Tears/Laughter, Faint Heart/Happy Heart.

WHAT a day this was.  Part of it was AWful and part of it was WONDERful.  Amazing that my heart has survived this whirlwind of emotion.

I made you a video this morning, but it turned out half-blurred.  I guess I was too far away from the camera, and I moved around so much, the camera had a shutter attack or something.  It is just a little Sony Cyber-shot camera.

The day started out by the phone ringing.  It was the doctor's office saying they wanted to see Jerry at 1:00 instead of 3:00 today.  I was thrilled about that.  Let's get this show on the road!

I wanted to MAKE SURE they had what they needed from ER, so I ASKED the guy:  Do you have everything you need from Baptist ER.  "YES", he said.  It is right here.

We went to get a burger for lunch, which Jerry ate without incident.  Then we headed to meet the doctor.  We arrived early and signed in.  In a few moments the nurse opened the door and said "Jerry?".  We walked over to her, and she asked the question that set off the Joy-fuse.  "Do you have the disk?"  I told her they already had it, and that I had verified it when the guy called this morning.  She said they had only the paperwork.  They had no disk.

THEN she said that she had told Jerry when they called him earlier this week that he needed to get the disk from Baptist.  That, of course, shed light on the whole problem.  You don't tell Jerry.  You tell ME!

We had to leave Mercy and drive all the way to Baptist hospital.  We had to go to the Radiology Lab on the 2nd floor and wait for the disk to be delivered.  They copied Jerry's license and made him sign something, and we were off again to Mercy to the doctor.

We arrived back there at 1:45, which was amazing.  I couldn't believe it hadn't taken longer.  The door opened, and the nurse called us back to the exam room.  GREAT, I thought.  We are still going to get right in.

WRONG!!!  We waited one and a half hours in that exam room.  At one hour, I opened the door and stuck my head out.  The nurse was at a desk in the hallway.  I told her we had been in there an hour and asked if it was going to be much longer.  "He will be in in a few minutes", she snapped.  Thirty minutes later, he arrived.  I was in tears by then and it was obvious.  I think it is SO RUDE of those places to just shut you in a room and not communicate with you.  We would have been much more comfortable out in the big waiting room with magazines, a bathroom and a pot of coffee.

ANYWAY.  Dr. Ellis finally came in.  He was a very monotone, soft spoken type.  He had no reaction at all to any of the paperwork or the disk.  I even asked him if he had seen them.  If a bomb blew him off his little stool with the spinning round seat, he wouldn't have blinked.  I, of course, looked like a bomb had already hit me somewhere.  I was all sniffy and emotional from the long wait.  He asked a few questions like "Does it hurt?"  "When did you first notice pain?"  "Have you had cancer before?"

I blurted out, "DID YOU SEE THE DISK?"  He did.  I asked what he thought about it.  He said Jerry's spleen was swollen.  He didn't even mention the lesions in it at first.    We asked him most of the questions.  I asked if he saw the lesions.  He said there were some.  He acted like he might yawn and fall asleep any second.  From what I can remember from his very non-emotional responses, this is the deal:

Jerry MAY or MAY NOT have Lymphoma.  Jerry MAY or MAY NOT have to have his spleen removed.  The lesions in Jerry's spleen MAY or MAY not require chemotherapy.  Jerry's spleen will NOT explode unless he is in a wreck or has a hard impact in which case any spleen could explode.  Jerry will be scheduled to have a Pet Scan so the doctor can see all of his organs.  Jerry will also have to have a colonoscopy.  All of that will be next week.  We will see the doc again next Thursday to go over the results.  Between now and then the doc will talk to his Oncology doctor buds to see what they all think.

Honestly, he was a very nice -- very knowledgeable doctor.  Jerry liked him a lot.  Much like Jerry's temperament.  I am the type to REACT immediately and then think about all the things I said wrong and wish I had done differently.  Jerry will interview everyone involved and their next door neighbor, and six months later, you MIGHT get a response out of him.  By then nobody can remember what the discussion was about to start with!

Opposites do attract, you know!

For some reason, as unfinal as that all was, I feel so RELIEVED.  I feel like my husband is going to live to be a very old man with this very hyperactive old lady.  I won't have to do payroll.  I won't have to figure out how to handle all of our investments.  I won't have to figure out how to sell his bulldozer and his tractor and unload the hundreds of old wheelchairs and other medical equipment out of his big, blue barn.

I won't have to do anything but love him, keep on sewing and keep on making jewelry.  YAY!

That was good, but that wasn't the Laughing, Happy Heart part, although a VERY heavy load has been lifted from my heart.  There is a lot of hope tonight instead of dread fear of the unknown.

The happy part was when we went to visit Mom at the Hospice Home.  She had just had a bath and her hair was washed.  She was in fresh bedding and a clean gown.  Jerry and I walked into her room.  I was on one side of her bed and Jerry was on the other side.  I started stroking her forehead and holding her hand.  Her blue eyes POPPED wide open.  She looked at me, and then she looked at Jerry.  I said, "Mom, Jerry and I are here to see you.  Do you know who we are."  She looked at us and made a sound while lifting her other arm up near her face.  I knew she realized who we were and that we were there.  I started talking about how nice she looked -- how pretty her blue eyes are -- how nice her hair looked with a relaxed perm and hair dye.  I told her she smelled really good and her bed was so fresh and clean.  She kept trying to talk, but couldn't.  Her upper teeth are dentures, and they are here in a container.  I asked her if she would like to have her teeth.

At one point I said:

"Mom, you should get a GOLD MEDAL for having the MOST broken bones."

She started GIGGLING out loud.

WOW!  I was SO EXCITED.  I texted Jeannie.  Jeannie was so excited, she called me for more details.  It was really wonderful.  She was really "back with us" for a short time.

I asked Jerry to turn on TV Land on the television hanging from her ceiling.  Mom watched TV Land 24/7 even before she had dementia.  She slept with it on all night long.  She has to have seen every episode of Bonanza and Gunsmoke a million times.

In case you can't tell, that cartoon is supposed to be Ben Cartwright from Bonanza.  LOL

Jerry and I used to kid her about how many times she must have seen what she was watching and she would say, "This is the FIRST TIME I've ever seen this!"

We stayed for 2 hours and enjoyed her sitting up in bed and almost watching TV with us.  She fell back into a deep sleep before we left.  It was such a blessing to share that time with her.

That's it folks.  TV time.  Jerry still hasn't figured out how to get the sound back so we can watch Amazon or Netflix, so we are stuck watching Fox News.  I am to the point where I don't want to hear ANY NEWS.  I just want to hear "happy".  I don't think there is any of that on TV these days.

I better get.

Hugs, Joy