[Magdalen] Prayer request - surgery tomorrow

[Eleanor Braun]

The last six weeks have been quite an adventure.

On Labor Day, some friends from Northern Virginia joined our household and
our friends the Gibsons on a wonderful voyage to see where seals gather and
prosper before they go out to the Atlantic to become lunch for the great
whites.

The next day, after our friends had left and I had run some errands, I
started feeling bad, including nausea and abdominal pain.  By 8pm I was in
the emergency room of Cape Cod Hospital, and the next day I had an
emergency appendectomy.  (And yes there is such thing as an elective
appendectomy -- Pam had one.)

The appendectomy went fine.  The appendix had not ruptured, but it was
"quite nasty," according to the surgeon.

Among the nastiness he found were nodules he called "carcinomatosis,"
representing either ovarian or peritoneal cancer.

There have been CT scans and other tests, and I am now scheduled for
surgery on Friday October 17.  I will be at Brigham & Women's Hospital in
Boston, which is part of the medical complex with Dana Farber Cancer
Institute, and which is a leading teaching hospital of Harvard Medical
School.  My surgeon is one of the very top docs in gynecological cancers.
So I go in with a lot of confidence.

After recovery from surgery I will be going to Boston periodically for
chemotherapy, and hope to have a successful outcome of all of that.  It
will be rough for the next few months, but I have great support here.

One of the best things is that my sister Pam is here, on a previously
planned trip.  She went with me for the consult with the surgeon, and to my
local oncologist.  She has very generously offered to stay with me through
the surgery on Friday, so she will get the direct report from the surgeon
while I'm still groggy.

I would be most grateful for your prayers.

Eleanor