A Day of Thankfulness…

Day 180, Thursday, November 23, 2017

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite days of the year…not just because its a day to stuff our faces full of food but because great and wonderful changes in my life have always been around this holiday.   Last year, a day before Turkey Day I was offered a new job…something that I had thought was out of reach and I thought would never happen…but I got the call regardless and I felt like I was stepping into an exciting next phase into my career after years of feeling unappreciated and like I was never going to progress.

This year with everything happening, I was not looking forward Thanksgiving.  I have plenty of things to be thankful for this year, but I just couldn’t get excited knowing that we still have a long road ahead of us in my recovery.  My chest was still hurting me on Monday and I was anxious to hear back from the doctor to see if the biopsy results had come in, so I sent an email to Dr. Farol to ask him if he could please call me before Thursday so I didn’t have to wait the long weekend to know what the plan is going to be.  Monday passed and no phone call and no email back.  Tuesday morning I kept checking my phone but by 12 o’clock – still no phone call so I decided to take a nap.  When I woke up around 2, there were 3 missed calls: one from Kaiser Riverside, one from Kaiser Ontario and one from Kaiser Los Angeles.

I can’t believe I slept through 3 missed calls…it has to be really important if all three are trying to get to me….

If you have Kaiser medical insurance, then you know how awful it is to try to get a hold of your doctor.  They make you call an 800-number only to have to jump through 5 levels of automated menus to reach a phone operator who sends an electronic message to whoever you are trying to reach and then tells you that you have to wait for a call back in the next 48 hours….UGH.  When I finally got a hold of the doctors office, I was told I needed to schedule a consult with radiation.

-No. No. No. Radiation is not an option.  Can you please check the notes from Dr. Farol? He specifically stated no radiation so why are scheduling me for a consult?!?

-We’re sorry Mrs. Barron but that’s what your file says.  You have to call radiation/oncology to see why you are being referred. 

-Can I please speak to Dr. Jang?

-No. Mrs. Barron – you HAVE to call radiology/oncology.

So again, I jump through the same 5 levels of automated menus and finally get to appointment scheduler in radiology/oncology and have to explain my case all over again…

-I’m sorry Mrs. Barron but I can’t explain to your why you are being referred.  You have to speak to Dr. Jang.

– I just spoke with Dr. Jang’s office and they said to call you, so can you please let me know why I’m being referred?

-No Mrs. Barron you’ll have to call Dr. Farol’s office then…

I call Dr. Farol’s office only to have the nurse tell me that she is going to send a message to Dr. Farol to call me back…so I wait for another 30 minutes before I reached my limit.  I remembered that I had the direct number to the Dr. Farol’s Stem Cell Patient Coordinator, Pacita – and I called her to get to the bottom of everything.

-Oh hey Mrs. Barron, I was just about to call you! Dr. Farol just sent you an email, but since you are on the phone….your biopsy results came back and it is negative.

-I’m sorry….what? What did you just say?

-We are referring you for a radiation consult Mrs. Barron.  The biopsy was negative. YAY!

-I’m sorry…what? What did you just say?

-Mrs. Barron….this is a good thing.  The tumor is dead…you are in partial remission.  Radiology/oncology is going to call you to schedule a consult.  You don’t need the stem cell treatment.  Check your email!

The email from Dr. Farol was much more technical, but confirmed my earlier phone conversation.  Dr. Farol was taken aback by the results but wished me well in my future recovery.

That’s it? No more fighting?  No more having to gear up for the next wave?  Are you sure?  Are you reading the results right?  Are you sure you have the right file in front of you?  We had mentally been preparing ourselves for more chemo, hospitals and more stress…we were ready to fight and go to battle….and in a blink of an eye…

GEORGE IS DEAD.
I’M IN PARTIAL REMISSION.
NO MORE CHEMO.
NO CITY OF HOPE.
NO STEM CELL THERAPY.
GEORGE IS DEAD.

Its not so easy to for me to describe my emotions between Tuesday and today.  I think because I have spent the last 6 months fighting, its hard for me to snap out of fight mode.  We shared the news with our Pastor and his wife first, then our home group on Tuesday night.  I spent most of Wednesday trying to switch gears from fight mode to recovery mode and decided not to post anything on the blog until we had a chance to share with our family in person.

Turns out that being in Cancer Limbo in the last month and hitting all the delays was God working on His timeline not ours…to be able to get the results the week of Thanksgiving and then to be told right before that I’m in remission…so that I can truly understand the meaning of giving thanks. I decided early this morning that I just need to spend today reflecting on the true meaning of thankfulness.  I can think about the next steps tomorrow, but today I can be grateful for answered prayers….