Summer 2009

By June I could see a substantial weight loss.  Mom began to have pain "where her kidney USED to be".  She was getting weaker.  I prayed longer and harder. 

As we did every year, we went to the 4th of July fireworks.  I knew she didn't feel well.  On Monday, July 7, I called her doctor, Dr. Lawrence Kuk, (whom she absolutely adores, by the way), and we went to see him that day.  We discussed her weight loss, weakness, and pain.  He suggested we go immediately to the emergency room so they could do a full workup on Mom, all at once, rather than running from doctor to doctor.  He gave me a look as we walked out of the room that told me he suspected things weren't good.

In the emergency room, they took Mom for a CT scan.  It seemed we waited for hours for the results.  It was late when the doctor came in and told us they had found a mass.

They admitted Mom that night and the nightmare began.

She was assigned five physicians.  One was a cardiologist.  For God's sake, why a heart doctor?  They took their turns coming in and out of her room.  I just wanted to hear from one doctor, and I know Mom did, too...Dr. Kuk, but that wasn't possible.  He's been our support through so much these past years and we've come to love him.  He wasn't one of the five physicians.  There was a nephrologist, GI physician, urologist, and....oncologist.  I guess the cardiologist was used to just read the EKG.