Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Bone Scanxiety


Dan hadn’t caught up mentally and I saw he was disappointed. Why an x-ray? It’s just his leg falling asleep when he is in bed at night – probably because of a pinched nerve in his back. However, I understood what Dr. Piers wasn’t directly saying–check the spine for cancer. I made the decision in a split second.
“I want the x-ray.” Get it done.
In the meantime, Dr. Piers prescribed Gabapentin at a low dose to try at bedtime for the pain. At this point, I don’t care that we are adding one more ingredient to his pharmaceutical cocktail. So be it. I am vehement that Dan gets better sleep.
Raine asked today what ‘vehemently’ means. WIFEY SAYS SO.

We get the x-ray results over the weekend and Dr. Piers tells me to contact Dan’s oncology team. Monday I get the x-ray to them and Dr. Kumar decides to do a bone scan. It was a long week to get the insurance approval and then make the bone scan appointment, but I can say that our teams fast tracked everything that they could and the OSF scheduler even squeezed Dan in for the scan as soon as she could. 
It took 10 days in all from the first appointment until the scan. Dan was extra tired and I was extra irritable. I distracted myself with a puzzle, rearranging furniture, obsessing over wallpaper options, and dove into finishing a 430 page biography on Dorothea Lange.
I also developed a habit of eating frozen fish sticks and watching war movies everyday.

We both would have bet all of our money on a new lesion. It just made sense… With the pinched nerve? We hadn’t even scanned his abdomen in over a year. We had only been doing chest CT’s and brain MRI’s. I felt like I dropped the ball.
Then the call came from Dr. Kumar’s nurse the day after the scan and THERE WAS NO CHANGE since his original lesions in 2014. THE CANCER REMAINED STABLE.
Honestly, I immediately only felt shock. I didn’t even feel relieved until Dan came home and I told him.
We hugged. And then I could feel the burden of worry lift up from both of us and float to the ceiling.
Onward.