Not On Our Own

Yesterday, Roy went to Houston without me. How? Why? Well, we are very lucky that our friend Russ had previously volunteered to fill in if I became ill and could not take Roy to an appointment. We didn’t think it would happen when he offered a few weeks ago, but on Tuesday when my back started to spasm (due to that day’s work stress, I think) and I was ready to shriek, Roy said, I’ll call Russ, and Russ agreed to come to the rescue.

While I carefully did some stretches from my trainer, had some rest and took a muscle relaxant to get right with my back, Russ picked Roy up and took him to Methodist Med Center, stayed all day, and brought him back home. I waited anxiously to hear how things were going throughout the day but I need not have worried because Russ sent me updates, and even a photo of Roy post-procedure, and they weathered the vagaries of Houston traffic well.

Their destination was Interventional Radiology for Roy to have an Ultrasound Guided Biopsy of his lymph nodes. He also took the opportunity to have a check-in with Dr. Taylor because sometime on Tuesday, Roy sprung a leak. In a new quirk of his liver disease, we learned that the ascites fluid can occasionally escape through the skin. Yes, it’s weird. This was not from the Y-90 treatment or the incision; it just sometimes happens. Dr. Taylor came by during pre-procedure and applied a patch of essentially super-glue to stop it. The team in Interventional Radiology told Roy that they were glad he let them know about the leak so they could provide a repair.

The actual biopsy was done to determine the cause of some enlargements seen in his right armpit during the last Chest CT. He wasn’t put under completely just sedated and thinks he heard them say it might just be cysts. They took several core samples. We won’t know what they found until Roy gets the pathology results. We learned on the discharge papers that it is the patient’s “duty” to contact their referring physician for the results in four to five days. We will be hoping it is just cysts and not anything related to the cancer.

Roy has now become a frequent flyer – he had all the same nurses and technicians, and even transport folks, as before. I guess that’s to be expected seeing them once a week for the past three weeks. They were looking for me, too, and joked with Roy that they’d have to go find his friend so that they would not have to drive him home themselves.

My back is better (not 100% yet but better) and Roy feels okay and is not currently leaking. We are preparing for the next steps. We go back to stay on Main Street on Sunday so that he can begin his Transplant Evaluation on Monday with an extensive series of labs at the very early hour of 7 AM followed by a day chock-full of of seminars, meetings, and tests with more on Tuesday. Sounds fun, right?

We’re grateful for Russ for being a willing and capable chauffeur substitute, and to my trainer for coming up with some stretches to help my back, to Don for finishing the assembly of the spare bed, and to all of you for your continued support as we traverse this path. We are learning, more so each day, that we are not doing this on our own.