- B
- J
Hi,
my name is Jennifer and I'm creating this account on behalf of my amazing mother, Kathy. We live in a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills called Arnold. My mom has always been a hard working, animal loving, compassionate, giving, exceptional mother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend.
A couple of months ago, she started having pretty bad back pain which we both assumed was related to her past back issues. She saw a spine specialist who scheduled her for an epidural. Not long before she was to have the epidural, her back pain turned into abdominal pain and cramping so she canceled her appointment. She went to see her general practitioner who ordered tests and lab work in addition to prescribing her some anti indigestion medication and pain medication. Despite the medication, her pain continued to get worse and she started struggling to eat. The testing and lab work came back suggesting pancreatitis possibly caused by gallstones. She was told to cut out fatty, spicy foods and alcohol - she did that with no relief in sight. Her doctor ordered further testing which still didn't provide any real answers. The next suggestion was Crohn's Disease which didn't pan out either. Everything she tried to eat just seemed to worsen the discomfort. The thought of eating or drinking anything became nauseating to her. By this time, she was in such severe pain with cramping and stabbing like pain she wasn't able to sleep much either. Her last appointment with her doctor up until Wednesday March 8th was February 13th. Between that time, her condition greatly worsened and she lost over 15 pounds scared to eat anything due to the fear of making her hurt more. At her appointment on Wednesday the 8th, she told her doctor about all of her symptoms, now including nausea and a frequent dizzy, lightheaded feeling on top of the severe pain and cramping in her abdomen, not being able to eat, not sleeping, etc. etc.. Her doctor told her she should go to the hospital and be admitted through the ER with instructions for more testing and doctors findings thus far since outpatient testing and treatment hadn't helped or revealed a definite diagnosis. Mom, being mom, asked if she could first go home to see her doggies and get a Subway sandwich. Luckily, her doctor agreed with me and said no.
So, kicking and screaming, I drug her now scrawny ass to Sonora Regional Medical Center (SRMC) where they fairly quickly got her in, hooked her up to an IV, drew blood for lab work and started ordering new diagnostic imaging. They did a CT scan with dye to look at her organs and a couple hours later, the ER doctor came into mom's room and shut the door behind her. I knew then it probably wasn't good news. The doctor sat down beside mom's bed and proceeded to tell us the bad news. A large mass on her pancreas, a mass on one of her adrenal glands on her right kidney and a possible leak from the stent that was placed to repair her abdominal aortic aneurysm last February was seen on the CT. The doctor seemed pretty sure the masses were cancer and said she wanted to admit mom for more testing and probable surgery to remove the mass on her pancreas. Mom wanted me to head home to take care of our critters, get some sleep and come back in the morning since nothing more was likely to be done until then. After quite a bit of procrastination on my part and a lot of hugging, I reluctantly left the hospital to head home. I didn't get very far before receiving a call from mom telling me that SRMC apparently didn't have the necessary facilities or doctors or whatever to do the surgery so they were looking for a bed for her at UC Davis, UCSF or Fresno and then were going to transfer her there via ambulance. I asked mom if she wanted me to turn around and she said no, she still wanted me to come home, get some rest, and take care of our furbabies then head to wherever she was transferred the following day. Not wanting to cause more stress for her, I obliged.
