Thursday, November 27, 2008

My mom: the specialist and the scan

Mom had her more detailed scan today. She doesn't know much more than she did before. This CT scan focused entirely on her pancreas so that the specialist will be able to see exactly what is going on and what exactly he can do about it.

I am feeling much more relaxed, though, now that I know who this specialist is. His name is Dr. Jeffrey Norton, and he's the Division Chief of Surgical Oncology at Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto, CA (the same place Patrick Swayze is getting treatment).

In fact, I just found out tonight that Dr. Norton was reportedly the surgeon who removed the pancreatic tumor from Steve Jobs (of Apple fame) in 2004. Dr. Norton is one of the foremost experts in the field of pancreatic cancer. Fun fact along the "six degrees" line of thinking: a medical procedure invented by Dr. Norton to treat a rare pancreatic disease was featured in the TV show "House."

So I feel she is really going to be in good hands. She has an appointment to see him on Friday, December 5th.

Tonight she was tired but largely in good spirits. And I was glad to hear her say that she's kind of in information overload and intentionally taking a break from this when she needs to, and doing things that focus her attention elsewhere.

I am doing okay. Still going through periods of shock and denial and feeling like this is all surreal, like I'll call her in a few days and discover this was all a nightmare and she's fine. In the meantime, she's going to her brother's for Thanksgiving and I am going to work hard at focusing on what I do have in my life (including my mom right now).

Happy Thanksgiving.

1 comment:

Ayelet said...

I am going to work hard at focusing on what I do have in my life (including my mom right now)

Good girl!

I'm happy to hear her doing the right thing, too, by taking a break from it and celebrating Thanksgiving, etc..

We do have so much to be thankful for, don't we?

Thank you for keeping us posted. We're here for you :)