Tanner's Journey: In the Real World...

Sunday, March 27, 2011

In the Real World...

Thinking, thinking, thinking... and not sleeping...

We all have dreams. I had dreams for my life. Tanner had dreams for his life. Cancer intruded...

Harsh reality faces us every day and we continue to make our way the best that we can. Sometimes our world goes astray and we have to rearrange our plans, our expectations, our dreams... and we go on.

In dreams we do so many things
We set aside the rules we know
And fly above the world so high
In great and shining rings

If only we could always live in dreams
If only we could make of life
What, in dreams, it seems

But in the real world
We must say real goodbyes
No matter if the love will live
It will never die

In the real world
There are things we can't change
And endings come to us
In ways that we can't rearrange...

In the Real World - Roy Orbison

1 comment:

UnknownSunday, March 27, 2011
Angie: Amazing how our lives take a sudden turn. I often wake up, hoping that it's all been a bad dream.

Hoping that both of you have a good day....enjoy the sun, and the warmth.

Sarah

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

Sunday, March 27, 2011

In the Real World...

1 comment:

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