My mom has overall kept herself very healthy. She's very much into nutrition, against the use of antibiotics and anything else that destroys your body, especially on a cellular level. She's eaten organic the past few years, rarely gets a cold, has never smoked, has been married for 23 years, has two lovely daughters who are twins and is a Christian. I know these details may sound random, but I think they're important for the events that follow.
In November, 2008 mom had a cold that had been bothering her, especially the cough. I remember when I was in Reno in September that she had complained of a slight cough, but it wasn't remarkable. In November when I came down from Alaska to have Thanksgiving with my family, she was straight up sick. She resisted going to the doctor, even though my sister and I strongly urged her. She didn't want to go because she knew she wouldn't take antibiotics, so thought it was a waste of time.
Right before Christmas, she FINALLY went to her physician. I don't have exact details, but here is the gist of the situation:
Dr. Green prescribed her an antibiotic which didn't change my mom's symptoms of coughing consistently to the point it would make her vomit. She didn't have any other symptoms at the time. She followed up with Dr. Green at the end of January when she was still experiencing the same coughing. She took 2 rounds of the Z-pack and had an image completed that showed masses in her lungs and was then referred to the pulmonologist.
The end of February, the pulmonologist went in orthoscopically, but found nothing. When my mom told me about this, I was floored and questioned why she left the office with that empty explanation. My mom didn't sound worried and I was upset and asked what exactly they meant by, "no findings." It's hard to get the entire picture, being clear across the Pacific, so I decided to let my mom handle it. If she was okay with the fact that there were masses in the picture, but they couldn't find anything, then there wasn't anything I could really do about it.
The Pulmonologist took a biopsy of the inside of her lung. They planned on culturing it for 30 days to see what kind of bacteria it was so they could give my mom something for it.
Two days after my mom's 62nd birthday, she went to her doctor because she was very short of breath. She was sent to the ER because her O2 saturation was 85% and pulse was 125.
The ER found that the pleural lining of the left lung was filled with fluid. They performed a thorocentesis and after 1L the standard is to reassess. They cultured the fluid and informed her the next morning that she had Stage IV cancer. At this moment, I realized the severity of the situation and bought a plane ticket home.
The surgeon recommended a procedure called pleurocentesis. They go in lathroscopically, irritate the lung lining with talc and this causes the linings to stick together, causing scarring on the lung so the fluid can not collect. Mom was against the surgery and was putting off getting it done. I urged her to follow through because it was better to have a planned surgery now rather than have her lung collapse and require emergency surgery which would then be a train wreck compared to now being a planned operation. A couple of days later, after strong urging from family and physicians, mom gave her consent, her lung had collapsed and they brought her into surgery.
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