Optimal news about my mom

Many thanks to those of you who have been holding my mom, Fay, in the Light these past weeks. Since the first week of June she has walked a medical labyrinth of increasingly specific and concerning tests: a regular mammogram led to ultrasounds then to a CAT scan then a PET scan and finally a biopsy…huge and abnormal lymph nodes being the source of concern. The waiting was hard and got harder when last Friday, the final day of our MCC orientation, the surgeon called Fay and let her know that she does have lymphoma. What kind, how serious, what stage, treatment of it…were all things he was unable to speak to though. She’d wait four more days, knowing she had cancer of some sort, to sit down with her oncologist and hear those essential answers. Mom was amazingly grounded during all this waiting and also plenty sad.

We learned the initial “bad news” the day after we left Asheville, the very first day of orientation. Our fellow service workers and the MCC staff couldn’t have been more supportive or appropriate on our end. And Fay’s friends and family have been just what she needed too. Almost like endcaps to orientation, we were in our closing meeting of all those serving in Latin America and the Caribbean when Fay called with the surgeon’s word. How could we leave for 3 years if she were looking at aggressive cancer and immediate treatment? How could we not with our jobs relinquished, cars sold, house rented, and goodbyes said…not to mention that orientation really confirmed our clarity about serving overseas?

We had a week of language study and volunteering in Akron before our scheduled leave taking for Bogota (since our Colombian MCC country representative was out of the country when we completed orientation and thus couldn’t receive us for another week). The timing proved an unexpected blessing and I was able to use frequent flyer miles to return to NC to be with my mom for a few days including the all-important doctor’s visit.

No one wants lymphoma but the kind it turns out Fay has is far better than many. Marginal zone B cell lymphoma, a low-grade lymphoma that remains asymptomatic in mom at present, does not require any treatment for the time being. It was a huge relief and cause for huge gratitude. The balance of our days together Fay and I spent holed up at her lake house (without internet or computer or even a landline) being on retreat and enjoying one another. It was time she had longed for before our initial leaving that I couldn’t carve out then despite wanting to…so these few days were a gift.

Mom is followed by a specialist at Duke whom she’ll see again in August. She may have a bone marrow biopsy then. But even if it were positive, as long as she is symptom free (which could be years), no treatment for the lymphoma is indicated. She’ll continue to have her blood counts checked more than once a month (as she has for almost a decade now due to her blood disorder) and she’ll have a PET scan every six months. That said, she was told coming to visit us over the holidays was a fine plan. Thanks for your prayers and support for her and us in this hard road.