The 411

Yesterday was somewhat of a freakout day at the doctor. We started at 8:30 with the dentist, Dr. Ory, he was very nice and very young. Small World though, he comes from Laplace and most of his family has at one time or another worked for Marathon or one of the other plants in that area. Smaller World, he spent a little less than a year after Katrina practicing out of a Dr. David Brannen's office in Luling , who just happens to lead worship at the church Stephanie went to growing up and that we've been attending while in the area. Stephanie doesn't need to have any teeth removed prior to radiation, however if she ever has to have one removed after radiation she will have to go through a hyperbarric preparation (because the bone in her jaw won't heal) for one month to the tune of roughly $40,000. I think we will try to time tooth extractions so that there are always at least two that need to be pulled. That or maybe we just won't have any of her teeth pulled.

Once we were done at the dentist we went over to the medical plaza where Dr. Pou has her office. After our last experience here I was very surprised to walk into an empty waiting room. This is the point where we were instructed to commence freakout. Dr. Pou came and explained what she and Dr. Fields had talked about and how they had talked to a colleague at MD Anderson. She re-examined Stephanie to make sure nothing had changed (that means another scope shoved up Stephanie's nose). Nothing had, so we began to go through the surgery and more importantly the potential risks. She drew us a diagram of Stephanie's tongue and where the tumor was, and the margin she would take in order to give her the best shot of removing the whole tumor at once. She then drew another diagram of what would be left of the tongue. Dr. Pou explained that she would remove either a portion of Stephanie's forearm or have a plastic surgeon come in to remove part of her thigh (depending on how much tissue they need), to fill in the hole. If this is the way the surgery goes Stephanie will be able use her tongue with little to no problem in her speech (meaning she'll be understood 85-90% of the time) and has a chance to not need a feeding tube for the rest of her life. If the margin Dr. Pou takes reveals tumor cells in it, she will have to take more out. If this happens Stephanie will only be able to move her tongue up and down from the back (the portion of the tongue you can't see) rendering her speech to be that of a person that is tongue tied. We didn't talk about the feeding tube if this happens.

Stephanie and I talked and cried over everything we had just heard and she has decided to go through with the surgery as it has the greatest chance to remove the cancer and be done with it. She is determined to not have the feeding tube and to learn to eat again as soon as possible. We then went down to have the pre-surgery blood work done, this was painless, well I thought so. Stephanie had to fill up four or five vials of blood, and then have an x-ray taken of her chest.

The surgery is scheduled for Monday April 19th. These past couple of days have been some of the hardest yet, I think because of the reality of everything hitting home.

This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.