The Nitty-Gritty

We are really excited...it's benign!! Her blood work was good, really good...none of her pancreatic enzymes are elevated, no cancer markers showed, no kidney or liver problems. The doctor is surprised, but said it's because of the fat free vegan diet. I am so glad Aspen has been able to stick with it!

It's made me realize that we have this food that God made for us to eat and we are constantly trying to reinvent it...to make things better, but there really isn't any better than what was made to go perfectly with our bodies. Enhanced, enriched, fortified, homogenized, genetically modified, and hydrogenated are not better. So, the tumor hasn't grown at all since the last peek inside...hurray!!

The only oddity (other than the tumor itself, which is not a cyst filled with anything, it's a solid mass the doctor says) is that her Chromagranin-A level is elevated which is just indicative of a benign tumor.

It has to come out!! Since we can't seem to get it to pack it's bags and leave on it's own, surgery is scheduled for May 13th at 9am. The doctor set aside until early afternoon for her just in case he needs all that time. The planned surgery is what they call a resection. They will cut off the part of the pancreas that the tumor is attached to and then reattach the pancreas.

If he gets in there and finds out things are a bit more complicated than we thought he will do a Whipple procedure which includes resectioning the pancreas, removing the top portion of the duodenum, and perhaps part of her stomach and then putting everything back together. Think of your parts coming together in the middle like 3 slices of pizza on the pan (the stomach, duodenum and pancreas all come together in one spot)...then imagine cutting the center points off all the slices and putting them closer together again in the middle. That's probably not a very good description, but that's basically what the Whipple does.

Our hospital stay should be a week, give or take a couple days if we have the resection. It just depends on how she is healing, taking food and all that good stuff. If we Whipple it will be 14 days, and if there are complications it's an indefinite stay. We are praying for a nice simple resection with no complications!!

So, we definitely want people to come visit if they want to! Aspen will be thrilled to see people. Friends and family are SO important to her! We would like to ask that all but our family and pastors (which is over 20 people!) wait until the 15th to come visit. The 13th is surgery day, the 14th she will be sleeping off the remainder of the anesthetic, trying to get up and walk a bit, adjusting to any pain medication, seeing if she can tolerate liquids, making sure all of her parts still work and lots of other recovery focussed things...I think she will look better and be better able to receive friends and actually visit with them on the 15th.

After surgery she will be on two weeks bed rest and another 4 weeks of taking it pretty easy...we have to find out when it's okay to jump on a trampoline again and if we can go to the Girl Scout Mom & Me camp on June 27th. The doctor doesn't believe she will be insulin dependent (he said he thought it was about a 99% chance that she wouldn't be). There is a chance she might be enzyme dependent to digest her food...it really depends on where the resection happens and how good they get it reattached.

We were scheduled for surgery on May 8th and I asked them to delay it if they thought it was safe...can you believe that?! Aspen and Cierra have a folk dance recital on May 9th, it would have been kind of sad to miss it since they already have their costumes, and have done all the practicing for it. It's at 8pm...give me a call if you want to come and I'll tell you the location. I don't know how much tickets are yet either.

We are thrilled with the results, I'm glad you can be thrilled with us!! We are so greatful for the prayers, it just turns out for the best every time!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!