The Setliffe Family

What We Know So Far...

I know that some of you don't get my email updates about my Mom b/c I don't have your email addresses, so I wanted to post the email I sent out the other day. It's too emotional having to retype all of this & put it into words, so I'll just borrow from what I've already written.

Since I wrote this email my Mom is doing ok with her recovery. The doctors had to manipulate her bowels so much during surgery that they haven't started functioning correctly yet. So everything that is going down is coming back up as acid reflux. She will start eating crackers today & they're hoping to remove her IV & start giving her medicine in pill form. So she's not going home today obviously....my guess is Thursday or Friday. Please continue to pray for all of us. Thanks!


hey friends. It has been such a long couple of days. I had planned on writing last night, but was completely drained by the time I got home & had to go straight to bed. I don't even really know where to begin. Thankfully, my Mom came through the surgery fine & she is recovering well. The bad news is that it is definitely cancer & it is very extensive. The doctors were hoping to find that the tumor was contained in her reproductive organs & that the hysterectomy would remove everything. Unfortunately, the tumor was huge & had spread all the way up into her stomach lining & had attached to the outside of her bowels. The removed her appendix b/c it was also covered with the tumor. They had to remove a large section of her stomach lining b/c it was touching the tumor. Thankfully the tumor hadn't penetrated through her bowels, so the insides are still ok. She also suffered a minor bladder injury during the surgery & will have a catheter (sp??) for the next 10 days. This is definitely not the news we were hoping to receive. Boiled down, she has Stage III ovarian cancer. We are beyond grateful that it was not worse than this, but we would have loved to have better news.

The doctor said that she will have to undergo several rounds of chemo & probably numerous future surgeries b/c there are hundreds of microscopic pieces of tumor spread throughout her stomach lining & remaining organs. The doctor said that beyond a miracle of God she will not be "cured" of the cancer, even after undergoing chemo. She will have the cancer until the end of her life. The doctor seems to think that undergoing chemo will, however, keep the cancer under control. He didn't want to go into too much detail about all of that now b/c he wants to focus on getting her through the recovery from surgery.

It has been such an emotional couple of days for my family. We all cried most of the day yesterday & just sat around kind of numb and in shock. We are so thankful that she came through surgery & we still have her with us, but we are afraid of what lies ahead. When we finally got to see my Mom last night we all just held hands & my Mom said "God is good". He is good....His plans for us our good. Even though we don't understand why He is allowing us to walk through this suffering, we do KNOW that He has not forgotten or forsaken us.