). They removed the mass, along with her ovaries and several other things. The diagnosis: Stage 4 ovarian cancer. He doctor said that it was all over in her abdominal area, but the good news was that it had not yet gotten into any of the major organs, but it was "surrounding them all."
She is in Intensive Care but is doing much better and they just told us they are moving her to a regular room in the cancer section this evening. She is going to get one chemo treatment while she is there, and they hope to have her home by this weekend. She'll then continue her chemo treatments every three weeks. When we asked her doctor point blank, she said "we can not cure this, but hopefully the chemo can slow it down."
My mom (like dad) has been very healthy. The last time she was in the hospital was for gall bladder surgery, 18 years ago.
What is next? :o :o