Remember how I mentioned that we had to wait even longer to get Nathan's test results because they had to be sent off for further testing? Well, the kids had lots of things going on that pretty much kept our minds off of it for a couple of days. That was good. And, of course, those things have yet to be put on the blog, but one day I'll catch up...Maybe.
On Thursday, May 13th around 4:00 pm, I was sitting on the couch cracking up and texting away with a friend when Nathan's phone rings. He said, "It's the doctor" and quickly went back to another room.Deep down, I already knew what the doctor was going to say. I just really wanted to be wrong. I kept texting, but Nathan was on the phone longer than expected so, I tried to listen a little bit at the door. I couldn't make out much, but I could tell by his responses that it probably wasn't good. I immediately texted to my friend that I thought he just gotten bad news from the doctor.
I was right.
It was one of those phone calls that you never want to get in life. A phone call that confirms that you or your spouse does officially have cancer. CANCER! How is this even possibly happening to our family when we're only 30 years old and still have relatively young children?
I walked into the room when the phone call ended and he instantly broke down. The word cancer being associated with your body is horrendous enough and hard to take in, but he was almost more upset about having to go through more surgery. He just really, really, really didn't want to...And understandably so.
Nathan wanted to go ahead and tell the kids instead of keeping the truth of what was really going on from them. I was fine with that except that he hadn't really had time to process it all and get his thoughts together. And I was about to take them to Cole's baseball practice.We sat the kids down to tell them the news of the cancer and the plan for more surgery. It was awful. Just awful. Cole freaked out when Nathan said that he had cancer and just started crying immediately. That made Nathan start to lose it, but the noise he made when he was breaking down sounded a little like he was laughing so, Brooke started giggling and told him that it wasn't funny that Cole was crying. I had to tell Brooke that daddy wasn't laughing and try to get her to focus on the seriousness of the situation. She never understood what was going on and what we were all talking about but, she did try to squeeze out some fake tears after a while.
My emotions were all over the place. I was trying to be strong for Nathan because both of us didn't need to cry in front of the kids. I was also trying to sound very positive while explaining things in kid terms so that Cole wouldn't be so scared and upset. But, at the same time, I was so aggravated with Brooke for acting silly during all of it.
And just like that, we had to totally switch gears and head off to baseball practice. Nathan stayed home to make a couple of phone calls and take some time for himself. My mind was going a million miles a minute during the short drive there, but the kids seemed to have forgotten about it. Cole ran on the field and was in total baseball mode, and Brooke started running around all of the trees just like she usually does. One of the coaches said hi to Brooke and asked her how she was doing and she shockingly told him that her dad was going to have more surgery. And then she continued running around. They were way far off so I had no clue that she told him until he came up to me and asked me what was going on. We never told anyone before the first surgery, but he was the one of the few on the team to know about it afterwards. I gave him all the details, he offered to help in any way, and then just as he was leaving, he yelled out that one of the dads out there was a cancer doctor.
That was slightly awkward but, I went and talked to the guy anyway. He's an oncologist. I don't think he quite liked talking about work stuff outside of work but, he did give me some good information. He was also very familiar with Nathan's doctor and his work. One of the moms overheard us talking and came up to me after practice and offered to help. Even though we've lived here for a year now, we really don't know anybody that well so, it was really nice to suddenly have people that I could actually feel comfortable with asking for help.
Nathan and I met with his doctor early the next morning to go over the details of what was to happen next. The papillary cancer that was found was a fairly large amount, and the only option was to have more surgery to remove the remaining half of the thyroid. And because of this, Nathan will be required to take a pill for the rest of his life to replace what his body will be without post surgery. Trying to figure out the right dosage that his body needs will be the hardest part because it could take a long time.
So much for the incision healing up because it has to be completely sliced open again for a do-over.
Life throws curve balls at you doesn't it? You just never know if that next phone call is going to drastically change your life...Good or bad.
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