Tanner's Journey: Back in Arkansas

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Well, Tanner and I are back in Little Rock. He's already relaxing in bed watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I guess we will know more of the specifics of the treatment he is going to go through tomorrow afternoon.

We got to see a lot of our family and friends while we were home. It was great to get to see everyone before treatment starts.

Bruce has set me up so the I can work remotely and the laptop will look like I'm sitting at my desk at work and I will have access to all my computer files. I'm very frustrated with myself because after unpacking, I see that I left the power cord to the laptop at home.

I will be making a trip to Best Buy tomorrow and hopefully will be able to get the cord I need. If not, I guess I will be asking my family to overnight it to me here.

Sigh...

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, August 2, 2009

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