Plot Twist!

January 23, 2019
I'm sitting here in the oncologist's office while my husband of almost 20 years, Scott, sits in a chair receiving chemotherapy injections into a port in his chest. He's 45 years old, and the youngest one here. Diagnosis: stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to the liver and the lungs, a diagnosis that came eight days earlier! What the ...? How did this happen to someone so young and healthy and we never noticed a thing? I created this blog to put it all out there ... how we got to this point, all my thoughts and feelings, our family's ups and downs, our journey, because that's what I believe this is. I believe there is a reason for everything and that we're supposed to learn something from this. Thank you for sharing in the journey with us. Please come back often to visit. Let the journey begin! Keep your arms and legs inside at all times; it's going to be a bumpy ride :)

Chapter 1 - The best and worst day, and a diagnosis ... sort of?
January 11, 2019
Family is coming into town today. Our middle son is thirteen and will be ordained to the office of a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church to which we belong to and actively participate. We weren't expecting this day until August when he turned 14, but the church made a recent policy change stating that all youth could participate with the age group they would be in that calendar year. So he would be with the 14-15 year-olds beginning in January, not August. He was really excited, because he is the youngest of his peer group and grade and he's always had to wait until his birthday and hated it. He has two cousins that will also be advancing in the priesthood, so Scott's family arranged for all three boys to be ordained at the same time. That's just how we roll in our family. We're quirky like that. I'm glad it worked out. It will be a special night.

Scott has been complaining of pains in his side all day; he says we should go to the instacare after our son's ordination. I think it's his gallbladder; his older brother had his gallbladder removed a few weeks earlier. We know it's not his appendix; he had that removed a few years ago. I tell him let's plan on it; and we'll talk to them about his cough too. Maybe they can do more then his primary care physician could. He's had a persistent cough since Thanksgiving that won't go away. He's been through three rounds of antibiotics, steroids, an inhaler, and a chest X-ray. No pneumonia or bronchitis. The doctor refers him to a pulmunologist. His earliest appointment isn't until April. That's a long time to have a cough without treatment. I wish the doctors could figure it out; hoping for some answers tonight.

We go to the church for the ordination; it's great to see everyone. I'm so proud of my son and the wonderful young man he is turning out to be. The ordinations go great. Our eldest son gets to ordain our younger son. It is an amazing experience. We get a few pictures after. Scott is still in a lot of pain; you can see it in his face.

We have to leave early to go the instacare. I want to visit with family and enjoy the banana split bar that we have planned, but know that this is more important. My sis-in-law takes charge of that and helps with the kids. I'm grateful. Scott asks his dad and brothers to give him a priesthood blessing to calm his nerves before he goes, which helps him a ton! He hates doctors and hospitals, especially needles. We're both glad that his family is here to help at this time. We tell everyone we'll keep them updated and go to the instacare. We're in for a long night!

We go to the instacare and there's no one else in the waiting room. Yay! Hopefully we won't have to wait long. They get us back quickly after we check in. It pains me to see my husband in pain as he fill out all the check-in information. I offer to do it for him, but he declines. We get called back quickly and the usual medical history and vitals is taken by the nurse. We don't have to wait long for the doctor to come back. She examines Scott and determines that she needs to take a CT scan but she can't order one this late at night, so she sends us to the ER. She says she'll refund our co-pay. That was nice of her.

We go to the ER and the check-in process begins again. They get us back to a room and start him on some pain meds. Scott cringes when the nurse puts the needle in. She's really nice. I've always thought it takes a special person to be a nurse. Patient and compassionate; I feel that from her. While Scott waits for the ultrasound tech and the doc I go out in the waiting room and call our 15-year-old daughter to check in. Things are going fine; they got home safe. She asks me for an update but I tell her there isn't really one, yet. I ignore the texts from family members asking the same thing. We've been "at the doctor's office" for about two hours now with no update.

The doc comes in and again gets a history. We go over the details once again, he's had this pain for 24 hours that won't go away; he's had a persistent cough for 6 weeks. He's nice, very young. Looks like he just got out of med school. The ultrasound tech comes in a little bit later and Scott is still in pain, but bears through it. I watch intently as the machine sees inside my husband's body. Medical stuff fascinates me. When he's done they send us down to radiology to get a CT scan. Then we wait, and wait, and wait for results. By now it's 11:30 PM. We've been here for three hours already.

An hour later, the doc comes in with the nurse to review ultrasound and CT results. The goods news is his gall bladder is fine. And Scott's pain is gone. Yay! We can go home now, right? Wrong! "We found a mass on your colon and on your liver," says the doc. (This is a very paraphrased version of what he said) "That's usually indicative of cancer. We'll know more after we do a colonoscopy on Monday. I've scheduled you for Monday morning; they don't do colonoscopies on weekends. The mass in your liver is probably cancer too; you'll have to get it biopsied to find out. Colonoscopy is step 1; liver biopsy comes next." As I listen to him say all of this, I'm confused. Does he have cancer or not? I think. Why is this doctor talking about surgery, chemo, and radiation, if he might not have it? Or does he? I look over at my husband, then the nurse, who is standing in the corner with her head down. I'm trying to absorb and process all of this information. My husband appears to be doing the same. I wonder what's going on in his head. I look up at the nurse, trying to obtain eye contact with her. She finally looks up at me and asks, "Are you ok?" "Yes," I lie. What is happening here?, I continue to think.

We finally are discharged at 1:00 AM. We drive home in shock, not really knowing what to think. It's going to be a long weekend as we wait for the colonoscopy. We wonder what to tell family; we'll just tell them about the two masses. We won't mention that cancer word for now, because we're both so puzzled. Scott's side pain is gone and doesn't come back.

As I kneel by my bed early that morning before I go to sleep, I don't know what to say. I'm so sleep deprived that I wonder if my words will even make it up to heaven, or if I'll fall asleep on my knees. I wait for the words to come out. "Heavenly Father, please help me to accept thy will, no matter the outcome," I mutter. I know those are definitely NOT my words. I always want things to go my way; it's very hard for me to accept that things should go differently than how I want them to. Those words are what will sustain me through this process. It's exactly what I need to feel calm and sleep peacefully.