Well what had happend was!!!!

I wanted to start a Blog to keep everyone up-to-date of what all was going on. My family is so large that it’s hard to keep up with who all knows what information. I plan on updating the information on here as we find out. Here is my story so far:

Ok… so it all started about 6 weeks ago when my shoulder started hurting. I didn’t really think much of it – just thought I had pulled something. This went on for about 4 weeks. Then about 2 weeks ago when I was getting my hair cut, as I got out of the chair, Christy and Amanda (the girl who cuts my hair) saw this “lump” sticking out of my upper back. They could see this thing through my shirt! So, still thinking this “thing” was a pulled muscle, off to the chiropractor I went. That’s where I found out I have “scoliosis”… yes folks, I said scoliosis. Well, I think it’s safe to say he was a little off.

So, by the next week I was at my PCP’s office. He thought it might be a lipoma, so he sends me to my surgeon. By the next week I’m in the surgeon’s office. He’s looking at this “thing” thinking I might have a torn muscle in my upper back. With this, the surgeon orders an MRI. Didn’t know I was claustrophobic until they put me in that little tube! Thought I was going to have to come out of that thing whether they wanted me to or not. I ended up being in that machine for an hour and 15 minutes. NOT something I look forward to having to do again. The MRI results are what showed a “desmoid tumor” growing in my back.

April 5^th is a day I will never forget. I really can’t put in to words how it feels when your doctor says the word “cancer” to you. It is a word that will cut right through you. It takes your breath away. This is a word that can make a strong man cry. It didn’t help that I got the phone call from the doctor as I was downtown with my family at the Museum of Discovery. It really took the wind out of everyone. I cried like a baby right there in that public place… couldn’t talk or tell anyone what was going on at first. The words just wouldn’t come out. When I could speak again, all I could say was “cancer”. It’s pretty much been a blur from this moment on. You could say I was in shock, just a little!

The next day UAMS called me to get my appointment set up. After waiting for a whole week, I was finally able to go to my appointment today. So here’s how today went:

When we checked in, the first nurse was SUPER friendly. It made it a lot easier to be sitting in a cancer institute. The resident doctor was the first person I talk to. He’s a very young doctor so I nicknamed him “Doogie Howser”. He and I started out just going over my symptoms. After than my actual cancer doctor came in and right away started talking to me about what was going on. He told me that he could see from the MRI that the tumor is under one muscle and between two other muscles. This is what is causing me so much pain on the left side of my upper back. He already wanted to do a biopsy. He and the nurse take me into another room to do what is called a “core needle biopsy”. All they do is take a hollow needle and kinda take a hunk out of the tumor. They did this about 6 times before they were done… didn’t really hurt at all during the procedure. It was shortly after when I felt like I had been punched in the back (here it is 9 hours later, and I still feel like someone punched me in the back). It only took about 15 minutes or so to do everything. After they were done, they took the samples down to the lab to make sure the samples were good enough to test. All the doctor could tell me for now is that the growth IS a tumor, but he is not sure what kind. I will find out more from the biopsy next Friday, April 20^th. I will also have a CT scan done during this appointment. From the pictures I Googled, the CT scan tube IS bigger than the MRI tube.

My hopes are that we will find out for sure what this thing is and what we need to do to get it out!