Saturday: MRI Day

Standing ovation for Cowboy William who got all his exams graded and grades entered and has FINISHED the semester that even I doubted he could ever get all the way through.

I hugged him about 25 times yesterday. I was so proud of him, and his faithful commitment to his students and his work.

This afternoon, we drive to Winston Salem for the MRI of his liver, and we hope to hear results on Monday. We're both trying to be pretty calm about it, and telling ourselves that this Mister Galactically Infamous Radiologist wouldn't have said he didn't think they were tumors if he wasn't pretty sure, and that the MRI is just a technicality.

A dear friend of ours (Bill met him on the first day of 8th grade) is driving with us, and we might all end up in an Italian restaurant after the MRI. Which will REALLY be spectacular for us since, having lived in the basement with one small microwave for almost two months now, we haven't been able to cook any italian food, because no way to make pasta.

As has become the pattern for us, we do still have a boatload of troubles (but who doesn't?), and a brand new scare--a hydrogen bomb of potential disaster--hit yesterday, via a letter in the mail, but I'll spare you the details. Gotta love the surprise ramifications of co-signing for kids. This one, which we now think won't materialize, would have made the whole $8,000 forced Nashville van payoff look like a walk in the park.

Also, if you're not eating, I'll note that, yes, I realized I was spelling abscess wrong when referring to our dog's continuing condition--it is a-b-s-c-e-s-s, not abcess, although the emphasis on "cess" and its echoes of "cesspools" kind of created a nice representation of the ambience we've been living through this last few weeks.

Bill and I have, via our hard-earned wisdom, come to realize that the saying, "This too shall pass," ends before it should. The correct saying, we now believe, is, "This too shall pass, but you better believe there's something ELSE coming behind it."

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there. Since neither of my children are speaking to us since Dec. 28th, 2010--except on the subject of the massive amounts of borrowed money that they regret to inform us they simply can't repay at this time--we'll have to do something special with, I guess, the puppies tomorrow.

But this too shall pass......oh, wait.....

Bill Didn't Like Yesterday's Photo

It's Thursday afternoon, and Bill is madly grading final exams, but he thinks he will be finished on time.

I must say, things have not been library-like for him today.

One of the dogs came down with the Mother of All Abcesses which we were told by the vet to "let drain freely"--as in: no bandages--and how about I do NOT describe to you what that particular reality entails.

Allllllllll over the basement in which we are still encapsulated.

But let's just say this abcess situation is making me hope the Mayans were right about the end of the world, but that the date they MEANT was May 5, 2011.

Also, Bill was less than pleased with the photo I used yesterday to represent us hiking, even though I made clear it wasn't really us. He would prefer a photo that made him look a bit better than that. So here is today's improved representational photo of what Bill looked like hiking yesterday:




And now, for your total amusement, something which has nothing to do with cancer, MRIs, livers, dog abcesses, or any other things that decent people wouldn't be writing about on a public blog. I present a short clip which is, probably, the funniest thing I have ever seen on youtube. It is called "Two Dogs Dining" and it took me a while to even figure out how they filmed this: CLICK HERE TO SEE FUNNY VIDEO.

Between Now and the Saturday MRI

Beginning at 6 pm this evening, Bill will have 40 long essay exams to grade, and must have them graded, and all the semester grades calculated AND entered into the ASU computer by noon on Friday.

It makes me tired just to think about it!

Fortunately, he is still feeling better, at least a little bit. He still has trouble with nausea and what he calls "metal mouth"--but his color is much better, and yesterday he even walked a mile (a mile!) downhill, slowly, through shady woods, on a trail near the Cone Estate Lake. With me and two of our pups (the Boston Terrier and the miniature black poodle BabyJack).

This is the actual trail we were on, but it's not really us. We probably looked sorta like this, though, with poor ole Bill bringin' up the rear, and at least one naughty dog pulling on its leash, breaking all of Cesar Milan's foundational rules. Maybe I should have attached that dog to Bill and it could've helped his speed a little.

Love to all. More soon! B&B

MRI Scheduled This Week

The phone just rang, and it was for the scheduling of the MRI.

The scheduler said to me, "I had a lot of trouble getting this appointment for you, because Dr. Torti's assistant said it HAD to take place within one week."

