Let's Talk About the Weather

It is pouring outside...again.

This Summer has been a shock to my system physically and metaphorically.
I love a good storm. Something to jolt me to life again and remind me that God is in control. The huge booming clap of thunder that shakes your seat and makes you feel small in a good way. The light show that outdoes any fireworks display no matter which side of the Mississippi you are on...awesome. The rain that comes down in sheets of white, taking once parched land, and creating a mud puddle in seconds.

What I don't love, is when that storm turns into a never-ending drowning of life, that leaves you doing the doggy paddle to keep your head above water. I don't love the way nothing ever is fully dry. Or the way that people lose their awe for the insane noise that rattles them physically, and go on as if they are ignoring the power of God Himself. Or how people (myself included)lament the impending storm as, "another storm".

The weather this summer has been the later...and so has life.

It started to pour a couple of weeks ago. My mom was here for a visit from Washington State and we had been enjoying our time, but she was feeling even more poorly than she had apparently been at home (I will spare you the details). Finally two weeks ago this Tuesday, we decided it couldn't wait for her return home 2 days later, because now she was jaundice. We made lots of calls and eventually decided the ER was our only option.

We did the usual waiting to be called, sitting in a room, waiting some more, blood tests, x-ray... By late that evening (probably near midnight) they were thinking Hepatitis A. To be sure they decided to keep her overnight and do a CAT scan in the morning. This didn't sit well with my very young 49 year old mother, who hadn't been to the hospital since my brother was born in 1986. However, she graciously agreed to endure the evening stay in a hospital on the other side of the country just over a day before she was supposed to return home.

The next morning they took a very long amount of time to do all the testing they could. That afternoon the doctor came in and let us know that is was definitely not Hepatitis A, but that there was something blocking the common bile duct (the tubing that connects the pancreas, gall bladder, liver and small intestines), hence the turning yellow all over. Unfortunately they couldn't do anything else at this hospital (Beverly Hospital), and would have to arrange for her to be transferred by ambulance over to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Of course that night there was a severe storm that contained tornadoes and was heading towards us, so the ambulance got caught in awful traffic, meaning we didn't get to her new hospital home away from home until 8pm that night. Since it was clear that she would not make her return flight we canceled it with hopes of rescheduling in a couple of days.

That night the new hospital redid every last test that had already been done, meaning we slept very little, because every time we dosed off someone else came in to draw blood, put stickers all over her for EEG or take her to another location for an X-ray or CAT scan. She wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything, but at one point they did make her drink 32 oz. (an entire nalgene) of milk for the CAT scan :-)


The next day we waited. I went home and got things together, while mom tried to sleep and that evening had an Endoscopy done to insert a stent (this was a plastic stent to allow things to flow through the duct, so that her body could get rid of the excess bilirubin that was causing the jaundice).

The next morning I returned to find that they had hoped to do another Endoscopy that day (Friday), this time to take a biopsy (since they were only able to take a scraping in the first procedure). Unfortunately there was no room to squeeze her in that day, so they had to wait for Tuesday. Since she was not jaundice anymore, and was seemingly healthy they sent her home with me, to be brought back the next week for her biopsy. While this was taking place, my dad was on an airplane heading out now that we knew mom would be here for at least a few more days.

We spent the weekend, plus Monday, sightseeing to keep our minds busy. Tuesday we headed into the City again, this time my parents, the girls and I (Allen started class on the Monday). Her 12:30pm scheduled procedure didn't happen until close to 4pm. We were there all day waiting. The procedure didn't take more than an hour and she did great. The doctors that did it came by to talk to my parents and used the big "C" word...CANCER. The words we dreaded.

We then spent the next couple of days trying to do even more sightseeing to keep our minds even busier than we had before. Her consultation to go over the official results, with her doctor, was Friday morning. Dr. Vollmer confirmed the hunch of the previous doctors, and said that the tumor could not be removed, due to its location. The cancer attached itself to a very important vein, meaning it is far more risky to try to take it out, than to simply leave it.

My parents got on a plane to go home that afternoon. This week they have the task of maneuvering their way through Kaiser's web of people you have to see before you get anything done. Hopefully soon mom will meet with a skilled Oncologist who can explain the options and time frames.

We know she is in His hands. The Creator. The Roar behind the thunder. The Light beyond anything we could imagine.

Pray.

Pray.

And Pray some more.