suebaby

The latest MRI recap

So... I didn't talk about this before it happened because I just didn't want to, but it's done and over with now, and I felt that I would share the chain of events with you all. On Friday, Jack had his fifth scheduled MRI in a year (we've also since visited with the neurosurgeon and everything remains fine... Yahoo!).

Thursday night, if you remember, was the night of the "Killer Tornadoes" hit, as the media lovingly calls them. And, well, obviously, they're not wrong. Last I heard, twenty people died. It was pretty bad. Anyway, so yeah, Thursday the tornadoes hit. At 5:45am Friday morning, our alarm went off and we woke up to rain. We thought nothing of it and proceeded to nervously get Jack up and get ready to go. We had to be checked in at the hospital at 7:00am and the hospital is in downtown Orlando. We get ready and get in our cars and I hear on the radio about these tornadoes that hit northeast of us and that they think about fifteen people have died. As I contemplate this, they continue with info about how most of the highways and interstates are either closed or extremely backed up due to accidents and weather. I call Keith who was following in his car and update him. We get on the turnpike anyway. Traffic is heavy and it's really rainy. Not a few minutes later, they say on the radio that there's an accident on the turnpike at our exit. A quick call to Keith and we have devised our alternative routes to the hospital. More rain, traffic, and nerves. All the while, tornado warnings are in effect for pretty much everywhere. Not to mention, Keith's car starts dying on the way. Eeeek.

We arrive at the hospital about seven minutes late. Not bad at all. We find our way and I check us in at registration, with quite possibly, the rudest hospital administration person I've ever met (and we've done this several times now!) Maybe her house got destroyed... at least that's the only excuse I can think of for being so shitty to people bringing their kids to a children's hospital at seven am after a night of tornados and what not. Anyway...

We go to radiology and I breathe a little sigh of relief. We are pretty much home free at this point... in some ways. Then they tell us that due to weather, the MRI machine is not working and we're welcome to stay to see if they can fix it... What? This isn't freaking disneyworld where Small World breaks down and we all stand in line an extra fifteen minutes. This is my kid, his head, his cyst, and our lives that we've lived around this moment for at least six months. Doesn't matter. The thing's broken.

Then Arnell comes out. The sweetest nurse/ tech/ dr./ I don't even know what he was. Arnell basically tells us he's tight with our neurologist and he's going to call him on his cell to see if we can change the MRI to a CT scan instead. We are fine with this, and Arnell seems to think Dr. Trumble will be too. But will our insurance company be fine with this? As Arnell calls Dr. T., Keith calls Aetna and basically is on the phone for the next hour arguing/ bargaining/ arranging/ talking to who even knows.

I meanwhile chase the oblivious Jack all around Arnold Palmer hospital. Suddenly I really begin to appreciate the fact that it's a children's hospital and there are indoor playgrounds and toys everywhere.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Jack and I become friends with Scotty and his dad. Now, I really don't want to pull on anyone's heart strings too much, or start crying again myself, but Scotty is a five year old with Down's Syndrome, leukemia, and a cyst in his spine. And he's of course the sweetest and cutest kid you've ever seen. His dad is great and seemed to be extremely well adjusted, considering. We traded hospital stories and diagnoses for awhile. Jack played with Scotty. Some people just stared at Scotty. I felt bad for them.

Eventually, Arnell comes and finds Jack and I and tells us that Aetna's approved the CT scan and Keith was settling things up in the business office. We head back to radiology, say goodbye to Scotty and Jack and Keith go in for the CT scan. Now this is a bit of a mystery to me because Keith has always been the one to go in with Jack. They came out a few minutes later and Jack was weepy but he smiled when he saw me.

We then got the hell out of there. It was almost 11:00 by this point.

We went home and spent time together, doing nothing really. On Sunday, we kept busy at Islands of Adventure and then with the Superbowl. Monday morning we had our appt. with Dr. T. and luckily there were no natural disasters to conflict with that.

Dr. Trumble, who continues to be one of the most amazing people I've ever met, met with us, said everything looks fine, no changes, let's do it again in a year and see where we're at. I was so happy and relieved but couldn't really show it. I actually felt pretty down at the same time. Weird.

In the waiting room to see Dr. Trumble, we met another family who was there to meet with the dr. for the first time. They were with their little boy, who was probably about five. They asked if we liked Dr. Trumble, which we basically screamed, "Yes, we love him!!!" Then the dad asked me something about if we'd had to do a lot of "treatments" for our son yet. I really didn't know what he meant, so I just explained about Jack's diagnosis and what we were doing there. We got the feeling that this other little boy had much more somber diagnosis, based on little things that his parents said while we were talking. The dad also looked to be in the middle of his own emotional meltdown.

Something about seeing that family and meeting Scotty caused a weird combination of thankfullness and guilt. Our situation is so not bad compared to some other people, so much so, that I actually feel kind of bad when talking to other parents who's kids are battling cancer.

This has been a hard year and a long road, but we've learned a lot and most of the things I have learned are through the people that we've met along the way. People really can be amazingly strong and good to each other and their kids. I'm lucky.

posted by suebaby @ 10:38 AM