Chapter 15: And the results are in...

The morning started like any other. I picked up Roberta to go into the Hospital,

I was en route to her house when our Primary Oncologist called.

He has tumors in his brain.

Holy crap.  I can barely make it to the house.

Roberta gets in the car and I start to cry.  She immediately tells me not to panic, that we don't have all the information yet.

We arrive at the hospital. One of the many doctors on our team come rolling in a few minutes later.

It's in his bone marrow too.

Well - that explains the platelet issue.  You see, when cancer cells invade the bone marrow, it becomes cramped.  The production of plates slows and drops dramatically.

Now John is normally an exceptional platelet maker.  His platelets range on the high end of normal which is hundreds of thousands.

The brain tumors are a whole other issue.  He has multiple lesions on the brain.  They are not confident ALL are tumors.  But there is ONE large one pressing against his cerebellum.  That one needs treatment and they want to do surgery ASAP.

BRAIN SURGERY? wtf?????

With each new diagnosis, I think to myself, " My heart and brain cannot take much more of this".  And yet, it does.

With each new diagnosis, I think to myself,  "John will lose his mind over this"

Yet we take it stride.

Later that evening his sisters come to visit.  We tell them what's going on and of course, it doesn't sit well.  His older sister kept insisting that I needed to bring down the hammer on him sooner than we did.  I don't know if she was just meeting her brother for the first time or what.  I can't force him to do anything. I know this because I tried many many many times.

Let's please remember that he did see a doctor back in February and was declared cancer free after all.....