Happy Valentine's Day

February 14, 2014

It was Valentine's day. Scott said he was really sorry that he could not do his usual valentine's day celebration with us they way he always does. This involves him getting up early on the 14th and sneaking to the store, buying a single rose for each daughter and a dozen for me, along with cards and chocolate he leaves on the kitchen table on his way out the door for work. After all he had been through, I thought this should be the least of his worries.

I decided to make it special. We would celebrate the fact that he came back to us, that he is safe, and home. I slipped out of the house at 6:00am. Went to the store and bought his favorite breakfast foods, decorations, and flowers. I knew I needed to so something and I took the opportunity Valentine's Day presented to make a grand gesture. I was so excited to spend the day loving my family, altogether. And I knew that a certain 8 year old would love getting up to seeing the dining room decked out in all manner of hearts, flowers and candy.

This day would be memorable...but not for the reason I had intended.

We got a call from the neurologist at 10:00am asking us to come and see her right away. She made an appointment for us to come that day at 1:00pm.I knew that it could not be good news, or they would not have rushed us back in. The sick sinking feeling rushed back to my gut, like I had been sucker punched. As soon as I pushed any dark thoughts back, they invaded again. It was all I could do to keep it together.

We arrived at the doctors office and waited in silence until she came in. The look on her face said it all. Really. I knew before she began speaking that it was bad, very bad news. The only thing I could understand in that moment was her saying, "I am very sorry to tell you, this looks like a primary brain tumor." I wanted to vomit. I felt this hotness rush over me, up and down again. I kept trying to understand the rest of what she was saying and couldn't. "Glioma." What the hell is that? I couldn't get past all the medical terminology she was spewing. I started to become very impatient with her.

Finally, I blurted out, "So are you saying he has brain cancer?" She looked at me hard. "We don't sue that term. We discuss masses like this as gliomas and tumors." She then took us back to her office where she showed us the MRI and gave us our first glimpse at what could be the cause of all this. She then explained the behavior Scott showed at home, was not stroke activity, but seizure activity. She said the MRI showed no stroke activity at all. Nada. Nothing. Just this mass, in the left front temporal region.

I said we wanted a second opinion and that we wanted to be referred to somewhere in Colorado. As it so happened, she wanted us to consult a neurosurgeon, because this was not her specialty. Really? Okay. Confused, scared, angry, extremely frustrated with the past 5 days...I was determined to be done with this. We said we wanted to be seen by the best. Who was that? The doctor then said, "You need to go the University of Colorado. I can pull some strings and get you a referral to neurosurgeon there."

We had to wait several days for that referral to come in. But it did. We were referred to the head of Neurology at the University of Colorado. You might expect one to be grateful and thankful that we were sent to the best of the best. This only affirmed to me that something is so terribly wrong, that no one else will touch it. I kept praying I would be wrong, and pleasantly surprised. I just had no choice but keep weaving this delusion that somehow we would not be affected by all of this. So we waited for the next doctor's appointment as if everything was going to be fine.