Tanner's Journey: A call from Dr. A

Friday, March 11, 2011

A call from Dr. A

All in all it was a good Friday... I made myself get up and go out for a while tonight instead of just coming home to a book and my bedroom. Part of the whole "get a life" and "enjoy 15 minutes of happiness whenever you can" thing...

I've been so immersed in misery, worry, and depression, that these last several months have been some of the hardest of my life. I've promised myself to take an active role in making myself stop all of the self pity and find some happiness in this life. It's time to heal...

Tanner and Trevor are in Abilene with their dad and Tan texted earlier that they will probably be home sometime tomorrow. I love my boys, but it's been great to have a few days to myself!

I went out for dinner this evening and when I got back in my car and checked my voicemail, there was a message from Dr. Allbritton...

GOOD NEWS!!

Tanner's tests have ALL been approved and will be scheduled for next week. On her voicemail she said she wanted to call and let me know so that I could have as good a weekend as she will knowing that this has been taken care of!!

She and the staff at Cook's Oncology Department are the best!!

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else... Emily Dickenson

1 comment:

UnknownSaturday, March 12, 2011
Angie: That's great news. You and your son are in my thoughts and prayers.

Sarah Gorrell
http://ourjourneywithmm.blogspot.com
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Recap

One summer day in 2009 my 17 year old son, Tanner Walker, decided to go swimming at a friend's house. While walking across the yard, his left leg collapsed and his tibia snapped completely in two.

Of course we were upset and worried that afternoon when I rushed him to the Emergency Room but I have to admit that the thought of cancer never entered our minds until the doctor came back into the room and told us "There's no easy was to say this other than just say it. There is a tumor in the bone".

They put Tanner in a splint and sent us home and over the next two weeks he saw several doctors who told us it "might be cancer - or it might be nothing" and eventually surgery was performed to repair the break and a biopsy was taken.

After the procedure, the surgeon came out and told us that the good news was that it wasn't cancer - but the bad news was that they didn't know what it was.

Two weeks later, my cell phone rang and it was the doctor wanting to speak to me and explain that they had found a Pathologist who had, finally, diagnosed the lesion as Multiple Myeloma. Can you imagine? I was at work and at that very moment my world, my son's world, our family's world - were all forever changed.

After a full body scan was performed Tanner was found to have hundreds - "innumerable"- lesions in the bones throughout his body and the Oncologist told me (privately) that at the stage he was at, he most likely only had two years to live.

Luckily, we were referred to the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at UAMS in Little Rock Arkansas where Tanner underwent some of the most aggressive treatment available including chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants. Now, over three years later, he remains in full remission.

He receives maintenance treatment here locally and is back to living the life of a young man... A young man with Multiple Myeloma.

Tanner's Journey

Friday, March 11, 2011

A call from Dr. A

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