So it’s been
a while since I wrote a blog post. That’s partly because I’ve been finishing
Screwing Up Alexandria (I’m proofreading right now). And it’s partly because of
“spots.”
At the end of
March, my husband Calvin got sick. We even got a trip to ER out of it. And if
you’re sick enough, you don’t have to wait. To make a long story short, they
ended up running a CT scan. They didn’t find what they were looking for.
Instead, they found “spots.” Most were on the liver. One was not. It was on the
pancreas. It was concerning.
They ran a
“multi-phasic pancreatic CT.” The results of the CT were “suspicious.” The move
from concerning to suspicious was not a good thing. We have friends who died
from pancreatic cancer. Gallows humor became prevalent in our home. One night,
Cal said, “Don’t worry about me.” I said, “Sweetie, I love you. But if you die,
you go to heaven. And I’m stuck here with four kids and a mortgage. I’m worried
about me.” (Okay, two kids are grown and on their own. But still.)
Next came an
endoscopic ultrasound with fine needle aspiration. Basically, they put a
camera, an ultrasound wand, and a cutting mechanism down his throat. (Yes, he
was asleep.) They drew fluid from the cyst. And then, we waited ten days.
Anytime you
look a bad diagnosis in the face, it causes you to think. I’m trusting that
whatever happens, God will give me strength to deal with it. He’s been faithful
to me through dark days in the past, and He doesn’t change.
And the
results of the EU were inconclusive…and the results were benign. A good thing.
Sort of. The doctor said that at this small size any tumor would be benign.
They don’t go bad until they’re bigger. We did narrow it down to one of two
types of cysts. One kind stays benign. The other becomes cancer. Yeah, not much
help. Now, we wait. In six months, we restart the process to see if the cyst
has grown.
In the
meantime, the doctors are running other tests because as they were tracking
down the pancreatic cyst, they found other things wrong with Calvin. Sigh. And we’re
waiting for the bills to descend.