(Well. You can imagine where my pessimistic mind went with THAT. A WEEK? What's the RUSH? Why a WEEK? Rushing is what you do when you think something bad is growing! Meanwhile, here's Bill, Mister Relaxo: "I'm just glad it comes after final exams." Are you getting a clear picture of how opposites attract?)

So the appointment is at the bizarre hour of 5 pm on Saturday, May 7th, in Winston Salem.

I suppose we'll get the results on Monday the 9th by phone.

Otherwise, all joking aside about pessimism and optimism, Bill and I decided that LOGICALLY it would be better to celebrate until we have reason NOT to.

I suppose you could say Bill was able to REASON with me, or at least he has tried.

However...

Unfortunately for everyone, on the subject of REASON, I share the sentiments of the butler Betteredge in Wilkie Collins' Moonstone: "I am (thank God) constitutionally superior to reason. Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my example. It will save you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good!"*


*Due to my never-ending supply of angst, I am worried that you will read that quote as if it is meant to be taken seriously. No. Rather, it is the author making FUN of the irrational nature of the butler--and me making fun of myself. It is irrationality of which I am accusing myself by using that quote.

Love to all, and happy dancing while the sun shines!

Prince William (the real one) and Napoleon Dynamite

This entry is completely random. To find the latest (great!) news about Bill, go to the right-hand column of this page and click on the entry called something like Monday: A Miracle--something like that.

Meanwhile, try TELLING me Prince William could have landed Kate Middleton iF William wasn't a prince, after you see THIS COMPARISON of Prince William and Napoleon Dynamite:

Monday: Is It A Miracle?

We just got the phone call from Dr. Torti's assistant.

Her words exactly: "The radiologist is NOT AT ALL CONVINCED that this is tumor showing up on the CT scan. It could very well be simply post-operative changes in the liver. But to be certain, they would like Bill to get an MRI here at our institution and compare that. So someone will call you with a date for the MRI, and we'll go from there." That was it.

So now, Bill and I are standing here going, "WHAT?!?!?!?"

Bill said, "It couldn't be much better news than THAT!"

I said, "I'm scared to get my hopes up!"

So there you have it. You optimists will think this is great; you pessimists will be wringing your hands and simultaneously jumping for joy.

If I die of a heart attack in the next few weeks from all this drama, somebody make sure my cowboy gets to his 'pointments on time, 'kay?

Monday Morning: So Far, So Good!

Bill seems to be feeling a little better every day, the farther he gets from his last dose of chemo.

This week, we are kind of staring at the phone, waiting for Wake Forest to call with their radiologist's opinions as to what those things are on Bill's liver.

The second we hear, I will put up an entry here. If I don't write anything, it means nothing has happened. Even if something unrelated happened, I would post it instantly, so don't worry your purty lil head if there's no post. ;)

Bill and I are playing a game right now of guessing what Wake will say: For once, we AGREE in our prognostications.

We both think they're going to say that one more test is needed to be sure either way--to be sure whether it IS or ISN'T cancer. And that the test will be at WF Baptist Hospital (they're changing their name to Baptist Hospital, so I shouldn't keep calling them Wake Forest.)

Anyway, that's our guess.

Bill remains always the cheerful optimist. I wrestle with pessimism pretty much any time I'm awake.

And I KNOW what many of you are thinking: Worry interferes with the grace of God. So of course I worry about that, too. (haha) And I hope that when God does the math, Bill's attitude cancels mine out.

Wake Forest Report: Not Too Bad!

We just this second walked in the door, and I'm blitzing out this report as fast as possible, so you'll know what we know.

I'll probably add detail later.

Basically, we handed over the CD of the CT scan from January, which showed 2 new liver lesions, then the CD from April, which showed 3 liver lesions, and which said that two of the lesions had grown. That's what we were so worried about.

Basically, Dr. Torti said he couldn't get the CDs to work on their system, but they could get someone to make that work later, so all Dr. Torti had to go on was the typed-out opinion of the radiologist in Boone, which typed copy I also brought for Dr. T.

But Dr. T said that based on what the Boone radiologist wrote, it appears that Bill is very blessed indeed not to have any metastases showing up anywhere but potentially the liver again.

So Dr. T said he's going to have his radiologist, who, said Dr. T., is "world renowned" (seems like a suspiciously large number of doctors are claimed to be world-renowned), look at the CDs himself (once their tech people make that possible).

