Day One

Monday was quite a day at MD Anderson. We arrived in Houston on Sunday night only knowing that we had an appointment at noon on Monday. Once we checked in we were given our schedule for Monday and Tuesday. It was a full plate for Monday, 12 - Preliminary paper work, 1 - First meeting with Dr Habra, 2:15 - Labs, 2:30 - Chest X-ray, 2:50 - no more food in preparation for the CT Scan, 5:50 - CT scan prep, and 7:20 - CT scan. It felt a little like the first day at camp. Really that isn't a bad analogy, as opposed to most hospital settings where people tend to sit quietly and keep to themselves, most folks here were pretty chatty, probably because everyone knew they were there for the same thing. Also like camp the "veterans" were quick to share a smile and point you in the right direction.

Anyway, the schedule got blown within the first 45 minutes when the power went out to the whole campus. Of course we were back in an exam room and for about 30 seconds it was pitch black. It was just long enough for me to run through all of the options and decide to work my way back to the windowed waiting room, but not long enough to actually do it. So once the power came back we had a quick meeting with the Dr, where he explained to Triann that she was not a statistic and that once they ran all of their own tests we would all sit down together and make out a plan. Triann really liked that, especially since all we have heard thus far were the percentages. We then took off to the Lab for her blood work and X-ray's. I saw a sign for blood donations and snuck off there for about 30 minutes. We thought after that we would head back to the hotel and see the kids for a few and decided to walk to the train station that was "only a block away", well everything is bigger in Texas and 15 minutes later when we arrived at the station we realized that we would never make it back in time and even if we did with my recent blood loss and Triann still healing we didn't really have it in us, so we settled for a phone call to the room and a quick date at Starbucks. I will digress for one more moment and say that it has been amazing the amount of quality time we have been able to spend since this started, another gift.

We made it to the imaging department at 5:30 and took a seat in a very full waiting room. We were immediately engaged by a group of "veterans". I honestly thought they were all there together the way they were laughing and carrying on, but found out that they had all just met in the waiting room. We were quickly included in the conversation that was hovering around the best barium flavor. The options apparently were banana, cherry, berry and the recent addition apple. Triann quickly turned green as she had not realized she would be required to drink that and was in denial until she was called back and returned to us with a berry flavored "barium smoothie" in her hand. Now Triann's appetite has not been so hot since the surgery and she doesn't eat much right now, so the prospect of drinking 2 containers of any flavor barium did not sit well with her. As a matter of fact it wasn't just the prospect, the actual barium didn't sit well either and she stalled with one sip left of her first container. When the nurse (dubbed the bar keep by our group) returned with the second container, she took one look at Triann's green hue and told her it would be better to keep the one down then try for the second and lose it all. This of course made Triann feel guilty as if she hadn't "finished her homework" (her words) but all the guilt in the world didn't change the fact that she was relieved to take a break.

Things were obviously still behind schedule from the power outage and the fact that Monday's are the busiest day for them, so she wasn't called back for the scan until 8:30. I sat and visited with the significant others of the veterans since all our wives were back there and slowly they came out and left. At 10:45 I was the last one in the waiting room and I had just watched about 13 folks in white Dr jackets leave, I was starting to get worried so I started working my way back into the imaging department. Luckily the cleaning crew was working, not so lucky not many of them spoke english, but eventually we used gestures and interpretive dance and I was able to find my way to where Triann was waiting. What I found out was that she was waiting for the effects of here allergic reaction to the iodine to wear off. I was a little ticked as we had talked with them about that risk, but really was too tired to make too big of a stink. They let us leave around 11:20 and grabbed a burger at Wendy's on the way back to the hotel.

As a result of the iodine issue (you can read more about that on Triann's Blog) the second scan of her neck and head was cancelled (the Dr said he could see enough of the neck from the scan on Monday). So now we are on our own until we meet with the Dr on Thursday.

We are both pretty excited to have some time to look around town and hang out with the kids. Thanks again and again for all the prayers and support and we will keep you updated on what is going on.