February 27, 2009 FIrst Oncology Consult

The six of us were together for this appointment. We sat in the waiting room, waiting, waiting, waiting for our dad to be called. We made little small talk but all sat closely to one another. While our fear, our anxiety, and our pain were obvious, we were together and our unity gave us strength and courage for this visit.

We were called into an exam room, where again, the six of us crammed together, waiting for Dr. Treisman. While we waited, we talked about the strangeness of being in an exam room for our consult. The nurse had told us as many people as our dad wanted to be there could attend the appointment. Carmelo and Tony stood against the exam table, while Gina and I shared a chair. We joked that we were used to cramped quarters, to being A to E...Villard had prepared us for that.

Dr. Treisman came in and asked our dad "what's the word?" "You tell me," remarked our dad. Dr. Treisman then opened the file, seemingly as though he hadn't previously reviewed the results. Upon review, he remarked that the brain MRI was clear and the PET looked clear as well, but a small shadow was visible on one rib. He recommended a bone scan to rule out the presence of cancer on that rib, though he did suggest he was "not appreciating it" as ominous.

Dr. Treisman explained the size and location of the tumor. Dr. Treisman was concerned that our dad is experiencing some pain, which is suggestive of chest wall invasion, as lung cancer does not cause pain. He expressed concern that the tumor was very close to the chest wall, and as such, an imminent question for the medical team to discuss was whether the tumor could be removed immediately, or whether a 6 week course of chemo/radiation was necessary to shrink the tumor prior to surgery. He referred us to a surgical consult, Dr. Krishnan at St. Luke's for the following Monday.

It's funny how one's perspective changes from Monday to Friday with this worst of life-altering news. We left our appointment with Dr. Treisman feeling hopeful, really hopeful. His cancer had not spread. What a relief. Now, we looked forward to Monday and continued to pray that this tumor would be able to be removed by Dr. Krishnan.