Thankful for Day #9

... the wonderful surgeon who successfully removed a tumor from my stepmom's rear abdominal area, all the while saving her kidney. My stepmom is battling a very rather and most often deadly case of Melanoma. it's Stage 4. She Has undergone an insane amount of high dose chemo. At a scan around 1 1/2 months ago, all affected lymphnodes had decreased in size with the exception of one that had doubled (went from a golfball to a lemon in size). Today she underwent surgery to have this infected "bugger", as she calls, it removed. It was a difficult surgery in that the doctor needed to slice her in the front, remove her intestines, and then carefully navigate around her other organs to get to the tumor. For some reason I cannot recall, he was going to put a stint in her kidney to help it drain. If it didn't work, he would have to remove it. Another concern for all of us was what if the doctor finds more bad stuff when she's opened up? What if the tumor has attached itself to other important organs and tissues and arteries and whatnot? Her last scan was over 5 weeks ago and in the span of one month, the thing had doubled in size. Needless to say, lots to worry about. And by the grace of God, and with the help of many many prayers, she is recovering with the tumor cleanly removed. She is a wonderful woman and only 48 yrs old. It's way too soon for her to be taken from us and we are just so thankful we got some good news and she made it through this surgery. Recovery is going to be tough because she has a good sized incision, but she can make it. Please pray for her.