Mother's Day hit a little differently this year. On the day we got pedis with my mom, she mentioned she was having left sided abdominal pain and it had been going on since she got home from my aunt Donna's funeral. I asked her what she had tried and she said she was taking a probiotic. I thought maybe it was a stomach bug and didn't really think too much about it. Then she had the episode at lunch. That night when I was going to bed I started to replay the conversation in my head. I realized that she had gotten home from Florida the very beginning of March. The pain was going on for about 2 months. Then I realized that was not normal and definitely something she needed to check out. When we were together she said it was on her left side and I was thinking lower abdomen so I was thinking something was going on with her colon. It was actually left upper quadrant. Either way, I talked to her Saturday or Sunday night and told her she needed to get in to see her doctor. Monday morning she called and her doctor wasn't available so she saw my dad's doctor. He ordered some blood tests and a CT scan. The CT was scheduled for Wednesday which is fairly quick for scheduling imaging and in a small town. The blood tests weren't really significant and her urine sample showed a possible UTI but because she wasn't symptomatic, they weren't going to treat it. I wasn't worried.
She had the CT scan Wednesday afternoon. They called her within an hour of her finishing, wanting to review the results in person. That's when she received the bad news that they found a mass on her pancreas and it was suspicious for cancer. My mom called me that night. It had been a nice day where I felt very happy. It was the day before my birthday and I was feeling good. I remember going to the Dollar Tree that day and while I was getting party favors, I bought supplies to make a sunshine basket. I didn't have anyone in mind but wanted to have supplies on hand. All of that is said because there was a 180 change from how I felt during the day to receiving the news from my mom that night. I knew she saw the doctor Monday and I knew she was having a CT scan that day but I hoped it wasn't anything to be concerned about. I didn't think she would have results back that fast.
When she called me she told me they had found a mass on her pancreas and it was suspicious for cancer. She said that they would be doing a biopsy on Friday at Utah Valley hospital. I was in shock. How could this be happening. Especially two months after my aunt, her sister, passed away from pancreatic cancer! We cried together and I told her I would go with her to the biopsy on Friday.
That night was rough. I cried, Marshall held me, and I wasn't sure what the future would hold for my mom. Ali slept over Thursday night and brought my mom to the hospital Friday morning. I met them there and we got checked in and Same Day Surgery for the biopsy. The nurse checking my mom in was very kind and positive. We were all feeling on the brink of an emotional breakdown but we were holding it together. The GI doctor was very kind. After he completed the biopsy he told us that to him, the mass looked different from cancer. He was hopeful that it was a type of immune reaction. He said we would know for sure once the biopsy results came back in a few days. So we left feeling hopeful. We had a family fast on Mother's Day. There was an underlying sadness but we tried to be positive and enjoy the day.