Then, if the lesions are tumors, Dr. T said not to worry. They will study the locations and technicalities, and then they will use a variety of methods to REMOVE the tumors, even if it requires another surgery. But he said radio ablation needle is an option, radiation is an option, even if they have to treat all the tumors differently.

Then once there are no more tumors, Bill will pick up with his last two rounds of chemo to catch any wandering cells. That would all occur, of course, while Bill is not teaching. So the timing is great.

Well, after Dr. T was talking like I've written here, it sounded to me like he was thinking these are definitely tumors. So I thought I could get him to give me a straight answer. So I asked. "Do you THINK they're tumors, then?" (which it seemed he did, basing it on what he had just said).

UP went the Medical Information Berlin Wall.

"I cannot say for sure that they are tumors. I don't want to say they are, without even seeing the CDs, and then have it turn out that they're water-filled cysts or something."

At this point, Bill, who was behind Dr. T. starting making a signal to me, drawing his finger across his neck, like, "Beth, shut up." hahahaha

So I gave up my questioning and accepted the fact that I must further dwell in the frustration of Not Being Sure. But Bill loves Not Being Sure, and it's his body, so I think he gets to decide when Beth should stop badgering the witness. hahahaha (I did get in trouble for that once in court, when I was an attorney representing a little girl against a very bad father. I intentionally badgered the dad to try to get his temper to blow in the courtroom so everyone could see, but the judge said, "Counsel? Step back from the witness box, please, and change the tone of your questioning."

Well, I NEVER! (hahaha).

So anyway, except for the major digression in that last paragraph, that's the story of today.

In the middle of next week, Dr T's assistant doctor will call us and tell us what the Galaxy's Greatest Radiologist thinks of the CT scans, and I will post that to you immediately!

In general, Bill feels great delight and relief in the hope that (a) they're not cancer; (b) they're removable even if they are cancer; and (c) the happiness of hearing that it could have been SO much worse. He and I both THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE!

Thank you for following and for caring and for praying and wishing us the best!

Love to all!

B&B

Thursday is Wake Forest Day: Will Post the INSTANT We Are Home

It's 9:38 pm--late for me!--and I just wanted to say that as SOON as we are home tomorrow, I'm rushing to my computer to post what happens. I feel pretty sure they won't say anything definitive, but one never knows.

Bill taught his last class of the semester tonight. In my opinion, that moment was beyond heroic, but no one said anything to him. He figures the kids don't really understand what he has gone through to teach them this semester, but he said he wasn't disappointed.

"Were you emotional?" I asked. "Like thinking, oh man, what if this is my last class ever?"

He said, "Well, since I don't KNOW if it's my last class ever, what's the point of getting emotional?"

See why I wanna be him--or at least THINK like him?

I don't need REASONS to get emotional. He does.

My calm, heroic, brave, smart cowboy.... quietest hero ever.

Quiet...but at least I threw in some pitchas at the end!

We're just quietly waiting to jump all the hurdles we'll have to jump before anyone tells us anything definitive. Neither of us thinks that Thursday's Wake Forest trip is going to tell us anything. Rather, we'll be sent for more tests, then other tests, then sent back for results, then an internal test, then wait for a pathology report to be typed up...that sort of thing.

I am beginning to believe it's absolute protocol not to tell cancer patients ANYTHING until they already know it.

We're both a little scared that we DO already know what there might be to know. So at this point, we're looking more for the miracle bullet-dodger outcome.

Bill said something typically marvelous yesterday: He said "Isn't it nice that we have this time to be happy, time during which we aren't sure it's something bad?"

Wow. I wanna be him.

He feels a little better than he has in a long time. That's the best news of all.

Wednesday he teaches his last class of the semester. He hopes it's not his last class ever, and is proceeding as if it isn't. And it probably isn't! He's obviously got the constitution of a...I almost wrote some type of animal right there, that is known for its strength. But then I decided to google "strongest animal on earth" and found out it's a rhinoceros beetle. They can lift 850 times their own weight. Which would be like a human picking up an SUV.

Go, Bill, go! Cutest rhinoceros beetle in a cowboy hat you ever saw!

Wait! THAT'S not a rhinoceros beetle!

Here we go, below, though I couldn't find one in a cowboy hat...I could only find this capitalist variety.