Not So Good News

My dad's been having shoulder pain and it swelled up really quickly.  He went to his doctor a month ago, and the doctor wanted to keep an eye on it for a month.  A month later, the swelling hadn't gone down at all.  So he ordered a MRI.  Which my dad took on Thursday.  Turns out it's a soft tissue tumor.  He has to have surgery to remove it and then it will be biopsied to see if its malignant or benign.  And we go from there.

I'm pretty pissed.  ANGRY.  Most of all, for my dad.  How much does this poor man have to go through??  Can't he just get a break, and live a normal healthy life for quite some time?  Thankfully, we've had the best outcomes over really horrible situations in the last 7 years.  But I'm still pissed off about it.  We are all trying to not worry until we find out what it is.  So apparently I'm channeling what would be worry into anger.  Luckily, if you see me, I *think* I'm holding my emotions in pretty well.  Enough not to be the biggest kill-joy of the century.

On a note of silver lining, my dad's gastro-intestinal-whatever doctor said that he is fairly confident that this tumor (whether malignant or benign) is not related to the pancreatic cancer.  Which is hopefully true and means that his lymphatic system hasn't been compromised with cancer cells.  Also, from the looks of the MRI, it seems that this tumor encapsulated itself in scar tissue (just like the one in the pancreas - so weird), so hopefully if it is malignant, it will have less of a chance of spreading.

Compared to what my dad's been through in the last 7 years, it seems like this one is on the less life-threatening side surgery wise.  They aren't rearranging his pancreas, removing his gallbladder, snipping out parts of his small intestines, putting stents in arteries to the heart and in the abdomen.  So at least we have that to hold onto.

We're hoping for the best.  Please keep my dad in your thoughts and (if you pray) in your prayers.