D Day: Diagnosis Day 5/16/12

Enloe Hospital, 5 AM Wednesday May 16, 2012. 

Wednesday morning dawned with a sense of foreboding.  The theme of the day was "hurry up and wait."  Neither of us slept that night because of nerves and uncomfortable hospital beds.  They were out of couches so I had a lawn chair-like seat that did nothing to induce sleep.  Our room was a flurry of activity all night with nurses and techs coming in and out.  Willie had an IV placed while we were in the ER the night before, but that had become blocked so somewhere around 1 AM his night nurse took out that site and started a new line in his wrist. The lab techs came in at 5 AM and took more blood from Willie.  We hadn't even been in the hospital for a day and his arms were already riddled with needle sticks and medical tape.  It seemed like everyone wanted blood from him, but we knew it was important since it was for the purpose of finding a diagnosis. 
That day we had an amazing male nurse who took perfect care of Willie.  The lab work showed that Will's red blood cells had dropped again overnight so our nurse started him on a blood transfusion in the morning and by mid day Will had received 2 units of red blood cells. It's a weird feeling to be stuck in the limbo of waiting for a diagnosis.  In some ways the day flies by because of the constant activity around you, but when you remember why you are waiting, the minutes pass like hours.  We were not planning on receiving word back from the bone marrow biopsy until Friday so thoughts of receiving any diagnosis that day were not present.  Will's mom came over to be with us and we spent the evening together.  She was just getting ready to leave when Dr. Lombardi showed up.  He is the Dr. who had performed the bone marrow biopsy the day before and he had been checking in on us periodically to let us know that we were still waiting on results.  This night he came in and got straight to business.  The scene will forever be burned in my mind.
I was laying in bed next to Willie so his mom could sit on our one and only chair.  She had just got up to get things ready to leave when the door opened and Dr. Lombardi entered the room.  The sun was setting and our room with filled with the soft glow of the fading light.  Dr. Lombardi looks like he should be on the cover of GQ magazine.  He always appears in perfect form, his button up shirts fresh and wrinkle free and pants perfectly creased.  He looks to be in his mid to late 40's with an athletic build and a crop of dark hair that is combed back so carefully that you can see the comb lines between the section of hair.  He has deep circles under his eyes that give away his long hours of tireless work with his oncology patients.  He is a fast talker and seems to anticipate every question before it is even asked.  We had only known this man for 24 hours and already we felt that he was a good friend.  We had yet to see him travel without a black bag in each hand so when he entered the room that night and placed his bags on the floor we assumed we would be reaching into one of them to remove items to exam Willie with.  That didn't happen.  Instead, he placed his bags on the floor and grabbed onto the bottom of the bed.
"We have a diagnosis" he said, then without even taking a breath or waiting for us to catch ours he continued "Willie has Acute Myeloid Luekemia." 
I always wondered what these moments were like for people who have received news like this.  In my vision, the doctor came in and asked how the patient was, inquired about the events of the day, maybe even performed an exam before delivering the news.  Heck, we would have even settled for a simple "How are you?" 
It felt like he had dropped a bomb in our room.  He continued to talk about what the next steps in the treatment would be and what we could expect to see happen.  I watched his lips moving and knew that what he was saying was important, but I couldn't focus on any of it. 
Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  That's all I could think. The words just kept playing through my head like they were on a never ending repeat reel.  We were all in shock.  Willie later said that it felt like Dr. Lombardi came in and dropped a ton of bricks on us.  It was heavy news indeed.
He continued to talk for another 10 minutes and somewhere near the end I began to tune back in.  He explained that we would need to go to UC San Francisco or Stanford for care.  These cases are time sensitive so he said he would get things going that very minute and we could expect to transfer sometime in the middle of the night, or the next morning at the latest.  With that, he left the room with a promise to check in on us in the morning, if we were still there.
It was 7:30 PM on May 16, 2012 and our lives had just changed forever.
We all burst into tears the second he left.  His Mom left to call his Dad and sister and Will and I were alone for a moment.
"I'm so scared" he whispered.  The words hung in the quiet hospital air. He was speaking for both of us.  I've never felt fear like that before.  I couldn't stop shaking.  What were we going to do?  How in the world were we going to face this?  The tears slowly began to subside as the diagnosis settled in.  His Mom returned and reported that his Dad and sister were on the way.  We dried our eyes and got to work, discussing the logistics of the move.  Who was going to take over his business?  How were we going to run the nutrition shop?  How long would we be in San Fransisco?  How were we going to pay for everything?  We didn't even have insurance confirmation yet!
The only thing that was sure was that we were in this together and we are going to beat this together.  We had a short family meeting that night to work out a plan of action.  Suddenly it was midnight.  The time that had been moving so slowly was now spinning out of control as we were moving closer to our transfer to the coast.  A social worker came in about 1 AM and reported that UC San Fransisco didn't have a bed available so we would not be able to go there.  We were disappointed.  We have personal friends who have had treatments at UCSF and wanted to go there based on their referrals, but now our only option was Stanford.   That night we did the only thing we could and prayed that we would be directed to the hospital that is best for us.  We were both filled with peace and felt that things would work out.  All we could do was wait for further instructions...