Linda Partlow

Gloria shared this message from Cindy Partlow concerning her sister, Linda:

"Dear Friends,

Thanks to so many who have already called, sent notes, and lifted Linda up in prayer as she starts this journey again. How blessed we are to have so many caring people in our lives.

Today was "D-Day" (Doctor Day) Dr. Pablo Arnoletti is an oncology surgeon from Uruguay who has been at UAB for seven years. He met with us for almost an hour and was quite personable which is a must for Linda. He determined that Linda has a tumor in the lower part of her stomach causing a blockage with resulting severe indigestion, distention (swelling), and some weight loss. Although it is possible that this is a different kind of cancer from the pancreatic tumor she had in 2002, Dr. Arnoletti thinks that her pancreatic tumor may have grown into her stomach. We have a little trouble understanding this since her CAT scans have shown the pancreatic tumor shrinking every year for the past five years. He admitted that this was unusual but thought it would be more unusual to have a second type of gastrointestinal cancer. Hopefully, he will be able to tell what ty pe of stomach cancer she has from looking at her biopsy slides from last week.

So, what's next? Surgery....MAJOR surgery. Depending on what he finds when he starts the surgery, he will either do the "Whipple" procedure (remove the head of the pancreas and the bottom part of her stomach), a distal gastrectomy (remove the bottom part of her stomach), or just a by-pass if the tumor cannot be removed. The first one takes 5 hours, the next one 3, and the last one 1 with a less favorable outcome. The surgery has been scheduled for next Thursday, March 13, here at UAB - she has to be there at 5:00 a.m. - yikers!!. She will be in the hospital 7-10 days and recovery is 6-8 weeks. Treatment with chemotherapy afterward is likely.

This is probably enough information for now - it's a lot for us to process. We will have more answers next week.

Thanks for your support!
Cindy"