He said no. I pressed his PA for a reason. She said his reason was the tumor burden was too big. I explained about her first surgery and the tumor size (32lbs) and how well she heals. How her legs are healing despite the odds that they couldn’t heal while the current tumors were still there.
I think that all he looked at was the scans, and none of her other records we carefully put together. Labs. Photos of her before and after in August 2017. And so forth.
His PA, Faith, said she’d ask him to reconsider, but I think she was just saying it to get me off the phone. And she topped off the horrible news by telling me to have a good weekend. Seriously? Really? Here’s horrible news, have a great weekend!
So, yes, obviously I’ve known for a couple of days, but I don’t like posting updates if I haven’t told Teresa’s Mom yet — and my Mom and I were waiting for a moment Teresa would be awake/lucid long enough for her to understand. That hasn’t happened yet.
We are asking you all to NOT tell Teresa should you get a chance to talk to and/or visit her.
We ARE most definitely going to tell her, but it needs to be done correctly, and at the right time.
When the surgeon at Duke turned her down, it had a drastic effect on her mentally/emotionally. We don’t want her to have gone through so many horrible things in the hospital to give up if she hears about Dr. Kato’s decisions.
And there are many instances of people receiving bad news and giving up and dying. We don’t want Teresa to be one of those people.
If you don’t think you can talk to/see her without spilling, please do not call/visit until we post that she knows.
Anyway, so after the call, I cried a lot. And then I started looking for another surgical option. And I found a surgeon in Connecticut who couldn’t possibly say her tumor is too big to remove because on February 14, 2018, he removed a ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO POUND ovarian tumor (it was 3 FEET long). The description of her sounds a lot like Teresa.
“The tumor made her appear overweight, but she actually was malnourished because it was sitting on her digestive tract, Andikyan said. The doctor had never seen a tumor of this size.
She was “desperate” for help, he said.”You can read the full article at the link below. Please be aware that this story includes photos. One of her swollen abdomen and one surgical photo. The second article also includes a short video which includes images of the removed tumor.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/04/gigantic-ovary-tumor-removed-connecticut-woman/580404002/
https://people.com/health/woman-123-lb-ovarian-tumor-removed/
I’m hoping to contact the Connecticut surgeon tomorrow.
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