Update on Mom.

{What mom's cancer looks like on a slide... In case anyone else is nerdly like me, and cares to look for this stuff.}

This information is actually from Tuesday....

Mom's CT is essentially negative---except for colon cancer. She's still got a cyst on her ovary, but it's only 2.5cm, and has not been problematic for her, & seems unrelated to her cancer. That's great. There are no blaring red flags on the CT. Yaaaay! No signs of mets on there.

She met with the surgeon Tuesday. He's going to do a bowel resection & reconnection all in one procedure. No colostomy. She'll have a traditional abdominal surgery as opposed to the laparascopic surgical option because he needs to remove a portion of the mesentary tissue to get the lymph nodes for pathology as well. The actual colon mass is on her left side, and the way he described the surgery, he will be taking out a portion, not just the actual mass, but he estimated a length of 6-7 inches, maybe more, maybe less. He'll just have to see when he gets in there.

What type of cancer is it? It's adenocarcinoma...Invasive Moderately Differentiated Adenocarcinoma. It's pictured above.

What stage is it? Won't know until the pathology after the surgery because they need to measure how deeply it invaded the colon wall/how many layers it penetrated.

Will she have chemo? Won't know until she meets with an oncologist AFTER the surgery. Why? Because surgery is the first line of treatment for this type of cancer, as we've been told by the GI doc & surgeon.

Plan? For now---the plan is surgery on the 20th. Check in time is 5am. (Lovely.) Surgery should take "a couple of hours." Estimated length in the hospital----just like a doctor, he responded, "It's different for every patient. We won't know until we see how she progresses after the surgery." We're estimating it at 3-6 days.

We're hoping she will be out of the hospital by Christmas! She may be completely useless---but we're just hoping she'll be home!