Dodging Bullets

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. " - Helen Keller

My mom has been sick.

About six months ago she was jaundiced (yellow skin coloring) and not feeling well. Her doctor ordered her to get lab work done. The results came back indicating to my mom's doctor that she believed she was passing a gallstone. She asked my mom if she felt any pain. My mom said, no. She then asked her if she had felt pain when she delivered her babies (my mom had seven) thinking that maybe my mom just had a high tolerance to pain. My mom look at her doctor with the withering, exasperated look she usually reserves for me, and said, "Of course I felt pain when I had my babies!" Anyway, my mom got better; the yellow coloring went away, and she was feeling good again.

Fast forward two months, and just before we were to leave on our trip the same symptoms came back; the yellow coloring and not feeling well. My mom's doctor gave us a lab requisition form and said if my mom didn't improve before we left on our trip that she would need to get the lab test done. My mom improved and we went on our trip (and unbeknownst to me my mom threw the lab requisition form away).

During our trip my mom seemed to be doing really well, but when I left her and went on my two day trip back to my old town for a visit, she had had a bad day; not feeling good, not eating. The day I got back - my birthday - she was feeling better but I told my sister that she had her jaundiced look back. I was starting to feel worried, but once again, it went away and we made it back home with out any problems.

After being home for a day or two my mom's illness returned with a vengeance and this time it didn't go away. She was nauseous and not eating, and her color was ghastly. Her doctor ordered an MRSI and lab test for the next day and got her an appointment with her gastroenterologist STAT.

We saw her gastro doctor and after looking at the results of her MRSI and lab work he said that she had a lot of sludge build-up and a gallstone blocking her bile duct and it was critical that he get her in for a procedure to remove the blockage and put a stent in to increase flow out of the duct. His big concern was that he was going to find cancer. He basically said that if one is jaundiced and in pain then it is likely something that can be fixed, but that when one is jaundiced without pain, then cancer is the big factor. My mom was jaundiced without pain. I was worried.

A day later and we were at the hospital and my mom was having her procedure done. I sat in the waiting room just hoping and praying that she was going to be okay. The doctor finally came in to talk to me about what he saw when he went in and what he had done. He removed the large amount of sludge, took out the gallstone that was blocking the duct, put the stent in and looked for cancer, which he was surprised not to find. But, he said, he wanted to do a CT scan on my mom to look at her other organs (particularly the pancreas, I think) because he still felt that cancer was the big concern.

As always, I found out once again how important is to have an advocate when someone is ill, because, as I said, the doctor had told me when he came to talk to me after my mom's procedure that he would need to do a CT scan on her and get another liver panel at the lab, but then when I called his scheduler she said that, no, the doctor didn't want the CT scan. It was very confusing to me - I know I heard what I heard, but... Anyway, a day or two later we had an appointment with my mom's GP and I mentioned to her about my confusion over whether my mom was supposed to get the CT scan or not. When our doctor read us the gastro doctors notes he had called for the CT scan (he still believed he was going to find cancer and the CT would be able to convincingly prove or disprove it). Our GP ordered the test for the next morning put a STAT on the requisition and made an appointment to see us to go over the results in the afternoon.

And all that day I just tried to be as positive-thinking as I could. When we finally met with our GP she said the doctor who viewed my mom's CT scan looked and looked and re-looked for cancer (because he too thought it likely) and he didn't find any! And my mom's lab work for cancer markers all came up negative. Oh my gosh, what a sense of relief I felt.

Her doctor did say (as well as the gastroenterologist) that my mom needed to have her gallbladder removed (apparently she has a gallstone stuck in there as well) and got her an appointment with a surgeon for Thursday to discuss taking it out. So, now I still will have to deal with another hospital procedure (and I hate her going under anesthesia so much of late) but at least it's something that hopefully will help my mom feel better and have more energy AND IT'S NOT CANCER!

I write about my mom here on this blog, even though the main part of my writing is supposed to be about my quest to find love and motherhood, but my mom is so integral to to me and my life right now. She is my everything. She's the husband I don't have, the child that I want, the mother that I need. That may seem a strange way to put things, but basically I do with her what I feel I'm best able and most fulfilled doing: running a household - cooking, cleaning, caring for, and nurturing someone whom I know needs those particular "old-fashioned" talents that I love to do and possess abundantly. I feel a sense of purpose, the same sense of purpose I know I'll have when I do have a family of my own.