We’re in a holding pattern. When I arrived there was no new information. Over the course of the day, we had several visits from members of her team. Everyone was waiting for the preliminary biopsy results. The full results will not be available for several more days at the earliest.

When I left on Sunday evening the spinal surgeon said he removed all of the tumor near her spine, but there was still some left in her chest and side.

Her medical team is awesome! They are kind and informative. They visited twice while I was there to check on her, see if we had any questions and filled us in on where things were at that moment. They treat her as a member of their family, not a patient they are visiting on rounds. UMass Medical is a teaching hospital, so we see a lot of residents.

We have also been fortunate to have an amazing nursing staff. The nurses and aides are crazy busy but still take the time to make each visit they make to our room personal.

First visit from an oncologist was not so awesome. He had not read her chart at all, had no idea that she had just had surgery a few days before. I actually asked him if he had read her chart and he said he hadn’t. So I suggested that he go do so and check in with her medical team. I did so in as polite a voice as I could so I didn’t worry my mom. But she doesn’t need someone spouting erroneous information when she is on pain meds and a little overwhelmed already.

The medical team returned later with the preliminary results. It is confirmed to be cancer. Malignant metastatic melanoma. It has a name, and it’s not a pretty one. More tests are ordered to determine if this has spread further or not.

Second visit from radiation oncologist was SO MUCH BETTER. All caps because he was just so kind and informative. When I explained the first visit he was so apologetic for his colleague. He read my mom’s chart, he checked the lab results, he spoke to her team, all before visiting us. He confirmed her tests and ordered an additional one. His goal: get her back to doing what she wants to do. Get her back to her normal.

We are in a holding pattern. Once the test results are received they will provide us the different treatment options. I am hoping by then my mom is not quite a fuzzy from the post-surgery pain meds and we can have a good family discussion on her treatment options.