Naturally straight hair might grow faster than we thought!!!

Well, the team of doctors finally reached an agreement on the plan of action for moms case. She will go through about 6 weeks of chemo first to try to shrink the tumor. The chemo will be done locally, in Covington. This is all pretty good news, mom was nervous about the surgery anyway and she might get the added bonus of loosing her hair and having it grow back in straight, like she has always dreamed about!! This was actually the first thing she said to me last week when we knew at some point she would go through chemo. The doctors also plan on putting an external drain from her liver, sometime next week. So please do some serious prayers that that procedure goes smoothly and secondly that the chemo doesn't make her sick! For those of you who want to help please go to http://takethemameal.com/ , type in  Rhea  and password is Heidi and sign up to make and take her meals.

Speaking of hair...did anyone of you know that mom is not a stranger to wigs? She actually hated her hair so much she used to wear a wig when she dated my dad and even bought a long curly wig when I was a teen.We love you mom no matter what your hair looks like!!!

Hurry up...and wait!

Hurry up...and wait has been the common saying for the last week. Once again we went back Monday, they took her blood to check her levels and we were told that a "tumor" team- a group of specialists and doctors were meeting yesterday afternoon to review her files and they would then determine her next step. Dr Conway will call today (Tuesday) to let us know what they decided.

Story for today... this kinda goes along with the hurry up and wait theme. Dad, mom, Brian and I traveled to Europe several years ago. We were trying to get to our next destination. Dad was driving, Brian in the passenger seat and mom and I in the back. We had been traveling all day and started getting closer to our destination. Mom pulled out the directions and they read something like this " go over the hill, pass the tree then follow along the road and go over the bridge"...so I am exaggerating a bit but you can guess how at midnight and listening to these directions how unhappy dad was.Unfortunately in Europe everything is closed and there is no 24 hour gas stations to even ask for directions. So what do mom and I do in this situation.....get the giggles!!! Dad and Brian were not amused! We got off at an exit, pulled over and out of nowhere a car pulled up, mom went and spoke with them. They told us to follow them and they took us right to the house!!!! Mom swears they were angels sent from God!!!

" One World, Many Stories"...

“One World, Many Stories”  is the shirt that my mom wore all over Africa, which is where this story begins. My mom, dad and friends Jan and Greg went to Africa for 4 and a half weeks on a mission trip. Pretty much from the day she arrived she began to itch all over her body. At first she thought it was a reaction from her Malaria pills, but it continue and a few days before coming home, Jan noticed the whites of her eyes were yellow. Right away she scheduled and appointment with the doctor the Wednesday after she arrived home. She then had an ultrasound and then sent for an MRI. The results came back as a huge shock to all of us …cancer. The diagnosis was cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer. The next step was to do a biopsy and put a stent in the duct to get her liver working properly. Those procedures were done on Wednesday, Early Thursday morning she went back to the hospital due to pancreatitis which is a common after this type of procedure. After 5 days in the hospital she is now recovering at home. She will have to first recover from pancreatitis then go in and have a surgery done to put an external drain on her liver to get it to drain properly, before they do surgery on her tumor.

So this has brought us up to date. I plan on keeping this blog for many reasons, the first being to update friends and family on what is going on so they may give specific prayers. Second as an outlet for me to express my love and feelings for my mom, and most importantly to make my mom laugh and smile and to know how many people love her.

If any of you have any great stories that you would like for me to share please email them to me at heather.burbrink@gmail.com. I plan on starting off my blogs with updates and pictures and then ending on a happy note of funny and good stories about my mom.

Mom updating her many " I AM STARVING!!" Facebook status

Can you guess what time this was taken? Brian would always come and keep us company for lunch!

Mmmm...jello...juice and broth!!

All smiles after seeing "Maw maw Rhea"

Soo sleepy...

One of many trips across the Causeway

Grandma Kisses

This week has been a roller coaster, but we have stayed very entertained with telling stories about each other. One of them was about how mom and I,  whenever we would travel together and would sleep in the same bed, we would always get the giggles and the rest of the family would be trying to get some sleep and we would be giggling and mom would throw in a few snorts to get us laughing some more! I love her infectious laugh and snort!! I love you mom!