A Close Call

Friday was Tanner’s first visit with Dr. Asad at Texas Oncology and he told me the appointment was at 3 p.m.  We arrived and the receptionist told us his appointment was actually at 1 p.m. and that Dr. Asad had already left for the day. Tanner said he could have sworn they told him 3 and that was what he had written down.

Fortunately, the receptionist talked to Brian, the PA, and they had already obtained his chemo medications and decided to go ahead and see him.

The PA is a very nice, (very tall), man who sat and talked with us for quite a while. Of course, they expressed their amazement about the fact that Tanner has Multiple Myeloma at such a young age and Brian also told us that he was surprised that he was still on “full strength” chemo after two years.  He said that most patients are on a “reduced maintenance dose” but that Tanner is still taking full strength Velcade and Revlimid.

Tanner told him that he was, “like an experiment” and Brian responded that yes, he was in fact “truly an experiment” and that at there are no written protocols or standard of treatment for someone his age with Multiple Myeloma.  He expressed curiosity about how long “they” planned on keeping Tanner on maintenance, and we told him Dr. Berryman told us that since Tanner was “tolerating chemo so well” the plans for continued treatments are “indefinite” at this time. 

Brian also asked when the last time Tanner had undergone a skeletal survey - and looking through the records, only found the one taken in 2009 when he was first diagnosed.  He recommended that  another survey be taken in the near future.  Tanner and I both will be anxious to see the difference in this full body x-ray versus the one taken in 2009 where they first found the “innumerable” lesions in the bones all throughout Tanner’s body.

The appointment flowed well and it was so quiet - and we were in and out within two hours!  If the weekly visits continue like the first one did, Tanner will appreciate the difference in being seen in an adult practice versus the children’s practice (which, more times than not, was usually quite loud and chaotic with all the children).

So, all in all, we were both impressed with Texas Oncology and look forward to actually meeting Dr. Asad.  Next week’s appointment is on Friday and will be for just labwork and chemo and then the next Friday, (1/27/2012) he will finally see Dr. Asad.

Yesterday evening we had some “family time” and I took the boys and Cearra out to eat and to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes.  It was a nice evening and the boys (and Cearra) all seemed very happy.

Before I went to bed last night I saw on Facebook that my Aunt Tincey in Arkansas was in a bad auto accident but came through with only cuts and bruises.  I called up there and talked to her daughter, Julie, and was told that my aunt was on the way to Paris to see her brother and had made it as far as Texarkana when another car cut her off.    Aunt Tincey was doing near 70 and when she slammed on the brakes and swerved, she lost control of her SUV and it flipped two or three times before it came to a stop and the vehicle was totaled.

Julie said when they made it to the hospital, the doctor told them that Aunt Tincey could go on home if she desired but that she “would hurt in places where she didn’t know she could hurt”.

I kept thinking about her when I was trying to go to sleep last night and this feeling of fear came over me.  Aunt Tincey called me a few days ago and left a message and I had been too “busy” to call her back.  Then in the blink of an eye, we could have lost her.  I thought about how she must have felt in those moments when her SUV was flipping over and I became so afraid of how close we came to losing her yesterday.  She was SO good to me and Tanner those six months we lived in Arkansas, but even more than that, she's played such a vital role in my whole life. I love her so much... Sleep was a long time coming…

You never know what each day is going to bring and we (I) all get so bogged down in the negatives.  That needs to stop.  We have to stop and appreciate what we have every day.  We have to let those that we love know how much they mean to us.  We need to stop waiting. What if we don’t have tomorrow?