What's Happened So Far, Part 1

About 18 months ago, mom started not feeling well. Food didn’t taste good, she was bloated and having trouble going to the bathroom (okay, having bowel movements for those of you purists/health care professionals). One day, mom and dad were driving to Kansas City, which is about 3 hours from where they live. She became so uncomfortable -- so ill -- that she couldn’t continue. So, dad turned the car around and they went back home and scheduled an emergency visit with their doctor’s office.

Unfortunately, the main doctor (let’s call him Dr. Dooright) wasn’t available, so she saw one of the other doctors (we’ll call him Dr. Knucklehead for reasons that will become obvious). Dr. Knucklehead examined her and took an X-Ray in the office. After which, he instructed mom to go to the hospital for further testing. Upon her arrival, the staff admitted her into a room in the ER and started running tests/exams, one of which was a cat-scan. Dr. Knucklehead told mom and dad that she had a completely blocked colon which was causing the intestine to distend (I have no idea if that’s spelled right. please forgive any mis-spellings) to a huge size. She also has numerous spots on her liver. But before actually doing anything, he wanted to run more tests, including jamming a camera up her rear-end (OK, OK, it's actually called an endoscope) so they could look at the big, black, evil-looking object up close. He informed mom and dad that they would do those tests tomorrow.

That was Dr. Knucklehead’s death knell. “Tomorrow?!? Are you kidding me??” was my dad’s response. By now, mom was in so much pain, she required good medicine to numb it. Still, her stomach looked like she was hiding a beach ball. After Dr. Knucklehead tried (unsuccessfully) to reassure mom & dad that it would be okay, dad, being the reserved & patient man I grew up with (HA!), tracked down Dr. Knucklehead’s boss: Dr. Dooright. Fortunately, the good doctor asked a friend of his (Dr. McDreamy), a well-respected oncologist, to take a look at mom’s cat scan. Waddya know, about 10 minutes after he looked at the cat scan, things started jumping around there. Tests and exams were being cancelled and replaced by surgeries! Nurses started paying more attention to mom. Dr. Knucklehead vanished mysteriously. And Dr. McDreamy explained to mom that it appeared she had Stage 4 colon cancer. For those of you that don’t know what stage 4 means, I have provided this handy guide.

Stage 1: “Oh, that little thing?!?”
Stage 2: “We need to take a look at that”
Stage 3: “I’m glad we caught that when we did. That could have gotten a lot worse.”
Stage 4: “Do you have your affairs in order?”

The cancer had grown to the size of a softball and was completely blocking her colon (that last little part of intestines before your processed food goes out your butt). Additionally, it had metastisized. She had numerous spots on her liver and a few on her lymph nodes. They were going to remove the blockage in her colon today, since it was causing a life-threatening blockage.

Then, they'd have to figure out what they were going to with the rest....