A Stressful 2 Days

My Mom found out 2 months ago that she has breast cancer. I haven't mentioned anything about my Mom on my blog because she is very private and for a while was not ready for everyone to know. As anyone can imagine, this was a devastating blow to our family. No one in our family has ever had breast cancer, so we previously felt immune to this disease. The initial discovery was bad enough, but when she went back for an MRI, they found another lump. They were fairly certain that the second lump was not cancerous, but wanted to remove it and do a thorough biopsy, just in case.

Yesterday, she had a lumpectomy to remove the cancer, the second lump and 2 lymph nodes. The surgery lasted almost 4 hours, and she had 3 and 1/2 hours of prep work prior to the surgery. My Dad, sister, and I waited in the waiting room watching each person walk through the door hoping to see her surgeon. Finally, she came out and told us that they were finished with the surgery. In her words, everything went perfectly. You can't get better than perfect. The preliminary lab results revealed that they removed all the cancer, and it has not spread to the surrounding tissue. Most likely, all she will require is radiation treatment, which should begin a week from Monday. After weeks of bad news we were so relieved to finally hear some good news. We will know for sure on Tuesday what the final lab results are.

Today, she was walking around, playing with the kids, acting completely normal. Our most difficult task will be getting her to sit and take it easy for the next several days.

Thank you to everyone who kept her in their prayers. It worked!

Today, I made my first 911 call. This morning, I bought some flowers for my Mom, and Taylor and I were putting them together in a vase at our kitchen counter. Isabella took one of the powder packets that come with flowers off the counter and put in in her mouth while I wasn't paying attention. I noticed that she was chewing something and discovered that the entire packet was in her mouth, and was very soggy. I could not tell if the packet had broken or not so I called 911. They told me that an ambulance was on the way and put me on the phone with the poison control center. The woman informed me that the powder does not have a high toxicity level in small doses, and all I needed to do was wipe her mouth out with paper towels, and give her a lot of liquids for the rest of the day to flush out whatever was digested. 2 minutes after I hung up to phone, the ambulance arrived. We live in a very small township with a volunteer fire department. Today must have been a slow day. 2 ambulances with 4 paramedics, the Sheriff, and the fire chief all came to our house. I had 6 men in my kitchen all checking Isabella out and dissecting the packet of flower food. They determined that some amount must have come out because the inside of the bag had turned to liquid from her saliva. They took her pulse and blood pressure, filled out the necessary paperwork, and were on their way. What a relief! I feel very confident that if we ever have a serious emergency, they will be at my house within 5 minutes, and will know exactly what to do. I also know that in a matter of seconds when your mind is preoccupied with other issues, a child can get into SERIOUS trouble. This was my warning.