Back On The Ranch

Well, I'm back home and I couldn't be happier. Humm, I guess that's not totally true. Let me apologize for the confusion and emotional up and down roller coaster ride of the past week. We were simply relaying information as we got it.

To make sure we are all on the same page, let me break down the various diagnoses of the past couple of weeks.

    Going into my surgery last Friday, the diagnosis was that I had a very rare cancer called Sarcoma. This sucked but was very treatable. The key thing was getting the tumor itself out of my body in one complete piece. This was the best diagnosis with the test results and small biopsy that they had. If the tumor was taken out completely then I was going to have to move on to radiation treatment and the lovely plastic pants but after that I would be done and hopefully cancer free.

    After a very long surgery on Friday, the lead surgeon who specialized in Sarcoma Tumors told us that he was confident it was not a Sarcoma Tumor but was in fact this "Mediastinal teratoma" that Bek posted about earlier. As far as additional treatment, there was none; the surgery was it, I was done after that. No cancer at all. Just needed to heal from that and I was back in the game. Now understand, the surgeon wasn't shooting from the hip to make a family happy, as I mentioned earlier there were several “lead” surgeons in for this operation and they all shared in the findings. As a matter of fact a few of the surgeons and other doctors whom I had been seeing over the past few weeks were happy to drop by and share how relieved they were to find the teratoma and how it must have be a huge weight of my shoulder.
    The tumor itself was sent off to Pathology just to make the findings “official” and the only other thing there was to focus one was my recovery.
    Then yesterday, the doctor made his normal stop off at my room as he had been doing all week but this time he pulled up a chair and sat down; I knew there was a problem. He started off with an apology; this wasn't going to be good. He explained how they had been running multiple tests on the tumor and discovered it was in fact a Yolk Sac Tumor and that I was back to having cancer only this time it wasn't as easy of a cancer to treat and cure. Matter of fact, there will not be a way to tell if I am ever completely cancer free.

Unfortunately, the Lead Surgeon who performed the operation and had been checking up on me everyday, chose to defer any cancer questions we had to our Oncologist. On the one hand this really concerns me and on the other hand I can totally understand this. So we find ourselves in a familiar position of not really having enough information to relay any type of full details to everyone. For now I am just happy to be back home and with all the women in my life. I am pretty tired right now so I will post more information of what we do know over the next couple of days. I would also like to thank all the people who have taken the time to post comments, emails, phone calls, and drop by; especially my sister, who flew out here from the east coast last week and has been helping out a lot. Thank you also to all the friends who have been helping out by watching the girls as Bek and I ran to different multiple doctor appointments, and supplying wonderful dinners to help lighten our very hectic schedules. It is really comforting to know how many caring people we have out there thinking and praying for us. Thank you again for all the support you are providing.