Showing posts with label pathology reports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pathology reports. Show all posts

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Getting My Big Girl Panties Ready for Tuesday

It's Sunday. 
Yesterday and today we seem to have a bit of respite. No tests or reports. 
No appointments. These two days we are calling "Our Positive Days." 
Saturday. Sunday.
No thinking talking or looking at negative allowed, only positive. 
If we squint our eyes really tight, I mean REAL REAL tight, these two days we can almost forget this mess. Ha! Who am I kidding? I tried it and it isn't working.

On Friday around 4:00 our family doctor and friend's office secretary called. 
The Biopsy Pathology report was in..... Breathe.
What will it say?
My husband left his cell phone with me in case she calls and told me to have the results sent to
1. Our Dr. at IU Med Center
2. A Dr. we were told is the BEST at MD Anderson, Huston    
3. Here. Home.
He left to go sign papers at his office (which he has neglected.)
His cell phone rings. It's the Path report. I tell the secretary who and where to fax it and she begins by telling me... 
"It's Bad, Lana. Really really BAD!" I am floored. 
"How Bad?" I ask.
"What about it makes it bad? Tell me. I have to know. I have to be ready before he gets home!"
She just keeps repeating those words... 
"It's Bad! It's not good. It's Bad. It's Bad."
By now I am like an animal. Feral and screaming. Sobbing. Begging.
 I HAVE TO KNOW!
The faxes are coming in. Page after page after page. I can't read it thru the tears and begging her for information. Medical information that I am clueless about. I have the papers but feel like a 2 year and can not READ it. What does it mean? What does it say?
She repeats over and over that it's Bad finally telling me it's against the law to tell me any information over the phone!
By now I am hysterical. About to literally climb up a wall.
"Tell me now! What does it say and what makes it so much more BAD than what we already KNOW! PLEASE!"
She hangs up saying "I can't tell you."

I go into complete and utter despair.  I finally gather myself enough to call my daughter in law who is an RN and she flies here leaving my 3 grandkids and my son with a rushed message "Watch the kids. I'm outta here."
We pore over these reports watching the clock like Russian Spy Double Agents going over secret documents at the Pentagon . We can't have this report in our hands and my husband walk in the door!
 It would be horrible for him to see us in such a state. I text his office to tell them:
 Keep Him THERE!

This is a Pathologists reports with stains and graphs and medical lingo we don't understand. I call my brother who is an anesthesiologist but is in Singapore. 
27 pages of info and we only make out a few words that jump off the pages. The fear leaves us both ice cold.
Three words jump off the pages:
Metastatic 
Lung
Endocrine Carcinoma

My daughter in law and I are clutched in absolute fear. She asked me if I want her to be there when my husband does get home to tell him what the report has circled and underlined? (Medical words and phrases that may as well be written in Chinese.)
God No!
To have my sweet DIL be the one to tell him anything bad would be horrific and unfair to her. What do we do? 
Do I tell him? Do I hold this secret all weekend until we see the Biopsy Surgeon on TUESDAY???? Oh my God! I will never make it to Tuesday.
My DIL leaves.
2 minutes later, my dear husband comes home and dilemma I'm in is answered the second he sees me. "You look like you just got ran over. What's wrong. What does it say"?
We read it together but thankfully, he can't make sense of it either so we wait.....
Tuesday.