My Best Friend

It's my mom. She has been and will always be my closest friend. In June, we had a real scare.

It all started in April '11. My mom had been suffering with gallbladder problems for several years and finally decided to do something about it. She thought that she could just schedule the surgery since she had already had all of the tests done 2 years earlier. Well, as you probably already know, it had been too long and she had to have all of the tests redone. It was a blessing in disguise. The cat scan happened to barely show a small nodule on her lung. She was referred to a lung specialist and he said that it wasn't anything to worry about. They would do another cat scan to be able to see it better. She found out a couple of weeks later that the same lung doctor was no longer in practice. What???

She then found a new lung specialist who also told her that it was nothing to worry about. They would do another cat scan in a couple of weeks to see if it had grown. When they did the scan they injected her with sugar because cancer attracts sugar. If there's cancer, the sugar will go to it and then it will glow on the cat scan. I had no idea. The test came back glowing. Not good. Even then, the doctor and later on the surgeon both said that they still didn't think that it was cancerous. Really??? But they decided that it needed to be cut out anyway. THANK YOU!

Come to find out, it's a pretty extensive surgery. She was nervous. Sure enough, when they went in it was cancer and they ended up having to take out the bottom lobe of one of her lungs. She was in the ICU for 3 days. It was scary.

I've never seen my mom in the hospital let alone in that shape. It's always been the other way around. They tested and we are now told that she is cancer free! I'm still nervous. The recovery has been long and hard, but she is doing well. She still has a gallbladder. That has to wait.

I'm so grateful for her. I just don't know what I would do without her...in this life.