Mom’s story

Mom was born January 29th, 1933. She came into this world early and small. She only weighed a bit over 4 pounds. As many children born in those days she was born at home. Because she was born early she had lung problems. She was born with asthma and contracted pneumonia almost every winter for the first few years of life.

She survived and went on to live a fairly normal life.

In 1938 she had her tonsils out.

In 1958 she got pregnant after trying for a few years. She had some difficulty in this too. In April of 1958 her mother passed away from a heart attack. Then in Feb. of 1959 she gave birth to a 5lb. 7 oz. Baby girl. She was also born early and was a bit jaundiced. She too survived. She is now telling you this story about her *Miracle Mom*.

To continue on with the story, in 1969 Mom had congestive heart failure with angina. She was bed bound for quite some time. She tried many times after that to go back to work but, couldn’t do it. The heart was damaged too much for the hard work she did.

1972 she had her first D&C. She would have more due to some *female* problems.

Her last D&C was 3-24-1995 and was the catalyst for the hysterectomy that she had in April of 1995. She was diagnosed with endometrian cancer (1% of 1 degree or is it 1degree of 1%) and operated on 4-28-1995, at Hershey Medical center in PA. Everything was going well. She was in the hospital for 5 days. You see she had also been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus October 1, 1986' at the age of 53, so that complicates any operations or/procedures she has. Her daughter was the attending *nurse* after she got home. She changed her dressings and bathed her, well all the things needed to do.

We hoped this would be the end of the cancer but, who after having it can truly forget it. Whenever she would have a pain or a twinge...cancer.. Would come to mind. Everything was going better when 4 years later she was having abdominal pain and was turning yellow. The doctor thought she may have gall stones, but she had an obstruction between her bile duct and her kidneys. The horror stabbing us all. The obstruction was a tumor. The diagnosis was Pancreatic Carcinoma. Then the testing to see if she could be operated on. It seems to have taken for ever to get the test results back.. We took her to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore MD. We had Dr. Lillimoe. He performed the operation called the Whipple. The schedule went something like this;

3-30-1999 through 4-02-1999 - test at Pottsville hospital

4-06-1999 - blood work

4-16-1999 - 2nd test ERCP

4-29-1999 Dr. Slusser from Pottsville called and confirmed cancer

5-04-1999 - Johns Hopkins for consultation, CAT scan and spiral scan (saw first rainbow the brightest I have ever seen)

5-07-1999 Dr. Lillimoe called and said that they CAN operate.

5-10-1999 - started making preps. For pre-op testing

5-13-1999 - Johns Hopkins- pre-op tests

5-21-1999 - Whipple proceedure lasted 8 hours. Was in hospital for 21 days

Recovery was long. Had to have treatments 4 cycles of 8 weeks each cycle. Mom went through it like a trooper. We thank God everyday for the miracle he worked.

Last spring,2005,  her xray showed two small tumors near her kidney. 

Her subsequent xrays have shown nothing. Miracle Mom had done it again.

~We Love You Mom ~

Susan

Song Playing ~

~ How Great Tho Art ~

Elvis Presley

This is an Angel Sue painted for her Mom when she had the pancreatic cancer and was in the hospital in baltimore, MD.

~Sue painted this angel in 2005 ~

Dear Mam, I made this page

with love and light in my heart...

May you always know, you are loved ~

RainbowAngeljb~

2005