(no subject)

[serene]

I'm at my mom's house, working my substantial ass off trying to get her house as not-filthy as possible before she gets home tomorrow. I'm kind of enjoying it, but I sure wouldn't cry if it were suddenly done without my having to do any more work. As it is, I'll probably be up very late doing laundry and clearing cupboards and scrubbing floors. That's the way it is, but it makes me miss my relatively clean home. (But then every molecule of oxygen makes me miss home.)

On the cancer thing, it was such a dramatic week. When the surgeon (Dr. Justin Wu -- highly recommended!) came out of the O.R. to talk to us, he told us he thought he'd gotten all the cancer. However, the cancer was "poorly differentiated", which means it was really really bad (that's obviously a paraphrase), and there was some mysterious fluid in her body cavity.

Dr. Wu told us the fluid could be due to irritation because of all the bleeding my mom was doing, but there was another possibility: that there was freefloating cancer in her system. If that were the case, he would estimate she had six months to two years to live. If not, she had a chance (my research later said a 40% chance, on average) of recovering completely. I asked him "If you had to guess, what would you guess the fluid is?" and he said that he would guess the bad outcome. We spent this week pretty much expecting that mom would be given the worst news possible.

Instead, it was the best news possible. When Dr. Wu got to mom's room yesterday (Monday), he didn't have the results. We walked with him to the terminal (no pun intended) and he pulled up the pathology reports. I saw the report that said that the cancer he pulled out had clean margins (which means he got it all). Also, they pulled out 16 lymph nodes, and they were *all* clean.

Then came the cytology report. The relevant paragraph was short: "No malignancy encountered." You should have seen Dr. Wu's face change from thinly-veiled dread to exhilaration. He couldn't wait to get back into my mom's room and tell her she was cured.

"This morning, I had you classified as Stage 4 stomach cancer. Now it's stage 1B, which means there's no cancer at all, but it was advanced cancer to begin with, so we have to keep an eye on you. But basically, I'm telling you that you're cured. You might not even have to have chemotherapy -- that will be up to you and your oncologist."



Halle-fucking-lujah.

Praise be to Doctor Wu and his most excellent hands. Praise be to whatever medical school he went to for teaching him what he needed to know to save my mother's life. And I give my gratitude to every person who was ever involved in making the state of medicine what it is today.

Comments

[geminigirl]

What a huge, gigantic relief. I'm really glad for you.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, wonderful news!!!!
I'm sort of loving the medical profession these days.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

That is such an awesome outcome. :)

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!! :)

[gramina.livejournal.com]

Excellent, *excellent* news!

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yayayayayay! i am so glad for you all.

[gremlin44.livejournal.com]

Hurrah!

Nerdy detail

[emperor]

"poorly differentiated" refers, basically, to how much the tumour cells still look like the cells the "ought" to be - how much they look like the cells of the tissue they were before they were cancerous. Generally, the more normal the cells look, the less aggressive the tumour is. Poorly differentiated means what it says, really - that the cells aren't really recongnisably like a tissue at all, and that isn't generally a good sign. The fact there's no sign it's gone elsewhere is really really good news :)

Re: Nerdy detail

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly how he explained it to us. I was paraphrasing. :-)

Re: Nerdy detail

[emperor]

Err, sorry. I wasn't sure if you were paraphrasing because it had been paraphrased to you or if you thought the nerdy details were too dull to LJ about :). doh.

Re: Nerdy detail

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Not dull at ALL. Just I have limited energy these days.

Re: Nerdy detail

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Translation: Thank you!

[bastette-joyce.livejournal.com]

But then every molecule of oxygen makes me miss home.

Do you have any idea when that might be? Probably not... but I'm just wondering.

Also

[bastette-joyce.livejournal.com]

That would be beyond awesome if she didn't have to have chemo!!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

The current not-firm plan is middle of January, but it could be sooner or later depending on circumstances.

Re: Also

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I know. She's totally prepared to do it if the oncology doc says she needs to, but she's hoping he won't.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

That is excellent!

[saluqi.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

[ailbhe]

*does the happy cha-cha of joie de vivre*

[baalitlaura.livejournal.com]

What a blessing.

[lcohen]

oh, yay--i'm so so so glad!

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is wonderful!

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I am assuming you have no surplus time or energy. But if escaping for an hour or two for dinner or tea or something would be useful, I think you know how to get hold of me. I'm gone more than here 12/24-1/6, but outside that window is OK.

I'll be driving up to the Bay area for New Year's (leaving the 29th or 30th), back on the 1st if there's anything that needs to be ferried up there or back here.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

You should have seen Dr. Wu's face change from thinly-veiled dread to exhilaration.

I'm so glad you could see that.

[firecat]

You should have seen Dr. Wu's face change from thinly-veiled dread to exhilaration.

That made me cry.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

You should have seen Dr. Wu's face change from thinly-veiled dread to exhilaration.

*smile*.

that's just awesome. "stage 4", and "poorly differentiated" are really bad words to hear/read, and to come out of that with such a good result -- totally excellent.

yay!

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Praise be, indeed. Best winter gift a person could possibly want.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Damn, I'm glad to read this.

I've been following this, but not commenting, because I've been catching up, slowly. Wouldn't it just suck to say that I hope she's doing better, after you've already posted that something awful has happened?

You've all been in my prayers, which does nothing but it's a semi-concrete expression of caring, at least.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Um. Just thought about how that last line might sound.

I meant "I've been praying. It sucks that I can't do anything real, and I find that frustrating. But I do care, and if there was something real I could do, I'd do it."

I'm sorry if it came across badly; I'm *really* tired and frustrated right now, and wasn't thinking about how my own self-cynicism might sound.