Wednesday, June 10, 2009 my Mom was told that she has a "Highly suspicious lesion" on her pancreas after having an ERCP. Tonight at 6:30 pm she called to let me know that she had received a call from the doctor at Mayo clinic that they had received the biopsy results and it is indeed a tumor, it is cancer, and it is very fast growing.

So now I'll go back and give you a little history of what led up to all of this. Mom began having back pain in June of 2008. The pain is difficult to explain, but it seems to be right in her spine between her shoulder blades. Over the past year the pain has gotten progressively worse. It seemed to improve very slightly over the winter months (maybe because they were distracted by being in beautiful Marco Island, Florida!). Earlier this spring Mom's back pain seem to become much worse. She called me one day and said that her pain seemed so much worse. Being the nurse that I am, I asked her, "On a scale of 0 - 10, how would you rate your pain?" Without hesitation Mom answered, "10."

I am blessed to have worked with Mom's primary doctor, Dr. Rodenber, so I called him at home that Sunday morning and told him of the situation. I asked him since he had ordered so many tests that were inconclusive if he thought it was possible that she had a dissecting aneurysm. He said that it could be possible. He recommended that Mom go to the emergency room at OSF and have a CT scan done. He would call ahead to let them know that she was coming and give them her history and his recommendation. I called Dad and Mom and when Mom answered, I asked to speak to Dad. To those of you who know Mom well, you know that she can be a little bull-headed and stubborn. I figured that if I just told her to go to the emergency room, that it just might not be taken as seriously as if I told Dad! Anyway, Dad agreed that he would take her and that they would leave as soon as they could.

Two and a half hours later I received a call from Dr. Rodenberg concerned because he had been called by the hospital and told that Mom had not yet arrived. He wanted to be sure that she was okay. At this point I called her cell phone and she cheerfully answered. I asked her where she was and with a little bit of a tone she answered, "We're at Mapleton. We're on our way to the hospital." I questioned her as to why it had taken them so long to get to this point and she said she'd had to pick up the house a little first. Priorities! When they reached OSF she did have a CT scan done and thankfully it was not an aneurysm. There was concern though over a thickening in her esophagus and a small spot on her pancreas.

After a lot of red tape and jumping through hoops with insurance, Mom was scheduled for an appointment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. She was scheduled toward the end of April. When they arrived she had a few appointments for evaluations and then was scheduled for an ERCP, a scope to look at her common bile duct and pancreas. As they were doing this procedure on April 23rd, the scope slipped on the slick tissue and her small intestine was perforated. Dad called me and said, "Say a prayer. Mom had a complication and they punctured her small intestine and she will probably have to have surgery to correct it." I called him several times over the next couple of hours waiting for Mom to get out of surgery. One time when I spoke to him he said, "Well it looks like they're going to take her gallbladder out too while they are in there." Some time later he called and said she was out of surgery and that the reason they took her gallbladder was because they had punctured it also!

Mom ended up staying in the hospital at the Mayo clinic for an additional 5 days. They returned home knowing that they would have to go back up to Mayo's at some point to have the ERCP repeated so that the doctors could look at the pancreas.

June 10th was the day. Mom was scheduled to have the repeat ERCP at 1 p.m. As they were driving up I called and asked her how she was doing. Her reply was, "I'm petrified." I told her that I didn't know how she couldn't be, but there are a lot of people praying for her and she is in God's hands.

I called Dad numerous time over the next few hours trying to get updates and find out what was going on. Finally he was able to say that Mom was out of the procedure. They were supposed to have seen 2 other doctors, one at 3:30 and one at 4 and now at 5:30 they were on their way to those appointments, the doctors were waiting to see them. I received a call from them a short time later and they said that there was a "highly suspicious lesion." The lesion is so suspicious that she was already scheduled for surgery on June 23rd, but they would call with the final report as soon as they received it.

Mom was scheduled to have a pre-op chest x-ray and ekg on Thursday before they left to come home. I talked to Mom later in the day and asked her seriously, "How are you?" She said fair. When I talked to her a few hours later she said, "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Remember that, this is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."

Friday morning I called Dad and Mom and Mom answered. I asked her how she was doing and I must have sounded worried because she said to me, "What is Psalm 118:24?" Together we said, "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."

A friend told me this recently and I shared it with Mom. Pray for a miracle, just for God to give you a miracle. Don't tell him what miracle, because so many times when you do that you are putting restrictions on him. Pray for a miracle and let him decide how to perform it.

This is my version the best that my memory serves me. I am sure that Karen, Dad and Mom will each have pieces to add. So many times people ask what they can do. For right now, the best answer I have is, "Pray for a miracle."