Beth's Leg is all Screwed up!

On Tuesday, we flew to Chicago for Beth's surgery to fix a fracture in her right femur that was caused by a tumor below her hip roughly the size of an egg.  She had a plate and screws placed on her femur and the doctors said everything went as well as it could go.  Her doctor did say though that it took over an hour to get the long screw in because of the "Met Blasts" which is where the cancer has created new bone and made it hard to penetrate.  The whole surgery was only supposed to take an hour and a half but one screw it self took over an hour!  The nurses were laughing when they told us what a workout it was for him.

Currently she is restricted to 50% weight baring on her right leg and will go through physical therapy to regain 100% weight baring within 2-3 weeks.

We met with the doctors this morning and then said they will monitor the left leg as it also has lesions (spots of cancer) which could potentially lead to a similar fracture in her left leg in the future.

A question we get somewhat regularly is, "Were they able to remove all of the cancer".  The truth is the cancer has metastasized throughout her bones; not just a few but in multiple places - spine, legs, ribs, skull, etc.  Luckily, it is not in any organs or in the bone marrow, however, there is no getting rid of her cancer in her bones.  The goal is to slow it's progression through treatment and to keep her pain under control.  While this might be shocking news to some, it really isn't anything different than what we have doing for the last 8 years.  We just take life as it comes and follow Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's advice - "Come What May and Love It".

We cant' say it enough - Thank You for all of your love and support that keeps us going.