(no subject)

Dear everyone,

Next school year - as in, the one I am starting on September 5th, I am beginning school at

Humber College, Lakeshore Campus

to take their

Television Writing and Producing Graduate Diploma Program

for one year.


...no, I'm not mad, it's just that everyone and their mother has asked me some variation on this question in the past few weeks, so I figured I should clarify. In large font. XD Now if you ask I'll get mad. ;)

In other, more important news

So my mom went in for surgery at 6AM today, and (assuming that the doctors kept to schedule) she was under and they were beginning surgery at 8AM.

For those of you that haven't been told in some fashion, after a few very strange tests to figure out why she had a rash on her stomach, her GP discovered that mom had thymoma. (That looks like lymphoma, I know, but I promise it's much less scary.)

What this basically means, as far as I can tell (based on what Mom has said), is that one of the glands that "teaches" your antibodies how to work when you are a child is supposed to start out very large relative to your body (size of a baby's fist), and then shrink as you age (because it is no longer needed to "teach" your body how to fight infection). It's at its largest during puberty. As an adult, it should be about 5-15 grams. (image)

Mom's is the size of a chicken breast.

Thymoma is a rare disease - something like less than 1% of the population will ever have it. (Our GP, when asked, said "There are 12 doctors at this location, most of whom have more than 20 years of experience, and you're the first case of it that we've seen.") It might or might not be cancerous - unfortunately, we'll only find out once they've actually gone in and taken it out. (If there are bits of it attached to her heart, veins, etc? Cancerous. If not? It's all good.)

Most of us are relatively confident that it's not cancerous - if they thought it was cancerous, I think they would have put her into surgery sooner - but thymoma in general has about a 30% chance of being malignant, as far as I can see. Even so, the surgery that she has to undergo is much like the surgery that would be required for open-heart surgery.

I know some of you are religious, so if you want to pray for her, light a candle, send positive energy her way, whatever, go ahead. I'm sure she'd appreciate it. I should know by later this afternoon how the surgery went and whether or not it is cancerous.

Update

Surgery is over; from what's been said, it sounds like most of the thymus was removed, although the surgeon had to leave small parts that had attached to her heart and lungs behind (he was afraid of causing a stroke).

It looks like parts of it may have been malignant, and the bits he left behind - well, he's not sure if it's scar tissue or cancerous growth, so they're going to put her in radiation therapy to get rid of the last of it.