Today, I had my post-op. appointment with Dr. McElmurry to have my stitches removed. Even though I drove myself to the appointment, I was not supposed to drive until they were removed. Prior to my appointment I gathered all of my medical records and film from the past year of treatment at Mem. City Hospital and had copies made and sent to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and to Dr. Joel Abramowitz (the oncologist at Memorial City), including the pathology report and the biopsy tissue slides. I was able to get an appointment with Dr. Abramowitz Thursday at 4:00. I also learned that my file was complete at M.D. Anderson and that they would be in contact with me soon to make my first appointment.

Saturday 6:30AM at the hospital for an 8:00 colonoscopy. 8:10, in the procedure room, I.V. in, ready to go, then I am told the doctor forgot about me and I will have to wait until he arrives, GREAT! 10:15 colonoscopy. No sign of cancer, Enough Said!

9:00 AM began preparation for impending colonoscopy at 6:30AM Saturday morning. Clear liquids until 6:00, then Tri-Lyte in 20 minute intervals for 3 hours and nothing else by mouth until after the procedure. I don't wish to relive this day any time soon, for those of you who have had this prep, you can relate!

Not the best Thanksgiving we have ever had, but we were so glad to be out of the hospital it didn't matter!

I was jolted awake at 5:30 AM by a mean nurse with a horrible bedside manner who was cranking my bed up into the upright position while I was still sleeping! She then plopped down 2 jugs of barium and told me I was to drink them before she returned in an hour. Well Good Morning to you too, lady!! I had not eaten more than a couple of bites of food since my surgery and now I had to chug this nasty milky barium stuff, did I mention I am not a morning person? At 7:00 AM, I was wheeled down for the CAT scan and I was back up to my room by 8:00. My doctor had 13 surgeries that day and he did not make his rounds until about 7:00 PM that night when we finally got the good news from the CAT. The pancreas and surrounding organs looked normal and cancer free! There was an area of my colon that appeared to be inflamed on the CAT, so my Gastroenterologist was called to setup a colonoscopy to rule out possible colon cancer. I was finally sprung from the hospital around 8:30 that night. Thanks to everyone who called, emailed and sent beautiful plants, flowers and gift baskets while I was in the hospital. And thanks to my wonderful parents for taking care of our animal children, Abby, Pearl & Roscoe. And especially a great big thank you to my perfect husband who never left my side for 3 days, managed to keep everyone in the loop and had to sleep in a chair for 2 nights in a row. I cannot begin to convey how strong and supportive he was during the whole ordeal, I am the luckiest girl in the world to have Joel Lester as my husband and best friend!

My doctor scheduled me for a PET/CT Scan (full body scan) to try and find the primary origin of my cancer. The PET scan is a very reliable test in finding event the smallest cancer cells in your body. The preliminary PET scan results revealed no other cancer sites in my body, which was the best news we could have asked for! My doctor requested the results be reviewed until they could find something for him to go on as far as finding a primary. There was a small shadow area around the head of my pancreas, which was terrible news b/c pancreatic cancer is not very manageable and I lost my Dad's Mother to Pancreatic cancer when I was young. So we were pretty horrified by the prospect of pancreatic cancer to say the least. My doctor ordered a CAT scan of my abdomen to get a closer look at the area.

I was admitted to Memorial Hermann Memorial City Hospital to have my gallbladder removed laparoscopically on an outpatient basis. I was having this done as a result of almost a year of constant stomach problems and pain in my upper right side. While my surgeon, Dr. Stephen McElmurry, was removing my gallbladder he found several tumors on my liver. He took biopsies of the tumors and they were determined to be malign (cancerous). The cancer cells seemed to be secondary, meaning they did not originate in the liver and it seemed that they had metastasized from another location in my body. Not exactly the news we were expecting, to say the least!