And so it begins...

Now that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, in the social media world, I thought I'd write a little about what's going on in our family recently. My mom has just been diagnosed with Stage 3A Non-Hodgkin's Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma. How about that for a mouthful! At her request, my sister created a blog--one that we can all contribute to--in order to keep family and friends updated throughout the process of her treatment and recovery. Here's a link to that page, if you're interested in staying up to date!

So now for the hard part. The emotional part. As you can imagine, we've all been on quite the roller coaster the past few weeks, as the saga begins to unfold. For me, it started with a phone call a couple of weeks ago. My mom called me while I was at work, and left a message. "Hey, it's Mom, call me when you get a chance." Not thinking anything was out of the ordinary, I called her back as I pulled out of the driveway on my way home. She sounded upset when she answered and said she had to tell me something. Immediately I'm thinking something is wrong with my grandma or grandpa--I mean, they're the ones in their 80's, right? In the split second between that comment and the next, I'm thinking of a million things that could be wrong, but none of my imagined scenarios had anything to do with my mom's health. I mean, she's superwoman. If you know her, you know what I'm talking about. But I was wrong, because her next comment, with her voice shaky and heavy with emotion was, "I just went to the doctor, and I have cancer." I think my response was something like, "Are you serious?" Like she would be kidding or something. I can picture exactly where I was on the road, I can still recall how my stomach dropped into my shoes. It's amazing how, in just a millisecond, a bazillion things can go through your brain. So then, after a few haltering attempts at sentences and questions on my part ("What...? How...?"), she started to explain.

"I have a mass," she said, "In my stomach. They think it's Hodgkin's Lymphoma." Okay, I'm thinking, as I start to process, I've gotta find out as much as I can. At this point, there was still a lot of uncertainty in the diagnosis and treatment. A lot of "We'll know more after we do more tests" and "Once we know more, we'll put together a plan." I asked her what seemed like a million questions. "How did you know something was wrong?" "Have you been sick?" "Are you okay?" She told me that she hadn't been feeling sick (a surprise, but a positive, according to the oncologist), but she could feel the mass in her stomach.

After talking a little more, I hung up the phone. I was still about 10 minutes from home and wondered if I'd make it. I did--but barely. Thankfully, Nick was home when I got there and I just fell apart. (Well I guess I had already fallen apart...) The next couple of days consisted of a lot of crying, a lot of fear, and a lot of uncertainty. My amazing brothers, and so many others, have been with her at appointments and other times, helping her to process and move forward. One brother wrote this about the last couple of weeks.

Thankfully, things moved pretty quickly. The phone call was on Tuesday, she had a biopsy on Friday, results were in by Monday, and she was in with the oncologist the following Tuesday. This was such a blessing! The results of the biopsy confirmed that it was a lymphoma, but they'd have to do more tests on the cell sample to know exactly which type. Eventually, the diagnosis of Stage 3A Non-Hodgkin's Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma was given. Here are the things we know about it.

• It's the most common type of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It's also the most treatable.
• According to everyone she's talked to, it's the best kind of cancer to get--that is, if you have to have a kind of cancer in the first place.
• They treat it with intent to cure it, not just put it in remission.
• Success rates with these treatments are "officially" in the 60-80% range, but the oncologist said he thinks they're actually much higher.
• The mass in her stomach weighs close to 20 pounds! (Yeah, that's pounds, not ounces) The doctor is shocked that she's not in more pain, because it's interfering with a lot of her guts! :)
• They think it grew quickly, and when that is the case it usually responds quickly to treatment.

And the treatment plan. She'll have at least 6, maybe 8 3-week treatment cycles. The cycle will start with a day of chemo, a shot to increase her white blood cell production the next day, 5 days of a steroid pill, and then 2 weeks of recovery. After 4 treatment cycles, they will do all sorts of tests again to determine how things are going. She started her first treatment yesterday (here's a link to my sister's post about that), and it went really well.

The hardest part about this, for me (and I'm not the important one in this situation!), is coming to terms with the fact that my mom is mortal. My mom has cancer. My mom is 60,  looks like she's 45, incredibly healthy, and she's superwoman! She worked full time most of the time she was raising the hooligans that are her children. She supported (who am I kidding, she still does!) our family in so many different ways. She was on the board of the soccer league where we played, running tournaments, registration, and a million other things. She got 4 smart-but-lazy (varying degrees of laziness...) teenagers through high school. She's been Young Women's president, Relief Society president, and held various other time-consuming callings in her church throughout the years. She's been there for births, sicknesses, deaths, weddings, surprise birthday visits, and more in our family. You need something? She's there. It sounds cliche, but she really is one of my very best friends. I tell her everything. We cry together (if you know our family...you know that happens a lot!), laugh, celebrate, veg out on the couch watching HGTV and the Food Network.

As we've found out more, and now that we (Hallelujah!) have a plan, I've been more and more confident that she'll still be that person. This won't define her. The next few months are going to be hard. But, amazingly, within the next few months, most of our family is going to be back in Salt Lake, and near her, because of plans made long before the diagnosis. I thank my Heavenly Father everyday that He's prepared our family to handle this. Whenever I tell anyone about my mom, I always say something about how she's the toughest person I know. This won't be any different. She's going to kick cancer's butt, with the help of the many amazing people around her that love and care for her. She's in a fantastic ward that knows how to handle tough situations like this. We are part of a big, loud, loving family that is always there for each other, no matter what. She's worked at the same law firm for years. We grew up with the attorneys and staff that work there, and they love her, and are behind her on this, too. I've been amazed with the response to my sister's post of Facebook about it in the last 24 hours. We are so blessed, and we will beat this! I love you, Mom!