Update on Mom

Life has been a little stressful and hectic lately. I have been focusing most of my thoughts on my Mom. She had surgery on February 17th to remove her right colon- it went very well with one very unexpected hiccup which I will describe below. She ended up staying in the hospital a little longer than expected because her recovery was slow but I was in KC to bring her home on the 23rd. Her recovery was going very well, she was not in any pain and eating rather well so I came home on the 25th. Later the same day, Mom went back to the hospital because the doctor was concerned she may have a blood clot in her leg. It turns out she did but it was small and they sent her home that night. Unfortunately, her stomach decided to act up and gave her fits all night along with some rather severe nausea. She was back in the hospital on Friday because of dehydration. Her symptoms did not improve over the weekend and she is still there today. Yesterday was the first day she felt better although she is still on a clear liquid diet. The doctors do not expect her to go home before the end of the week. They have run numerous tests to determine the cause of the problems but nothing has been identified yet. There is a possibility she just had a very nasty bug that hit at a really bad time. Going back to her surgery and the hiccup- the doctors removed several lymph nodes from outside her colon which where all cancer free- yay! However, there was a lymph node inside her colon under the tumor that turned out to be cancerous. It is extremely rare for the lymph node to be inside the organ like that. The doctors are concerned because there is a possibility that the cancer could have been sending out signals to other lymph nodes in her body. She has an appointment next week to discuss options and a treatment plan but there is a high possibility she will have to go through chemo. This was definitely not something she was anticipating having to deal with and after all of her problems with nausea lately this is not good news (obviously). So, I ask you for continued prayers for my Mom's quick recovery and a positive outcome regarding the hiccup.