On September 10, my father asked that my brother and I meet him "to talk about mom coming home". She had been in and out of hospitals for months, after a trying year that included chronic pancreatitis, gastrointestinal stent surgery, a shattered ankle and being under nourished. Two weeks prior, she had her entire pancreas, spleen and part of her stomach removed during an operation that seemed to last forever. The three of us met at my parent's home, settling around the kitchen table. What promised to be an enthusiastic discussion quickly dawned an unsettling air. Rather than mince words, my father alerted us to the news: "Your mom has cancer."
It didn't register at first. Nobody said anything for a minute or so. My dad was understandably upset. My brother left the room. I sat there holding my parents' dog. Somehow, I managed to remain calm. My dad recited the terrifying facts concerning life expectancy, quality of life, et al. Nobody had told my mom yet. My brother, father and I were the only ones who knew. My sister was out of town. We debated when to tell my mom, and how to present it. It was surreal. I was deeply saddened and furious.
We knew the severity of the diagnosis all too well, as pancreatic cancer killed my grandfather – my mom's dad. Following the pancreatectomy and splenectomy, the Cleveland Clinic surgeon, who was recommended to my father by other surgeons, as he had performed hundreds of this type of surgery and regularly sees cancer patients, noted that there was no cancer evidence found during the operation, and that he would have certainly noticed.
It was only during the post-operative biopsy of my mother's pancreas that two sizable tumors, and "a trace" of cancer in one of her 16 lymph nodes were revealed. Technically speaking, she has pancreatic cancer.
This was shaping up to be promising, all things considered. The offending organ and lymph nodes were somewhere in the Clinic, not in my mother.
The trace of cancer found in but one lymph node out of 16 would seem to support that, and the lack of evidence found through testing and the surgeon's visual examination, would seem to suggest that the cancer has not spread. The most invasive procedure that would have been ordered should the cancer have been detected earlier would have been the pancreatectomy and splenectomy. The risky surgery to relieve chronic pancreatitis and related ailments may have saved my mom's life by revealing something far more sinister, which, had it gone unnoticed, would have wreaked untold havoc.
