I believe that we've already mentioned that our little girl has a list of tests this week. I've meant to post about each of them in turn, but this is the first chance I've gotten, so...TA DA. Anyway, here's the play by play:
Day 1 (tuesday): The Beginning: I believe most of the eastern half of this great nation knows exactly what caused us problems on tuesday. However, all we had scheduled for that day was a consultation with the ever nice Dr. Meany (our Oncologist). She opted for a teleconference instead of having us drive through what must have been brutal traffic conditions to get into DC.
A meeting between any professional, my wife, and myself is always a lot of fun for me (excusing the subject matter of this particular meeting of course). The reason for this is that my wife is one of those people that has spreadsheets for her spreadsheets. So, in line with her character, she had 4 pages of questions ready to go. It came very clear that we don't know the stage of the cancer, and the dangers that the stage represents, and that we won't until after the barrage of tests which are why we are heading to the hospital almost every day this week. So that shortened the list but it was still amusing. Anyway, Meany was very hopeful about the situation but very confident that CHEMO was the right way to go. CHEMO is not an acronym, it just feels like the word should always be said with that loud deep forbodding voice.
Day 2 (wednesday): The longest hour and a half of all time: I say that, but having already done one surgery with our little girl and having her seemingly no worse for it comforted me greatly. But still, an hour and a half is a long time to know that your baby is unconscious while they cut and whatever. She had a port implanted just beneath the right side of her collar bone, and two samples of bone marrow taken from the hips. Bone marrow is where blood is made...that ones for my uncle.
Anyway, the day started off with starving our child in a fashion that is becoming routine to all of us except for the hungry baby who seems convinced of our torturous motivations. We had back up this time though, because my mom (who flew in a few days ago, incase I hadn't mentioned that part.) Took the second shift with the kid, because my sick wife couldn't. You know, I'm not sure if I mentioned the sick part either. Let's just say, we're having a hell of a week. Anyway, fast forwarding to my superman moment while we were waiting in pre-op. Our little girl hadn't had any formula in about 8 and a half hours, we are still waiting because the surgeons is late, and I through sheer jedi powers mind you, put the crying child to sleep. Yes, there were very quiet applause. Anyway, afterwards it took her a while to wake up, but she did, and is just as happy and wriggly as every.
Day 2 part 2: The worst thing someone could eat: We have to give our little girl some drops of some weird kind of iodine to prepare her for the final test of the week, which is an MIBG scan (that one actually is an accronym). It's not signyficant enough at this point to go into much detail, except to say that my daughter seems to think that it tastes like the worst thing you've ever tasted mixed together with old indian food and then left out in the sun for a week. I don't know if her claims are valid....but there it is.
Day 3 (thursday): A double header on double time: We had a CT scan to do today and the first part of the MIBG scan and we got done in like and hour and a 45 min. This was impressive in my opinion. There wasn't any food restrictions, but we had her a bit hungry just in case she need sustenance soothing, which just so happens to be extremely effective. It wasn't necessary for the CT. We went in there, set her down, covered half of her and most of ourselves with led. Except, nobodies heads...I’ve always thought a led helmet would come in handy for just such an occasion...anyway. They took a few shots and we were off at a jog. directly over to the MIBG people, who seemed to be excited that someone was visiting them. However, it was 2 doctors that administered the RADIOCTIVE IODINE (I need to figure out something other then capital letters to indicate dramatically creapy voice, because thats getting confusing). Anyway, everyone says that it's harmless but I can't help but shake the feeling this was how the ninja turtles were made. Well after a couple of attempts they found a vane (the nurses have never missed, I'm just saying). And then we were on our merry way.
Summary: This was a long week, but the fact that we are doing this quickly means we are getting through it quickly. Our God is an awesome God.
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