My Mom's Cancer

I have thought of a million ways to put off this post, and while it is not like I am required to tell you or anything, I want to.
My mom's cancer has returned.

For those of you who have known me for some time this next part may be a review, but there are new people around, so you can skip down a bit if you wish.1 My mother's name is Marilyn.

When I was in high school my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surgery was the first line of defense, followed shortly by chemotherapy. The next year we found out the cancer had traveled to her bones, (which is called metastatic bone disease).

We prayed. She fought. The drugs did horrid things to her—but also to her cancer. The insurance company had a study going on bone marrow transplant, and she got to be a subject. They took marrow out of her ilium, the big bony area below the waist, and preserved it. Then took her to the brink of death with chemotherapy, and after that was done, replaced the marrow.

At the time, statistics gave a 1 or 2% chance of living two more years. That was 14 years ago.

My mother has been on chemotherapy most of this time, and some sense of normalcy has come about in our family life. Until recently.

She has been feeling a lot of pain, so she mentioned it to the doctor. He did his scanning thing and said the cancer has returned. Radiation is the planned treatment, which will start soon. She is on some heavy pain medication as well.

There is no indication of the cancer's involvement with soft tissues (organs, etc.).

I am not sure, in some ways, what to do with this emotionally speaking. I am in a land far, far away. My parents have recently moved to Idaho to be closer to my mom's family. It all puts us in a strange position. Nádya has not met my family, but is very much looking forward to that.

But we have things we must take care of here before we can go there. A trip to visit is not in the deck of cards, let alone the hand we have been dealt. Somehow that is okay, though. I want to go visit—I want to move there. But our first child is on the way (more on that very soon), and we cannot just decide to go there. There is a process.

Mom has responded to various treatments in the past, and our hope is that current treatment plans will get the cancer under control. We would appreciate your prayers. I will try to keep you updated on this.
[Update: My dear mother has helped me out with factual details, and so we have updated the post accordingly. She also notes,

We all know I have stage IV cancer, which is the last stage of breast cancer, and that I’ve lived long past what most women have been able to do. We need to count our blessings in that, and to ask the Lord for his will to be done.

Thank you for the help mom!]
_____________

1. I am also open to correction of the history here. I may not have all the details correct. A lot of this happened within a time of my life that made it difficult to process everything, as well as natural emotional defenses kicking in.

[composed and posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: breast cancer chemotherapy, brink of death, deck of cards, experimental treatment, Family, horrid, kind of sad, Life, Living Outside the US, metastatic bone disease, million ways, mom, normalcy, pain medication, strange position, went to the doctor