waiting

Stained glass in the Jacobsen building at Mayo

The thing about waiting for results is that nobody in my family is a very good waiter.

We are good doers,  great planners, excellent list makers - but the waiting part - well, we suck.

Rico had his follow-up scans on Thursday, which meant that we had to wait about 18 whole hours to travel back to Mayo and meet with Amy in oncology. Then we had to wait another 6 hours to Meet with Dr. Ahmed in Radiology.

Thankfully there was a Dutch pannekoeken restaurant and Barnes and Noble nearby for the girls and I - and a napping room at Mayo for Rico.

Even though we weren't expecting huge changes with this chemo treatment, this day was beyond stressful for Rico and I. It starts with a little white lie - a well intentioned one at that - and because of it, nothing has really felt he same.

This summer, when Rico had his follow-up scans, when they first found the recurrence, the lady in radiology told Rico that they just took a little longer with his scan that day. And when they found a spot, she said it could be just scarring from his radiation treatment and that he shouldn't worry. We get why she said it - no need to send two people (especially two people like us) home in panic while we wait a week for a biopsy and subsequent results. But it felt dishonest. Telling us she didn't know would have been fine. Telling us it didn't look great would have been fine. Telling us that she couldn't say anything until radiology looked at it would have also been fine. The truth is, we already suspected - already knew in our hearts, so the hope she was giving us felt well-intentioned, but so, so SO false.

On Thursday Rico had scans of his leg, and then an MRI of his lungs. The lung scan usually takes five minutes, but not this time. They were almost finished, when one of the technicians came in and told Rico that in his particular case they needed to adjust the machine and had to start over.

Riiiiiiiiiiight.

Because that sounds plausible.

So we freaked out. Silently. We waited. We freaked. We made a hotel reservation so we could go see Punk afterward. We woke up the girls at 5:45 am on Friday, drove to Mayo and spent 8 hours wandering in Rochester between appointments.

But here's what we found out:
1) The scan of his lungs ARE clean. Apparently they actually had to adjust the machine and start over.
2) The tumor has shrunk a tiny bit - which isn't what we were going for anyway right now, we are hoping that the chemo knocked out any rogue cells, and may give the surgeons just a little more wiggle room to operate and avoid being so close to his femoral artery.
3) Radiation cannot start right away. It's supposed to, but because he needs five surgeons in the room with him, scheduling is tough and surgery needs to happen exactly three days after radiation is finished.
4) So right now we are looking at an early December surgery. We're hoping for Christmas at home.
5) Punk has been surviving on a steady diet of almost no vegetables, yet still no sign of rickets. He also needs a haircut.