The Journey Begins....Tippy Toes

It had been about two or three weeks in September of constant back pain. Phil had been sleeping on the floor in the den and had been rather grumpy. Thank goodness we had installed new fluffy carpeting the Christmas before. Phil had a grand opening at his new job where he had been employed for a whopping 2 months and he asked me to come and pick him up instead of walking to his car because he felt he just couldn't make the walk of the length of about two parking lots to get to his car. Phil was swallowing about 12 ibuprofen a day just to make it through. After a lot of prompting, he finally went to our general practitioner for a quick diagnosis of a possible kidney stone. Well, the next day the pain was so bad, he ended up in the emergency room where they promptly sent him home after running tests, giving him some pain meds through an i.v. and said they couldn't find anything wrong with him. They gave him a list of some doctors that they recommended he check out like a Urologist and a Spine doctor. Off we went.

Phil a week before diagnosis

The Urologist checked him out thoroughly and said that he couldn't find anything wrong but wanted him to come back for some more tests. Off to the Spine Doctor. We went and had an MRI done and and then rushed to the spine doctor but the office was already closed for the night so we slid the large packets of xrays under the door so they would find them early the next morning. Phil got the call to come in and visit with the doctor instead of just telling him that everything was fine and nothing to worry about. I didn't go with him but was waiting to hear from him and was getting ready in my usual way but it got later and later. I started to pace and panic just a little and started calling, then texting. After about an hour, I heard the front door open and then hubby Phil appeared in the bedroom and sat down on the bed. My first words were, "I've been trying to call you!". Phil was kind of quiet and he said, "well, I wanted to come home to tell you what the doctor said". Gulp. There was a spot on his spine, a large spot, and the doctor had scheduled an appointment with an Oncologist that afternoon. That afternoon! I have to admit, I didn't know what an Oncologist was.

While holding my breath and in my cute little flats, I tippy toed into the doctors office. Dr. Randall Davis was a very kind man, a soft spoken man with a serious undertone. I was unaware of the seriousness of what I was about to hear. The long and big words came out like a swarm of bees that engulfed my head and made me so dizzy that I almost passed out. Multiple Myeloma. "Wait a minute, are you telling me that my husband may have bone marrow cancer?". YES. The words were so final, so cold, so emphatic so awful! I knew bone, I knew marrow, and I knew cancer. I could comprehend that. While I was trying to find something to hold on to and the tears were burning through the back of my eyes and the trembling came from my very core, Phil was catapulted into another world of denial. The jokes, the light hearted gestures and comments seemed to flow and I was struggling to breathe. I was about to crash and Phil was doing his best to bury his head in the sand. Phil was immediately laid on the table and had a bone marrow plug taken out to confirm the initial diagnosis. We would know for sure the following Wednesday. This was Thursday. Dr. Randall had said, "I'm going to put all my eggs in one basket and say that what I think we have here is Multiple Myeloma and we are going to proceed immediately and begin treating it as such". I waited out in the hallway while Phil got a portion of his marrow ripped from his lower spine and still, he came out smiling and jovial. I was still trying to breathe and on my tippy toes.

We immediately went to the hospital across the street to get a full body scan. This scan was to find other lesions. Other lesions? What? Yes, Multiple Myeloma means, multiple lesions. Oh my gosh! How much more can we take in one day. The next day, Friday, we headed to the Oncologist office across town where Phil got his first dose of bone strengthener in the chemo lab, yes with the other cancer patients. Cancer patients! That is not us! This is ridiculous, so why are we even here? Well, we were there and we stopped and looked at the chairs that were all lined up along the wall with all the little bags hanging beside them. Some patients had hats on, some were sleeping, some snoring, some had hospital blankets on. It was a sobering sight. We held hands took a deep breath and tippy toed in to our first of many visits to the "chemo chair".