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.....

Chapter 13: Sucking the marrow out of life or life out of the marrow?

A little man named Dr. Reddit arrives in the step down unit with the news that they cannot figure out why his platelets are still so low. He wants us to sign a release to do a bone marrow biopsy.

We sign it and he says he will be back shortly.  They do this bedside.  I have no idea what this entails but I assume it entails a doctor of a respectable age and experience.

But no.  Dr. Reddit returns with a kit. Alone.  He looks like he's eleven years old.  

Our friend, Irene is visiting and hopping all over him about sterility. It's hysterical. 

Finally, he's ready. But are we? 

Having no idea what to expect, they roll john on his side. Unbearable for him to be in that position. He starts the procedure. 

For those of you not in the know, this process is essentially drilling into your hip bone with a corkscrew looking device, to extract bone marrow sample in a really long needle.

John has very hard and dense bones. It took two tries and a shot of dilaudin into the IV to get this done. 

I was holding his hand and never really saw the process. For which I am eternally grateful. 

Irene and Jeannie come back in and we get him settled. Irene leaves. John sleeps through this. 

As I write this chapter two months after it happened, I will never ever forget his screams. Agonizing screams.  I pray this is the last one of these. 

Chapter 14: MRI Success

It's Saturday and unlike other hospitals, this one continues to operate as if it doesn't realize it's a weekend.

I like that. 

I'm not saying that other hospitals don't have doctors present during the weekend but there's a pervasive attitude that says "if it weren't for you sick people, I'd be at the beach/golf course/skiing. So take this time to rest because our techs aren't even on cell or pager" .

Not here. They come get john for his MRI. We walk through the mini city that is this place and once inside the MRI suite on the yellow line, we meet up with his PA and the anesthesiologist. They are fully staffed. As if it were a Tuesday. Jeanie and I stay until they kick us out. They tell us about 45 minutes. 

We took a walk hoping to find a Reed Duane for some supplies. We did find one and I got what I needed and we walked back.  

We sat in the lobby and read, drank coffee, played solitaire, read, drank coffee. An hour clicked by, we looked at each other and said " we must be waiting on transport " 

At the 90 minute mark, Jeanie walked upstairs to see I'd our nurse could call in.

As soon as she rounded the corner, his techs came to get me saying he was just waking from the anesthesia.   I can't wait for Jeanie and I can't call her.  So I figured we will meet up en route.

I walk in and she walks in behind me....  He is overjoyed to see us BUT starts to cry because Roberta isn't here.  He's missing her. He wants to call her.  So I tell him that we will call her as soon as we are settled back in our room. John does love his ladies.  We have a really diverse and competent trio.  He picked Jeanie and Roberta specifically.  He loves and trusts both implicitly and with good reason!

Transport arrives and we all head back upstairs.   My husband is just beside himself.  He needs rest.  This was scary.  But we were all a little bit relieved that it was done and over. This could have been done at the first hospital if his Oncologist wasn't so lackadaisical.

I still maintain high hopes that this will come back showing us nothing else.