I hope you all had a good weekend.  This update seems to be a little a little sooner that I thought, but as it turned out, the powers that be thought I needed to dust off my pencil and get busy filling you all in.  Kylee is recouping well from her surgery.  She still has mild bouts of nausea, but they tell us that is normal because the body has to get used to not having a gall bladder.

Tammy’s overnight visit to the Salina Spa Center turned into a little more that we had planned on.  After surgery she was still having a lot of pain in her hip area.  Her surgeon came in and checked on her Wednesday evening and manipulated her leg around.  In certain positions Tammy would want to jump out of bed.  Doc scratched his head a little and said lets give it the night and see how things are in the morning.  Tammy settled down and had a decent night.  When Dr Whitlow returned in the morning he manipulated he leg again and just felt that there was something going on in her hip that was not right.  He ordered an MRI of her hip for Thursday and said that he would be back later that evening.  In the meantime Tammy had found some spunk and was talking any ones ear off that would happen to stop by.

Around five Thursday evening Dr.  came back with the results of the MRI.  She has two issues going on.  The first is that she had some arterial necrosis on the ball of her femur.  Most likely due to long-term steroid use.  This was not a surprise as he had mentioned that this could be the cause of her pain.  It’s basically the lack of blood flow to the ends of our long bones.  The second issue is that she has a cancerous lesion on her femur.  He told her that from here on out she was not to put any weight on that leg.  He ordered an x-ray that showed that she already has a crack in her femur and the biggest concern right now is that she could very easily completely break the bone because it is very week from the cancer.  Deep Breath………….

I don’t think that it was a big surprise to us that it was there.  Tammy is being Tammy and is going full speed ahead to take on this problem.  It was determined that the first thing that needs to be done is that she needs her femur nailed.  It you really want to know what that it just google it.  To be totally honest it was not what I really expected, but as long as it works Tammy says she game.  After she heals enough they will do radiation to the tumor to see if they can get it taken care of.  Surgery will be tomorrow, Tuesday the eighth, at one thirty, at the surgical center.  She is supposed to have a CT of her chest at some point, but that has been put on the back burner as we chase this fire.

I feel I need to share a story with you.  I finally went back in to work on Friday and was busy trying to get caught up and trying to figure out how this week was going to work out.  I was speaking with a co-worker and we were just about done with our talk and he said, “I pray for her everyday.”

I thanked him and as we sometimes do when we just don’t know what to say, he said, “I don’t know if it is working or not, it kind of sounds like it isn’t.”

I told him that I need to stop you right there.  Maybe it is just how I perceive things now, but I think they are working very well. ”  I told him, “If she would not have had this second surgery they might not have found the tumor on her femur.  She could have kept going on it and eventually broke it and had a more problems.  As far as I’m concerned your prayers are working just fine.  This was her and the doctors  second chance.  It was not what we were expecting but it was where she needed to be.”

After he thought about it for a minute he agreed and told me a story from his own life that was similar.

All of your prayers, thoughts, well wishes, or what ever you wish to call them matter.  There is power in them that we don’t understand.  I am not going to lie and say that we are happy about this.  Each time the cancer moves it is all of the emotion, fear, and anxiety all over again,  but we find our greatest strength in gratitude.  We are thankful for all of the little things that are going our way.  We are sustained by the little victories like not completely breaking a bone that in all likely hood could have been catastrophic has it not been found.  We are thankful for all of the doctors that literally drop what they are doing when they know Tammy is coming to see them,

We took a few more steps back in the last week.  That is okay.  We are still standing, and cancer, just so you know, we are coming for you, and we have the might of thousands behind us.