The First Call

This morning started out like pretty much any other. Lex and Loki up early. Mad Dog and I trying to sleep as long as they would let us. Because today is Mad Dog's Birthday we took him for breakfast at a diner near our house. On our return the kids started to play in the living room, and Loki even pulled herself up for the first time to stand against a chair in our living room (this before 9 months). Settling in for the day, and with Mad Dog getting stuff ready before he leaves for work I received a phone call from my Mother.

She had called yesterday saying she was going into the hospital to have a few tests run. Nothing to worry about and that she just wanted us to know where she was, so there were no frantic calls to find her. Today however she called again to give me a little more insight into why she was there. It would seem that my Mother has a Pericardial Cyst. It measures about 12 cm (size of a Grapefruit) and is situated between her lungs leaning slightly against her heart. The mass is filled with fluid and not believed to be cancerous.

There are several things they can do. 1) Leave it alone and monitor 2) drain the mass - but most likely it would heal and refill 3) major surgery where they open her completely up to remove the mass, which has about an 8 week recovery time and lastly 4) (the one the are most likely going with) using 3 probes, deflate her left lung and separate the mass from it, reinflate the lung and then repeat on the right side. This is about 5 days in the hospital and possibly at best 2 weeks recovery. All surgical options have a 1% chance she won't recover.

We don't have anything else as of yet, such as when surgery will take place and so on. I had to call my brothers this morning to update them. Telling them she is not worried and therefore we shouldn't be. I'm a firm believer in the fact that you don't worry until you get all the facts. I know I was that way with my Dad. Now we wait.

Funny thing is I was just thinking that people who read my blog will think by the start of this entry it was going to be one of my normal rants or silliness, but the entry was kind of like being slapped in the face, huh? I guess it had the perfect effect, since that phone call was kind of the same thing for me.