Well.... What to say... Guess I'll just jump right into it. About a month and a half ago my mom started complaining of a pain in her lower right side. She said it started after she tossed a particularly hefty bag of garbage she was taking out for a physically disabled man. At first she thought it was a pulled muscle so she didn't do anything about it but over the next three weeks the pain became worse and worse. Eventually she assumed she had some sort of hernia and, after one particularly painful morning, allowed me to take her to the emergency room. There they found a rather large mass and told us that it was very likely she had ovarian cancer. The next week we went to a gynecological oncologist and he said that he didn't think it was cancer as ovarian cancer did not present as my mom's mass was presenting; most ovarian cancers are very rough and knobbly looking and her's was rather smooth. A few days later she was scheduled for surgery and unfortunately it turned out to indeed be cancer.

After waiting a week for the pathology report it was determined that my mom doesn't have ovarian cancer and instead has a very, very rare form of cancer called Leiomyosarcoma. This cancer LMS is a cancer of the smooth involuntary muscle and is only a one in five million, 1 in 5,000,000, chance of occurring. Her doctor is going to be treating it as ovarian cancer and will be giving her the chemotherapy for that cancer. Unfortunately LMS is so recently discovered, 1994, that there is basically no treatment for it and most oncologists only see one to two cases in their entire careers. When she goes in for her first session of chemo we are hoping to talk to her doctor about bringing in a specialist. There is one located in Phoenix who either had and beat LMS or has worked with it. There is also a team here in Tucson at the University of Arizona that deals with it as well. If we can we would greatly appreciate their help. My mom is healthy other than the cancer and a mild, very controlled, case of diabetes. I am hoping that because of her general health and fitness that she will be able to beat this. I've never been more scared in my life for my mom's health. I am helping her to the best of my abilities but I have a lot of health issues myself that makes taking care of her difficult. Luckily my mom has a lot of friends who are willing to help.

All I ask of you, if you read this, is to please, please, please, send good wishes our way. Pray to whatever god or gods you believe in, or if you are atheist please at least send healing thoughts.