MRI results

Yesterday was an exhausting day. We had our 7:15 appointment at the fertility clinic to discuss harvesting eggs. The clinic here doesn't harvest and freeze eggs, instead they do embryos. Apparently embryos are hardier for the freezing process. We learned a lot of other things too, but I'll spare you all the details.

Our appointment included a lot of information. Much of this information we considered to be important life decisions that we would normally think about over a fair amount of time, not 12ish hours. Unfortunately we do not have time, so instead we were completely overwhelmed. To help they had us meet with the clinic's counselor at 11:30. In the end we had just enough time to run home and let the dogs out, change diapers on the kiddos and then turn around and get to the second appointment. In a lot of ways the second appointment was helpful, but we still did not have a decision. Worse yet, Geoff was leaning towards no, and I was leaning towards yes, but neither of us were happy with our stances.

In the end it was a decision we didn't have to make for ourselves. I got the results from Thursday's MRI. The results showed that the mass that was originally thought to be about 2 cm is 2.4 x 4.2 x 4.9. There was also some concern that two pelvic sidewall lymph nodes being compromised. As soon as I heard this news, I knew our decision had been made for us and for that I was relieved....yet I suspected all of treatment plans just changed.

Geoff was driving while I was on the phone getting the news and he was desperately trying to figure out what was happening. Since my oncologist was out of town yesterday, my NP consulted with some of the other oncologists and she confirmed that the general recommendation was to move forward with treatment asap and this may mean starting with chemo and radiation instead of surgery. In reality we won't know until our 8am appoint Monday morning with my oncologist.

I'll admit it, I was crushed. I tried to take the news like a champ, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear. Fortunately for us we had friends from MN that were planning to spend a night at our house on their way back home from a family vacation. Having the two of them and their kids made all the difference in the world. They made dinner for us and were generally awesome while we tried to keep functioning. After we got all the kids to bed (except Ella, of course), we stayed up late drinking wine/beer and chatting. It was exactly what we needed. Thanks guys!

This morning all the kids ran around played until they left late morning. E was intent on giving their 4 year old daughter a good-bye kiss. All of the parents did the appropriate thing and laughed. (I asked E about it tonight as we were putting him to bed and he said "ya, she didn't want me to kiss her" like it was the most absolutely absurd thing in the world).

Shortly after they left we made plans with a neighbor family to meet up at the pool. This really wasn't something I should have done today, but I realized I don't know if I'll be able to go again after this week for quite some time, so pool it was. It was great.

From there we went to my work. I needed to pick up a few things and I really wanted to see the nurses I've been orientating with. I've been feeling bad that I'm not at work, especially this weekend. Visiting was good because I learned it hasn't been terribly busy this past week, I was able to see all the people that were working with me when I got my news (haven't seen them since), and they were able to meet my family.

We got home just in time to have a late dinner and have a visit from our pastor. I won't go into details except that by the end of the visit we were feeling much less emotional and we totally got a free pass on church in the morning...He told us that if were sleeping, we should stay sleeping. This is good because we are EXHAUSTED! We need the sleep and so do the kids.