Mom called me at 6:30 ish Thursday morning to let me know that she had been transferred to UCSF. I starting making plans to head to San Francisco to be with her. Thankfully, my awesome boyfriend, Robert, offered to go with me so I didn't have to be alone and would have some moral support. We got to UCSF early Thursday afternoon where she had already been turned into a pin cushion and a team of doctors and medical students were going over her case. On Thursday they did another CT scan, this time to look at the vasculature to check the possible leak from her stent to see how concerning it was and came back saying that there is indeed a leak but it's small and slow and her aneurysm hadn't grown so they were okay to move forward addressing the masses. UCSF said that they're 99% sure the masses were cancer but they wanted to be 100% sure so they did an endoscopic biopsy of the mass of her pancreas on Tuesday, March 14th where they also ended up placing two plastic stents. One in her pancreas and one in her bile duct due to obstruction and blockage. We received the results of the biopsy on Tuesda, March 21st confirming that she has stage 3 adenocarcinoma pancreatic cancer. The prognosis is an average of 6 months to a year and a half. It looks like the cancer may have spread to her lymph nodes and we already knew about the metastasis on her adrenal gland on the right kidney. At this time, the large tumor in her pancreas is not something that can be surgically removed because it has enveloped two of her main arteries. The doctors at UCSF want mom to begin chemo as soon as possible and maybe radiation at the same time or shortly thereafter. The hope is to shrink the mass as much as possible and then maybe, just maybe they'll be able to do surgery.
They let her come home with me on Thursday, the 16th with a feeding tube in place. She can eat while she has the feeding tube but is restricted to a mostly liquid diet. She has an appointment at UCSF on April 4th to have the stent in her bile duct replaced as the plastic ones are only meant to be temporary. Mom is planning to make UCSF a sort of home base for treatment since they have oncologists who specifically deal with pancreatic cancer and they're one of the best hospitals in the nation as well as being a National Cancer Institute (NCI). We're hopeful that she can do the chemo at Sonora Regional Hospital so we don't have to travel too far but we won't know much more regarding that until after she sees the GI oncologist at UCSF, hopefully when we're down there on the 4th, for a referral.
Thankfully, mom has Medicare and a decent secondary insurance but, it turns out cancer is expensive! Between co-pays, deductables, gas to and from San Francisco, dietary changes, lost wages and new prescription costs, we are really struggling. I am asking for your help to cover these funds so mom can have the best chance possible to beat this.
We're doing our best to adjust to this new way of life and are so thankful to all the amazing people in our lives who have reached out to help! We are remaining optimistic and mom is ready to put up a fight and is still in relatively good spirits.
my name is Jennifer and I'm creating this account on behalf of my amazing mother, Kathy. We live in a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills called Arnold. My mom has always been a hard working, animal loving, compassionate, giving, exceptional mother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend.
A couple of months ago, she started having pretty bad back pain which we both assumed was related to her past back issues. She saw a spine specialist who scheduled her for an epidural. Not long before she was to have the epidural, her back pain turned into abdominal pain and cramping so she canceled her appointment. She went to see her general practitioner who ordered tests and lab work in addition to prescribing her some anti indigestion medication and pain medication. Despite the medication, her pain continued to get worse and she started struggling to eat. The testing and lab work came back suggesting pancreatitis possibly caused by gallstones. She was told to cut out fatty, spicy foods and alcohol - she did that with no relief in sight. Her doctor ordered further testing which still didn't provide any real answers. The next suggestion was Crohn's Disease which didn't pan out either. Everything she tried to eat just seemed to worsen the discomfort. The thought of eating or drinking anything became nauseating to her. By this time, she was in such severe pain with cramping and stabbing like pain she wasn't able to sleep much either. Her last appointment with her doctor up until Wednesday March 8th was February 13th. Between that time, her condition greatly worsened and she lost over 15 pounds scared to eat anything due to the fear of making her hurt more. At her appointment on Wednesday the 8th, she told her doctor about all of her symptoms, now including nausea and a frequent dizzy, lightheaded feeling on top of the severe pain and cramping in her abdomen, not being able to eat, not sleeping, etc. etc.. Her doctor told her she should go to the hospital and be admitted through the ER with instructions for more testing and doctors findings thus far since outpatient testing and treatment hadn't helped or revealed a definite diagnosis. Mom, being mom, asked if she could first go home to see her doggies and get a Subway sandwich. Luckily, her doctor agreed with me and said no.
