Updates on my sister

I'll be posting updates on this blog in the form of replies. You are welcome to add your own replies if you like, of course.


I just got off the phone with my Mom.

Sissy has finished the radiation from her breast cancer removal surgery. Apparently they put some sort of balloon in the place where the cancer in her breast was removed, and then were able to administer radiation treatment twice a day for five days through that. I don't really understand all that, but I will research it.

This Friday Sissy is having another surgery, this surgery being a complete hysterectomy. The tumor on her ovary is about the size of an apple. Mom doesn't know if it's also cancerous, but hopefully I'll know more when I talk to her on Sunday.

Apparently she's been unable to have any bowel movements for a while. They have been giving her stool softeners, but so far she doesn't even have the urge to go. She is supposed to be "cleaned out" by Friday morning's surgery, so if there's still no movement I don't know what will happen. It's possible she'll have to have surgery to take care of impacted bowels, maybe? I don't know.

On the up side (or what I'm choosing to latch onto as an up side, at least), she's going to have the surgery at Baptist Hospital in Nashville. Not only is this a good hospital, it is where her life was saved back in 1973.

You see, when she was pregnant with my nephew she was VERY sick. She had hyperemesis (think of it as 24/7 morning sickness, but like a bad stomach flu where NOTHING stays down). If you can't keep food or water in your body at all, you can die - and a doctor at Baptist saved her life, and my nephew's life, by finally finding medicine that allowed her to stop throwing up.

Here's where the hopefulness, the belief and faith that maybe there are miracles, comes in. As it turns out, the oncologist gynecologist is the doctor WHO REPLACED THE ONE WHO SAVED HER when he retired! Maybe it's just coincidence. But we NEED something to cling to, some hope that there is something bigger than us at work, and that it's working in a wonderful, healing way in her life right now.