This is Meredith, Lora Linn's daughter. This is going to be long, sorry. I appreciate anyone who reads the whole thing.
She is currently in the hospital. I am sad to announce that last April, Mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. They did a Whipple surgery in May to remove the tumor. After an 11 hour surgery, they removed the tumor but it was more advanced than we hoped. It was stage 3 and had spread to 7 of the 29 surrounding lymph nodes.
She had a couple of complications after surgery and was in the hospital for 3 weeks. They then sent her to a skilled nursing facility for a month for physical therapy, if antibiotics, and dialysis treatments since one of the complications was her kidneys shutting down; after 16 dialysis sessions her kidneys started working again.
She started chemotherapy in August. During the second cycle of treatment in September, she started having side effects that meant we had to take her to the ER a few days after treatments, but we let going. In October she had to stay in the hospital for 4 days due to an infection. In November she fainted at home and I had to call for an ambulance to take her to the ER. She had an infection and was in the hospital for a week before being transferred to another skilled nursing facility for 4 weeks of iv antibiotics. Luckily, she wasn't doing chemo during those 4 weeks and was able to be home for Christmas.
After more appointments in January with no treatments, in February she did 2 chemo treatments. On the 27th of February, 2 days after the last chemo treatment, she developed a fever and low blood pressure, so I had to call for an ambulance to take her to the ER again. They admitted her and started treating her for another infection. She was there until March 9th, when they sent her to a skilled nursing facility to finish the iv antibiotics.
Between February 2024 and January 2025 she had lost about 80 pounds because of the surgery and treatments. Between January and the ER visit on the 27th, she had gained about 15 pounds, which I was glad for since she hadn't lost too much weight, but kind of worried about, since she hadn't been eating as much, as nothing tasted or sounded good. At the appointment on the 25th her oncologist had recommended getting an ultrasound on her stomach, as it looked really swollen to me. I mentioned the ultrasound to the ER staff and they had it done. It was decided she needed to get a paracentesis to drain the excess fluid buildup from her stomach. She had the paracentesis done on March 2nd.
On March 12th, she had a previously scheduled appointment with her oncology team, so we arranged to go to the appointment, just to check in. We're very glad we did because her labs showed abnormal numbers for her liver and kidneys. They sent us to the ER and she was admitted.
After being admitted, we were informed of the results from the paracentesis. The fluid was sent to the labs and came back that there were cancer cells in there. The oncologist said that it meant that her cancer had progressed to stage 4 and that there would be no curing it. The doctors say that her liver numbers are climbing and that with the way the cancer is, that they likely can't do anything to help it. They can't give us a time frame, but it's likely to be sooner rather than later. Mom has said that she's not giving up and wants to stay as long as possible.
That brings us to today.
Mom has been in good spirits through this whole thing and has been taking it in stride.
Thanks for reading this far. We really don't want to ask for a lot of help if we don't have to, but the past almost year has been rough. Financially, we're going to need help with the medical bills and, eventually, funeral expenses. I hate to ask, but any help would be greatly appreciated, especially in lieu of flowers.