Chapter 4: Seeing Spots

The next morning, I get up and try to get some work done in the morning.  Somewhere around 11, I get the idea in my head that he's panicking without me.  Where do I get these ideas?  Oh I don't know.... I guess the call in mass hysteria from him, but I'm just spit balling....

So I head up there with Jeanie.  We get to the room and he hands me a pamphlet from visiting nurses who tell him he will need this when he is released.

OK.

Confused.

What the HELL?

So I calmly sit down and ask him what they said.  He couldn't tell me much more than that.  So I called the Dr. T.  She was doing rounds in another hospital so her boss Dr Chabonne called me to say that he is sending a "lung guy" to look at the lung.  There's cancer there and he has pneumonia.

I stare at the phone.  As if it might bite me.

Cancer.  In the lung?

PNEUMONIA?

How were these things missed?

Janet, his sister comes by with his parents, Bettina and Josef.  We are there about 10 minutes just catching up on the niceties and small talk when the "Lung Guy" with a long Italian name materializes and whisks Bettina,. Jeanie, Janet and I down the hall for a slide show of his right lung.

Siskell and Ebert would have declined review of this show, that I can guarantee.

We all walked down the hall, Janet gripping my hand tightly - thank god - I thought I was going to pass out.

Upon arriving at a computer terminal at the nurses station, the "lung guy" proceeds to bring up the CAT Scans.  A clearly defined mass in the bottom lobe of the right lung.  Some spots in addition but this mass is the big concern.

We all traipse back to the room where the "lung guy" says we will most likely do a needle biopsy to see what we are dealing with.  Evidently this is done, "awake" and face down on a table while they insert novacaine through a needle into the lung as well as a local anesthetic in the back.  Once numbed up well, they insert a HUGE needle through the back into the lung.

Charming.

This is scheduled for the next day.  

He can't wait.....

The next morning I get there and good thing because within minutes, he was taken to get an ultrasound on his kidneys.  Poor guy was in misery on the stretcher and then we had to wait for half an hour.  Once we were in it was fast.  He has the kidneys of an 18 year old, we are told.

We get back upstairs to be told we are now moving to the oncology floor.  Private room for now.  A friend of John's, Bob, has come to visit and helps me pack the room up so we can move quickly.

I should have known better - hurry up and wait!!!!

45 minutes later we are on our way.  Once we get to the new room and they get him settled, they call for the biopsy.  Can't the poor bastard get any rest?

We go downstairs, We meet the surgeon and he gets wheeled inside.  Four minutes later, docs come out and nurse says to me we are going to have reschedule this with Anesthesia.  I said OK and John tells me it's because lying on his stomach makes the pain in his leg roughly about a 12 on a scaled of 0-10.

Pay attention to that.  It's going to be on the quiz later.