We wait...

Ken is in radiology at UCH preparing for his pet scan. Takes a couple of hours for him to drink all the stuff that lights him up inside and for the scan. Then we wait until 2:40 to meet with Dr. Myint and hear the news. We have been praying for his cancer to be gone, for the good news. But...

I recall, on March 2nd when Ken was first laying in the ER at PVH and the doctor just mentioned the possibility of lymphoma in passing. Ken and I just looked at each other and said, "Isn't that cancer". We knew very little about it. And we had to wait until Thursday for the confirmation of the biopsy. But in those days in between, we had been told by nurses and doctors that it looks like lymphoma. The chyle that they drained from Ken's lung cavity was a symptom, all the large lymph nodes in the cat scan were an indicator. The oncologist that was assigned to us on Tuesday morning, was kind of a clue. By the time Thursday came around, we already knew and were expecting the news. Still, it is tough to get that confirmation.

This last week as Ken was in the hospital, a charge nurse comes in and tells Ken about his pneumonia and his blood clots. She mentions that Dr. Myint will be in to tell him about his abnormal lymph nodes that showed up in the cat scan. What! What was that about lymph nodes? We waited till the next morning to see Dr. Myint and get the news that the cat scan shows large lymph nodes again. Dr. Myint wants to see the pet scan first, but expects to need to do a bone marrow transplant. What! This isn't what we were expecting. He explains that since Ken's lymphoma was follicular on March 1st, but the third kind of follicular, the bad boy kind. Then in 1 month, it changed to Diffuse, large B cell lymphoma. Then after 6 treatments, he still had a spot of cancer. And now it shows more abnormalities. He thinks Ken has a very aggressive cancer and Dr. Myint says he needs the transplant. (But we wait for the pet scan to be sure.) Ok, we will wait. But in the mean time, while he is in the hospital, the nurses start telling us about the rooms on the other side, the transplant side. They tell us about expectations over there. They tell us about schedules and visitation. Then a case worker, Amy Malcom, comes in and tells us about financing and about housing. We may be staying in Denver for a few weeks after the transplant so we can be close to the hospital for Ken's daily out-patient checkups. This is after his 3 weeks in the hospital. What? Ken won't be done in 3 weeks? Maybe not in 6 weeks? The case worker tells us the name of the nurse coordinator that has been assigned to Ken for his transplant process. Her name is Kelly Pacic. Wait... shouldn't we wait till we get the confirmation? Then they give us an early release from the hospital so Ken can get his pet scan today instead of waiting till next week. Ok, let's get it over with. Ken says we already know what to expect, so this is just a stupid formality. I don't know if being this prepared is a good thing or not. We will be ready to hear the news and to find out what is next, but dang. Where is the hope that the scan will be clean. What happened to that wish. We are hanging on to a thread. But it is just a thread. I think we both know what is coming. And so we wait...