After Dusty's endoscopy on Wednesday we got to talk to the doctor that does the endoscopies. He said it looked like Dusty had a good response to the chemo and radiation. We saw the pictures and it looked like the tumor in his esophagus had shrunk about 75%. In the beginning when Dusty had two months of chemo without radiation, the treatment had almost made the lymph nod disappear. So, with adding more chemo and radiation, it had to work. Right?
We woke up Thursday, excited, ready to find out great news. I know all the praying, love, support, and bonds that we have received had to make this work. God, please let it have work. On the way to the hospital Dusty and I were singing along with the radio, laughing, in good spirits. When we got to the oncologist office there were a lot of people waiting. Aw man, I want to know. We were as giddy as the day we got married. So pumped, excited, a little scared but knew, it was going to be good. When you're waiting for live or die news, you can't help but to start to think the worst. My legs started shaking. I told Dusty I feel like something is wrong because it is taking so long. I thought the doctors were trying to prepare to tell us bad news. He said, "No, they are just busy." I hope, I hope, I hope. They call us back there. I'm pretty sure at this point my stomach is in my throat. She takes Dusty's vital and everything looked good. His blood pressure was low. I joked that if they took mine, they would admit me.
The RN sits down with us in the room and starts asking questions on how his recovery has been and how he is feeling mentally and physically. We brought up surgery and she danced around it. Umm, excuse me. We mentioned surgery. Aren't we here to discuss surgery? Why is she avoiding it? Dusty said, he noticed the tumor had shrunk in the PET scan. She said, "We'll get to that in a minute." NO, get to it NOW DAMNIT! I can feel Dusty starting to shake. Now we are both slipping. I felt like we were on honey I shrunk the kids and we were tinni tiny and she was talking in slow motion down to us. She said, "Something showed up in your liver." WWWHHHHHAAAAAATTTTTT? What? What? I don't think we heard her correctly. We asked multiple times. What she is talking about and what does this mean? She said it could be a tumor or radiation scaring. They need to do an MRI to determine if the cancer has spread. Well, I've been doing this long enough now to know that scars do not "glow" on a PET scan, cancer does. How can you mistake the two? I can feel Dusty giving up. He literally is giving up completely in his body language. I put my head in my hand and start to cry. I feel so bad for Dusty that I can't keep it together. It wasn't the news that I couldn't handle. It was Dusty losing hope. I asked, "If it is a tumor, will they do the surgery?" She said, "NO." I"m going to throw up on this lady. I asked what the next step would be and she said, "let's not jump to conclusion, we don't know anything yet." No we don't know anything yet, but we do know enough to be scared to death, literally. If the cancer has spread, it is stage 4. I'm not even going to go into that. You all know what that means. I begged her to get us in to do a MRI that day. They didn't have any openings. I said, "What if we just go sit there, will they fit us in?" She said, "No, everyone else here has to wait for answers, just like you." Bitch. They got us an appointment Tuesday. We meet with the surgeon for pre-op Tuesday afternoon. So, either he will say, "Yes, it is a "go", or No, we need to reevaluate."
Dusty was lost. He was ready to give up. He said, "If it is stage 4, I don't want to be on chemo the rest of my life until I die. I don't want to be a burden on anyone and I don't want people to watch me struggle and be sick." He said, "He doesn't want people to be relieved at his funeral, he wants them to mourn him." I let him have his hour of sorrow and then I said, "ENOUGH. You are no longer allowed to talk like this. You can't think that way. You have to fight. Your kids and I deserve that." He apologized and agreed to fight. And I apologized and agreed that he could give up if it comes to the day that he is living on morphine and has no control of his own body. Then, we went back to the old days of awkward silence. There really is nothing that you can say in this situation. We went back to Ashley's apartment, highly medicated, and held each other. No words needed in that moment. I knew what he was thinking and he knew what I was thinking.
It is now Friday, we are about to head to the airport to go home to our reason for continuing, OUR CHILDREN!
excuse my language, sometimes I just have to let it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment