March Madness

Couple of things today...

Aunt Pat update:
First of all, I want to thank everyone for their love, support, and prayers. I want to apologize for the lack of updated information, but as some of you know, this has been a roller coaster couple of weeks. The ups, downs and uncertainties have been difficult to take, but the outpouring of support and well-wishes has helped everyone get through.

We have learned a lot these past few weeks about the medical world and why its called a “practice.” Sometimes, even doctors get it wrong…

After Aunt Pat’s surgery, the initial determination was made that the tumor found in her body was metastasized gall bladder cancer. However, when the initial biopsy results came back, there was no sign of cancerous cells. Huh? This prompted the doctors to do a needle biopsy of the gallbladder. Those results also came back with no signs of cancerous cells. We were stunned. And confused. It wasn’t bad news, it wasn’t necessarily good news. Heck, it was practically no news. All we knew was that there was a tumor in this poor woman that looked and acted like cancer, but didn’t appear to be cancer on a cellular level. Were the doctors wrong? Were the tests wrong?

The surgeon at Good Shepherd determined that her gallbladder had calcified, but he could offer no explanation for something that looks like cancer, acts like cancer, but doesn’t biopsy like cancer. Aunt Pat was transferred to Rush to be seen by one of the area’s leading gastrointestinal surgeons. He and his partner ordered additional tests, and began to do research. After 2 different scans came back clean, he determined that what Aunt Pat most likely has is a very rare inflammatory gallbladder disease that mimics and is very frequently initially diagnosed as a gallbladder carcinoma. Due to the hardened gallbladder, he is unwilling to rule out cancer completely, but scans of the rest of her body are clear. That’s the good news. The less good news is that this growth will still have to be removed. Because it has invaded some of the neighboring organs, the surgery will not be an easy one.

Aunt Pat will be returning home sometime next week and will spend a few weeks at home regaining her health and strength. Sometime in April, she will return to the hospital for additional and at that point the doctors will come up with a plan and schedule for surgery.
Until then, we will continue to wait, hope, and pray.


Now, less serious news. What we've been up to:
The last few weeks have been hectic for more reasons than those mentioned above.

The weekend of Feb 23rd, Ryan, Mr. "i never get sick", was very sick on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, I exhibited my superior gracefulness by falling in the kitchen, bruising my hip, hurting my wrist, and slamming my head against the floor. Kids, listen to mommy and daddy when they tell you not to run in the house.

The next weekend was no less eventful. Ryan came home sick again on Friday, but thankfully was feeling better by the time Saturday morning came around, since on Saturday, Mom and Dad Morge, Luke, Liz and Annabelle came to Decatur to celebrate Mom and Madison's birthday. The Peoria and Decatur Morges all attended Michael Aaron's basketball game (always very cute and much fun) and of course, Michael Aaron was a scoring machine! And he seemed to enjoy having a huge cheering section. After the game, we headed to Pastabilities for a really fun family dinner.

Sunday morning, I woke up with bad back pain - apparently i had hurt myself during my boot camp training on Saturday and had made things worse by picking up and carrying my sweet Annabelle around (worth it!) so i spent most of Sunday resting while Don and Ryan worked on the basement.

That's about it from us for now. I'll be heading to Indy on Saturday to visit Sammi and Brett, but beyond that, should be a low-key weekend. 'Bout time!!

Love y'all!

Prayers Needed

I know, I promised a more upbeat entry this time. I lied.

As some of you may know, my Aunt Pat has been experiencing some major medical problems. After a trip to the emergency room with severe jaunice and fever, a scope was done which showed a mass on her gall bladder that we feared might be a tumor of some sort. This morning, my Aunt had surgery to determine the cause of her symptoms and identify the mass. The news after surgery was the worst case scenario. My aunt pat has gallbladder cancer, which has spread to her small bowel and possibly her liver. The extent of this tumor means that removing it is not an option. Chemotherapy and radiation may help to shrink the tumor to an operable size, but it is unlikely that they will help much, if at all.

At this time, I am asking for your thoughts and especially your prayers. Please keep my Aunt Pat in your prayers, pray for strength and comfort for her. Pray for her family, her husband Charlie and her kids John, Peter and his wife Vicky and their son Nathan, and Katie and her husband Jamie, that they may have the strength to support each other and their wife/mother at this extremely difficult time. And pray for us, her extended family, especially my mom and Aunt Marianne. I know that watching their sister go through this is especially difficult and stressful for them.
If prayer is not your thing, please just keep us in your thoughts.

Your love and prayers are greatly appreciated.
Love,
Meghan

A Decaturiffic Snow Day

Yesterday around 2:00, it started to snow. And kept snowing. And snowing. When it finally stopped around noon today, we were left with over 10 inches of the beautiful but messy white stuff. For those of you not living in Central Illinois, its pretty much shut down around here. It takes a lot to get them to shut down the State Farm corporate offices, but thousands of SF'ers got to go back to bed this morning.

Anyway, not the point of the story. While I don't work on Fridays and have been lucky enough to get to cuddle with my kittens while i curl up on the couch in my sweats, Ryan went to work. As we live on a non-essential roadway, we've yet to see a plow. And even with the sandbags in the F150, Ryan had trouble getting out of the driveway and up the street. I heard his tires spinning and peeked outside to check on him and saw our next door neighbor walking out to the truck. Without saying a word, he started pushing, and I watched as he pushed the truck up the worst part of the hill. Once Ryan got going and I settled back inside, I couldn't help but dwell for a little while on how lucky we are to live in such a friendly and wonderful neighborhood. Little did I know...

I confess, my morning included an indulgent little nap. When I woke up, I was still thinking about how great it was for our neighbor to do something nice for someone else, and I decided that it might be nice to shovel the driveway so that Ryan wouldn't have to do it when he got home. I bundled up in my adorable little cherry boots, winter coat and gloves and headed out to shovel. I watched car after car make their way along our snow covered street, each person waving a cheery hello. The snow was heavy and deep, but I was making progress. About half an hour into the shoveling, I saw a tan truck, one of the first that had driven by, pull up and park in front of the neighbor's house. I knew it wasnt the neighbor, but I had no clue who it was. Out of the truck emerged a tall man in tan coveralls. He grabbed a shovel out of his truck, walked over, and asked if he could help. Without waiting for an answer, he started to shovel. We talked as we worked - his name is John, he's currently unemployed, his mother lives in Waukegan and his sister lives down the street from us. She's a schoolteacher with two grown children. John had driven over to take his sister out to buy some salt, as his truck could handle the snow better than her car. He said that the first time he drove by, Jesus said to him of me "she might need some help". When he drove by the second time and I was still out working, he decided to listen and stop. When we had finished, I offered him a warm drink, to buy him lunch, anything I could think of. He refused. I begged him to let me do something for him, and he told me if I would have a wonderful day, that would be enough for him. When I thanked him for his help, he thanked me for letting him help, smiled, shook my hand, and was gone almost as fast as he had appeared.

I came back in the house to warm up and just haven't been able to stop thinking about the kindness of strangers in this town. True, Decatur lacks a lot. A decent mall and bookstore for example. But what it does have is wonderful people, generous and kind. The kind of people you can't find just anywhere. Sometimes I spend so much time wishing for the things that this part of Illinois doesn't have that I overlook the things it does. Maybe when Jesus told John that I "might need some help" he wasn't talking about the snow. Maybe he was talking about my perspective.

Decatur - it isn't all bad. :)



(Won't be so serious on the next one, I promise!)