This post will include events from yesterday, July 9th, and today, July 10th.

Yesterday our daughter Jesslyn came to sit with Shannon while I was out running around. I had to go home to take care of some items at the house: Took the boys with me to get gas for the generator ( Power is still out), Show them how to run the generator, Get some extra extension cords, Went shopping for groceries, And had to fix a broken irrigation pipe so that I could turn the water back on.

The tree that fell in our backyard will be handled by our neighbors homeowners Insurance. So we will get a free cleanup and a brand new fence. I’m counting all of the blessings we can get at this point.

While I was out yesterday, Doctor Diamond and his resident showed up at the bedside. There was still no official signed report from the pathologist, but what he had told us the night before is that they were thinking it is Adult T Cell Lymphoma/Leukemia: lymphomatous type. This type of cancer is very difficult to treat, and so we have been obviously very scared. He told us the goal would still be to develop a treatment plan to cure it.

However,  the pathology is not straightforward.  They are seeing more characteristics of a leukemia such as ALL – Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.  This would be better news as it’s more common and easier to treat than the T Cell Lymphoma. The pathologist exhausted all of the tissue samples from the needle biopsy. They do different types of stains on the tissue to examine under a microscope. They’ll be able to perform more pathology tests from her bone marrow biopsy. Due to it looking more like a leukemia,  Dr Diamond has consulted another oncologist who specializes in Leukemia vs Lymphoma. His name is Dr Tareq Abuasab. He is originally from Jordan and did a Residency program in Jerusalem,  Israel and then a Fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center here in Houston. He is meeting with us July 11th.

July 10th:
Shannon was NPO after midnight,  nothing by mouth. This was for 2 reasons: morning PET Scan and a bone marrow biopsy.

They took her for the PET Scan around 930am. PET (Positron Emmission Tomography). They injected her IV with a radioactive tracer that contains sugar. They let that circulate thru her bloodstream for 1 hour, then they scan her. The scan picks up and highlights areas of high sugar metabolism.  The cancer uses sugar faster than other areas of the body. The scan basically shows where there’s active cancer. This is her 1st PET Scan. They’ll use it as a baseline to compare with future PET Scans and be able to see if the treatment is reducing the cancer. Total time in PET imaging department was about 2 hours.

Shannon came back to the room and was wanting to eat and drink but she was still NPO for the possibility of going to Interventional Radiology for her bone marrow biopsy.  They were trying to get it done but the schedule was busy. They said if they don’t come to get her by 2pm, then she could eat and they’ll do it tomorrow.

They showed up at 1:40pm to take her to IR (Interventional Radiology) for the bone marrow biopsy. She was down there a couple of hours. She came back, walking and talking,  no pain. She said they numbed her up and sedated her so she was comfortable. She just has a small bandage on the backside of her hip where they took the bone marrow. No bleeding. All good.

She ate and then we fell asleep for a few hours. They switched her pain meds up a bit due to the dilaudid causing severe headaches for her. We watched a little more of the Beverly Hills Cop movie Axel F on Netflix but she was in pain and tired. They gave her the new pain meds and she is sound asleep now.

Also, so far her blood cultures are negative which means no active infections in her bloodstream. Her temperature has been better too, so they discontinued her IV antibiotics.

Hopefully tomorrow we will meet Dr Abuasab to discuss a more definitive diagnosis. She also still needs the central line placement.