So, kicking and screaming, I drug her now scrawny ass to Sonora Regional Medical Center (SRMC) where they fairly quickly got her in, hooked her up to an IV, drew blood for lab work and started ordering new diagnostic imaging. They did a CT scan with dye to look at her organs and a couple hours later, the ER doctor came into mom's room and shut the door behind her. I knew then it probably wasn't good news. The doctor sat down beside mom's bed and proceeded to tell us the bad news. A large mass on her pancreas, a mass on one of her adrenal glands on her right kidney and a possible leak from the stent that was placed to repair her abdominal aortic aneurysm last February was seen on the CT. The doctor seemed pretty sure the masses were cancer and said she wanted to admit mom for more testing and probable surgery to remove the mass on her pancreas. Mom wanted me to head home to take care of our critters, get some sleep and come back in the morning since nothing more was likely to be done until then. After quite a bit of procrastination on my part and a lot of hugging, I reluctantly left the hospital to head home. I didn't get very far before receiving a call from mom telling me that SRMC apparently didn't have the necessary facilities or doctors or whatever to do the surgery so they were looking for a bed for her at UC Davis, UCSF or Fresno and then were going to transfer her there via ambulance. I asked mom if she wanted me to turn around and she said no, she still wanted me to come home, get some rest, and take care of our furbabies then head to wherever she was transferred the following day. Not wanting to cause more stress for her, I obliged.
Mom called me at 6:30 ish Thursday morning to let me know that she had been transferred to UCSF. I starting making plans to head to San Francisco to be with her. Thankfully, my awesome boyfriend, Robert, offered to go with me so I didn't have to be alone and would have some moral support. We got to UCSF early Thursday afternoon where she had already been turned into a pin cushion and a team of doctors and medical students were going over her case. On Thursday they did another CT scan, this time to look at the vasculature to check the possible leak from her stent to see how concerning it was and came back saying that there is indeed a leak but it's small and slow and her aneurysm hadn't grown so they were okay to move forward addressing the masses. UCSF said that they're 99% sure the masses were cancer but they wanted to be 100% sure so they did an endoscopic biopsy of the mass of her pancreas on Tuesday, March 14th where they also ended up placing two plastic stents. One in her pancreas and one in her bile duct due to obstruction and blockage. We received the results of the biopsy on Tuesda, March 21st confirming that she has stage 3 adenocarcinoma pancreatic cancer. The prognosis is an average of 6 months to a year and a half. It looks like the cancer may have spread to her lymph nodes and we already knew about the metastasis on her adrenal gland on the right kidney. At this time, the large tumor in her pancreas is not something that can be surgically removed because it has enveloped two of her main arteries. The doctors at UCSF want mom to begin chemo as soon as possible and maybe radiation at the same time or shortly thereafter. The hope is to shrink the mass as much as possible and then maybe, just maybe they'll be able to do surgery.
They let her come home with me on Thursday, the 16th with a feeding tube in place. She can eat while she has the feeding tube but is restricted to a mostly liquid diet. She has an appointment at UCSF on April 4th to have the stent in her bile duct replaced as the plastic ones are only meant to be temporary. Mom is planning to make UCSF a sort of home base for treatment since they have oncologists who specifically deal with pancreatic cancer and they're one of the best hospitals in the nation as well as being a National Cancer Institute (NCI). We're hopeful that she can do the chemo at Sonora Regional Hospital so we don't have to travel too far but we won't know much more regarding that until after she sees the GI oncologist at UCSF, hopefully when we're down there on the 4th, for a referral.
Thankfully, mom has Medicare and a decent secondary insurance but, it turns out cancer is expensive! Between co-pays, deductables, gas to and from San Francisco, dietary changes, lost wages and new prescription costs, we are really struggling. I am asking for your help to cover these funds so mom can have the best chance possible to beat this.
We're doing our best to adjust to this new way of life and are so thankful to all the amazing people in our lives who have reached out to help! We are remaining optimistic and mom is ready to put up a fight and is still in relatively good spirits.
Organizer and beneficiary
Kathy Hamlin
Beneficiary