Prayers for My Mom

Apologies for not posting anything in a while. Partly, this was the result of the inertia I've mentioned in the past. Partly this was because nothing really interesting has happened in the past eight days. But my inactivity is also because I've been dealing with a sudden illness in the family.

Thursday morning my wife called and woke me (it was 11PM her time) with the news that my mother had been diagnosed with colon cancer. She had been feeling sluggish for weeks, and based upon the symptoms her doctors suspected it was due to internal bleeding from a pin-sized hole in her intestines (or colon . . whatever, I'm not that kind of a doctor). However, when the doctors performed a colonoscopy, the photos revealed a polop clearly visible on her upper colon.

Fortunately, the CATSCANs she had taken on Friday revealed that the tumor hadn't gotten into the bloodstream yet, and therefore the cancer was confined to the colon. So today she is in surgery to remove the growth. In a month or two, once she has regained her strength from the surgery, she will begin undergoing about six months of chemotherapy.

I've been praying every night for Mom's recovery, and was extremely relieved to hear that her prognosis is relatively positive. This is a relief, as David will need his "Bubbe" around for many years to come. But she is not in the clear yet, and can use whatever power lies in everybody's collective prayers.

Thank you, and I'll return to some regularly scheduled cantankerous posting tomorrow.

Ben