Well, Andrew continues to feel strong! He's putting in full days at work and bothered only by a bit of back pain and other minor bone-type aches that we suspect are the remnants of Monday's shot. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be 100% (and with a smaller tumor!)
Tomorrow (Thurs) we head to Johns Hopkins to meet with a blood/bone marrow oncologist for a second opinion. I am absolutely dreading this. I do not want to wake up at 5:45am! I do not want to drive over an hour to get to Baltimore by 7:30am. I do not want to learn that our insurance doesn't cover second opinions. I do not want to encounter conflict, say, if this doctor tells us everything we're doing is wrong/dangerous/useless. And I most definitely do NOT want to ask the tough questions like, "So what are our options if this treatment doesn't work?" "What do we do now so we don't preclude future treatments (e.g. a bone marrow transplant) should the cancer come back?"
I want to believe that what we are doing is right on track; that we don't need to worry; that we can have total faith in all this confusing medical stuff. But we all know this isn't the way it works. Life is messy and complicated and sad. And we cannot control the future. Fortunately, Andrew and I believe in a God who does hold the future in His hands and He won't be surprised by any of the answers we get tomorrow even if we are.
So please pray that we have a "good" meeting with this doctor. We'd like to be able to "track" with him and to feel as if he has thoroughly reviewed all the materials we FedEx-ed him earlier this week. We'd love for him to confirm the R-EPOCH course of treatment. But we'll take prayers too for the small details like a good nights sleep, sweet time together in the car, no additional tests (i.e. blood drawn) for AJ, a chance for me to swim tomorrow.
Thanks as always for all the meals, calls, emails, and Christmas cards! It is indeed awesome to feel so loved.
praying for simple joys to come your way. including a swim! with you
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