Friday June 27th 2014: My day began at about 4am, when Brian finally came into the living room. He was white as could be with a cold sweat dripping from his face. He was clutching his right side and told me hed vomited. When I touched his forehead I was relieved to find there was no fever, until of course he told me hed taken Motrin 2 hours earlier. You see the movement Id been hearing all late night and early morning was Brian pacing in pain trying to make it till the morning to wake me or call the doctor. I was torn, not sure if we should call the doc and have her call in a pain Rx (hes had lots of back issues and it seemed to be flairing up a lot the past couple of weeks) or do I bring him in? Could it be his appendix? No fever, but hed taken meds & he had vomited. I didnt think about testing for rebound pain. By the time it crossed my mind we were nearly at the hospital.... but anyway I am getting ahead of myself.... I decided to bring him in to the er. I woke our oldest, Kevin and told him we were headed to the er. I told him it was likely kidney stones but we wanted to make sure and we needed to get him help for the pain. And that we would be home as soon as we could. We arrived at the er at about 5:15am. We were taken right into a room and everything seemed to be going as smoothly as possible for an er visit. Dr came in right away, he got pain management almost immediately, ultra sound was rolled into the room almost as soon as it was ordered and it seemed we would be on our way home before the little ones even knew we were gone. Then suddenly the ultrasound machine came back into the room and this time there were a lot more bodies that came with it. Black shapes were pointed out and measurements were taken. I was gone for the beginning part of this process, so I missed most of it. But Brian said it was odd that they were pointing out things and taking measurements yet said they couldnt see the stone that they were sure he had. Before leaving they told us they were going to send him for a cat scan. It was still before the kids would typically wake and we had been repeatedly told that his issue was simply a stone and we would be headed home soon. For an er visit this was going great! Brian returned from the catscan and we were told the results would be ready about 8am and we would most likely on our way right after that. We might even make it home before the kids woke. At around 7:30am we heard the Dr paged to radiology in regards to room 28, that was us we would be out of here soon. The doctor came in a bout 15 minutes later and told us that Brian indeed had a stone. She drew a diagram showing where the stone was. And then it happened..... She went on to say we found something else on your scan... ....I wont call it a spot.... She started drawing a circle on her little diagram.... ....Its a large mass..... she kept tracing her circle I would presume it is cancer..... Right there my world stopped! I just watched her trace that same damn circle over and over again I dont know what she was saying. I vaguely remember hearing Brian stop breathing. My mind just stopped functioning all I heard was CANCER echoing in my mind. I managed to make out the words treatable & early before my mind jumped back to the present. By that time she was saying something about getting in to see his PCP as soon as possible. I managed to figure out that Brians kidney stone, although quite unpleasant, was a true blessing. Had we waited for the doctor to get meds we may have never known he has cancer until it was much farther along. The doctor left and we spent a few moments chatting. We texted my mom and asked her to go get my children and bring them to her house. We reached out to Brians parents for family history. And then I left him alone. That was hard, walking out of that room not knowing how he would be. But phone calls needed to be made and there was no real cell reception from his room. Sending a text took some time and precise positioning of the cell phone. My first phone call was to the PCP. I begged the receptionist to ask our doctor if she could squeeze him in that day. I didnt want to wait a moment longer than we had to to start getting answers. The poor receptionist is new. And I think I was the first person to ever tell her that I needed an appointment because my loved one was just told he had cancer.... As soon as I said cancer the phone went dead silent, I checked to make sure I hadnt dropped the call, & then said Hello? A quite Im sorry! Followed by the clicking of keyboard keys. Can you be here by 9:30? She asked, regaining her composure. I dont know, we are still in the hospital. Well I have a 3pm on Monday, or a... That wont work, he has to be seen today. Okay, he could probably have waited, but he wasnt going to if I could help it. Ahhhh.... Ahhhhh... Ahhhhhh...... Ummmmm.... let me talk to the doctor and call you back. I gave her my number and then called my children. We already decided we were not going to tell them anything more than absolutely necessary. So I told them their grandparents were on the way because we were still in the hospital and were trying to get in to see the doctor when we left there. I gave my son a list of what to pack for who spoke with my little girl, & rushed back to Brians side. To wait... wait for the doctor to return, to wait to see if he could hold down the few crackers they gave him, to wait to see if his PCP would agree to see him or not, to wait to be discharged.... The doctor never did come back, but the PCP called and said they could see us if we could get there before 12:30pm. Eventually a nurse came back and told us she could let us leave, unless of course you still have questions for the doctor? No we will just speak to our PCP we are going to head there from here. Okay, she can access everything in our system. We got our paperwork and got out of there.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 02:41:36 +0000
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