Not Giving Up, Giving It All Up

Pastor Denny gave the best sermon today...it was about trials that families encounter. He had several points from the lives of Abraham & Sarah. He said we might encounter one of those trials this week...that's good, because last week I encountered them all, one would be a blessing!

So Denny was talking in one ear and God was talking in the other and showing me that I needed to wait for those results last week. I kept getting stuck in the horrible thoughts. All the "what ifs"...what if this dress I'm making with Aspen is her funeral dress, maybe I should just stop sewing. What if she needs chemo? What if this is the last year of her life? And every time those thoughts came up I really just had to give them up because I couldn't handle them at all. So I really spent last week turning over all my horrible thoughts, which meant I was also giving up a lot of plans, control, ideas, designs on my life and Aspen's, and ultimately Aspen's future. And when I was in the place where there was nothing else to give up, we got a phone call from the doctor.

I need a Frequently Asked Questions page...here are a couple answers to the most frequently asked questions:

Laproscopy: They cannot operate through small incisions because the pancreas is wrapped right up close to the duodenum (the top portion of the small intestine) and snuggles right up next to the spinal cord. It's too dangerous to operate with a tiny incision because fishing around in there they could nick the intestine or spinal cord and there would be real trouble then. And he wants to be able to see things really clearly for reasons below.

Being Sure: No, they aren't 100% sure it isn't cancerous...they won't really know until they take it out and send it to pathology, and see for themselves with their eyes, not through the "eyes" of a machine. But if we look at the lab work, things look really, really good. We have been able to keep the tumor from growing for over a month now, so I am okay waiting the extra few days to have surgery. If things turned out bad, I would actually be even happier with my decision to postpone surgery a few days. I would be able to look back on perhaps my last mother's day with her and know that it wasn't spent in the hospital, and Aspen would have the thrill of her dance recital in her memory.

So the larger of the two surgeries, the Whipple, will be performed if the surgeon gets in there and thinks it might be cancer. He basically removes the tumor and anything touching it for 2-4 inches in every direction. So that's the other really good reason to pray for the small surgery because having the Whipple means that he found cancer that we didn't know was there. When will he decide? When he's in there, that's why he scheduled so much time in the operating room for us. He can do the resection, or if he needs to he has the leeway to do the Whipple.

Today's visit with Aspen was about food in the hospital...we talked about being on a liquid diet afterwards and then slowly adding solid foods back into her diet. She's decided as long as she can have popsicles life will be ok. We talked about the IV again, I explained that she has to have it in even after the surgery is done in case she gets an infection and they need to give her medicine, or if she needs pain medication, or in case they need to do more work or fix something she won't need to get another poke. She was horrified that it had to stay...that part of life won't be as okay, it's going to take a lot of popsicles to smooth that one over!