Greetings visitors,

My name is Mark Harlien and I'm managing this blog. It will provide a chronology and key information about my mom and how she is doing with this terrible disease.

Here's the synopsis:
Mom had been complaining of pain for a while and on August 7 went into surgery with what was thought to be a moderately serious issue with her right kidney. For those not aware, kidney cancer is serious but typically is controllably and does not spread. So we alll expected she might lose her kidney and undergo some form of treatment as a maintenance step and to control the cancer.

Mom's cancer, it turns out, is more serious. It is called transitional urothelial carcinoma.

More later, but she's recovering well from surgery and will be undergoing treatment in the next few weeks. This picture is of mom in the hospital shortly after her surgery - it was her first meal - a perfect ad for Jello?