A Day Like No Other

Hi everyone. Heather's husband Mark here. I know that any post I write will not even come close to those my wife puts together on a nightly basis.....but here goes. Poor Miss Zoey.
Her day started at 5 am and hasn't really ended yet and it's 11:40 pm as I write this. She has literally been poked and pricked from head to toe. Heather drove Zoey to the hospital while I got the boys together for their day. Taylor stayed home to help out and she did a fantastic job! I eventually met them at noon, just in time to get the bad news from her oncologist. That's right, her oncologist. We used to call him her hematologist but that all changed today after the results of her bone marrow biopsy came back.....AML. We knew the second he walked into the room by the look on his face. That just added to the already messed up day. (Heather will fill you in when she gets the computer in her hands...watch out!) The short version is that no one walked us through the bioposy procedure, one nurse attempted to use a dirty pulse oximeter she had picked up off the floor, another nurse asked, "Does she have a central line?" The answer was no. "Oh, well, I have to draw blood." OK. This is a children's hospital. You would think they draw blood on a regular basis...right? WRONG. Heather asked is she was comfortable with it, and her answer was a resounding, "Been doin' it for 37 years!" Really, then why were you not able to get it on the first or second try and have to eventually give up and send us to another floor to get it done. Heather was bitter to say the least. I'll leave it at that. Then Zoey gets the biopsy done. Heather didn't know what to expect because nobody explained anything to her. They basically just took her away and said they'd be back in 15 minutes. Nice Job people. Way to make a nervous mom feel at ease with this "let's find out if she has cancer thing" we're trying to figure out. It gets better. We meet with the Doctor, and he gives us the news. Just as we suspected. Shocker! The Doc then tells us they don't have any beds available on the cancer floor and that we might have to go home and come back tomorrow. I don't think so. We have already turned the family inside out saying Zoey wouldn't be home for a while. We can't go home and then do it all over again the next day! We waited for three agonizing hours for a bed, and went through the gammut of emotions during those three hours. At 6:15 we got to the room and met some very nice doctors and nurses. We were told by the Oncologist on the floor that they weren't going to touch Zoey tonight. There was no need. We'll just let her be and catch up on her much needed rest. HA! As of the time of this posting, there have been three attempts from different people to draw blood from arms and ankles. Another long needle stick in her arm for a TB test. She loved that. And to top it off, the reason for the problems is because of all the previous botched jobs. Wow. And because they don't know if the line they eventually got will still be good in the morning, they may have to do it all over again because they will need more labs. Phew.....I'm exhausted thinking about it and getting it out for you. I can only imagine how Heather is doing. She is amazing. The best Mommy any child could ever have. The best wife a man could ever have. Love and Faith....her foundations. I can only hope and pray that tomorrow is a better day. That she manages to get a little rest. As for little Miss Zoey ... she will get a port put into her chest in the morning for all of her meds to be administered. While she's sedated they will also do a lumbar punch to check her spinal fluid for any leukemia cells. The Oncologist said that they could start her first round of chemotherapy in the afternoon. We want to make sure that there are no conflicts with her seizure medication before we start. They tell us to prepare for four days per treatment. She then has to rebound. Depending on how long that takes, we could stay 2, 3 maybe 4 weeks. If she responds well we can bring her home between courses. If not, we'll have to stay through until the next course starts. I believe they are planning on five or six rounds. Time will tell. Please, please continue to raise our family up in your prayers. Thanks to all for your support. Without you, this new journey would be even more difficult.

Did this post actually turn out to be longer than one of Heather's? I don't know if that's possible. I only hope that it comes remotely close to hers, and let's you all get a glimpse of what today was like. Stay tuned.....