Jennifer Harris

In December of 2014 on her birthday Jennifer was diagnosed with stage 3 esophageal cancer. She started her radiation on December 22, 2014 and the chemotherapy on December 24, 2014. Jennifer, her mother, and our 6 month old daughter spent the next 2 months at a motel across the street from Mayo so she could easily make her daily appointments. In February of 2015 they returned home to North Dakota to gain her strength before surgery on March 19, 2015. The surgery was an 8 hour procedure that removed the tumor and some questionable lymph nodes. The surgery also removed 1/3 of her stomach, 3/4 of her esophagus, and broke 2 ribs. The surgery performed is the Ivor Lewis. Jennifer came out of surgery and was recovering well before things got complicated with her breathing due to a lung that was nicked during surgery, she was admitted into ICU for 5 days before returning to the floor for post op recovery and rehabilitation. On April 3, 2015 Jennifer was released from the hospital at Mayo and we returned home to North Dakota. We have had 2 follow up pet scans to see if there were any signs of the cancer still. The first on April 27. 2015 at Mayo which was all good news and showed no signs of Cancer. The second was on June 5, 2015 in Bismarck and it showed areas of concern so a follow up scope was scheduled for 7/9/15. Today we went for the scope and received great news that there were no apparent signs of cancer or reason to be overly concerned right now. They did take new biopsies of the areas of concern from the pet scan and we should have more answers over the next week or so.