OK, so I came in late. I was hoping to be able to get a little extra sleep to make up for getting in at 1:30, but mom called three times and woke me up. I knew I would be in a bad mood if I talked to her so she got the ignore button twice (we have talked about this and she knows…I’m a bear if my sleep is interrupted). This was a day that had been on my calendar for a couple weeks. OK, that sounded funny. of course it was it is on the world calendar. would you expect me to say anything but something so dumbly obvious? What I mean is that I had lots of things on my office calendar. I knew I had to come in and work with the Assistant to the President to make sure we had the script ready for Dr. Horne to record for a video project we are working on. I also knew the Dunklin family was coming to campus to make a presentation to Gov. Huckabee at a luncheon that I was supposed to attend to meet their daughter who is a senior in high school and talk to her about Ouachita. So, I was ready to catch Dr. Kluck at some point. Have him look at me, tell me it was no big deal or what it was, give me a prescription to make it go away and go do my thing.
Well, I made it to work, went to the Presidents office, did my thing up there, but realized that Wed is Dr. Kluck’s day to come in late to Ouachita because he has responsibilities at another office that morning. So, I went on and did what I needed to do. (of course both my parents are a little concerned and wanting me to call them, but I don’t know anything. I cant imagine what they were thinking, but I didn’t have anything to tell them.) Around 11:30ish, I happen to be standing at the front desk of my office talking to my friend Chris Babb and Dr. Kluck walks by. So, we snagged him. I showed him my neck and asked him what he thought. He felt of it and said that it was def something weird. And, that there were different things it could be. We could wait another 24 hours and see what it does, but if it were him, he would want to know what it was and the only way to know what it was, was a CT scan. AWESOME! In my sick mind I thought…I don’t have time for that right now. So, I asked, “I’m supposed to go over to this luncheon and do my thing and I really want to do this…can I?”. He laughed at me, like he usually does when I want to do work instead of take care of myself. He said it would be fine if I waited and came over to the clinic in the afternoon.
So, I did. Lunch was great. As always, it was great to see Gov. and Mrs. Huckabee and it was awesome to be there to witness a very special day for the Dunklin family, Huckabee family, and Ouachita. It was amazing to realize that the lives of current and future Ouachita students will forever be changed because of these very generous people. We went over and listened to the Q and A time with Gov Huckabee and our students. I also was able to take the Dunklins and show them Ouachita’s campus for the first time, so it was such a fun day.
After we were finished, I went over to see Dr. Kluck. He saw me and Debbie helped set up the CT scan of my neck at the Arkadelphia hospital. I headed up there to get set up. I checked myself in and went on back to meet my friends (we are now) in radiology. I was so thirsty…like really I had just walked all over campus on a warm afternoon. But, I had to wait to drink water. They got me set up and stuck and ready to receive the contrast dye in my arm. The contrast dye will help them be able to differentiate my blood stuff from other things in my body on the CT scan. So bring it on. She told me it would be warm, but forgot to tell me that when it hit my body and ran all through my blood stream, at some point (about .1 sec after it entered my body) it would make me feel like I had peed in my pants. Yeah that was cool.
I know this is hard to believe, but I laid there, very still and quiet as they did the scan. It was super easy and really quicker than I thought. The lady was so nice, she brought me a cup of water with ice in it when she was finished and I was on my way. Well, it was just before 4:00 and I had not sat down at my office all day so I decided to go to my apt and get into comfortable clothes and check some email or clean off my desk or something. So, that’s what I did. I knew Dr. Kluck would call me as soon as he knew something, so I decided to just hang out up there. Sometime after 5:00 and and I think it was closer to 5:30, Dr. Kluck called and came down to get me at my office and take me up to his to look at the scan pictures.
INSERT LIFE CHANGE!!! Let me just go ahead and tell you how lucky I am that Dr. Kluck is treating me. If there is anything to be figured out, I have full confidence that he is going to do it, and if he does not know how, he will figure it out, or find the people to do so. Through this whole process, I can see God at work and one of the early signs of His work is placing me at Ouachita at this time in my life and putting me on Dr. Kluck’s team. So, while none of what happens in the coming paragraphs is fun, I had the best people surrounding me to walk me through it.
So, we small talk on the way up the stairs, run into a couple people and sit down in his office. He pulls up the scan and tells me what all the images represent. It is cool because a CT scan basically is a cross section aerial view of your body that they scanned and you can scroll up and down to see the images. Again, very patiently and explaining everything as he went, he started at the top of my neck and begins scrolling down pointing out bones and other things as we go down. He points out the bulge that we see on the neck and then shows me that under it is a “mass”. What?!? Yeah, this is when I kinda stop hearing what he is saying and my breathing changes. Are you stinking kidding me. I was thinking he was going to say there is a big cyst and we are going to have to cut your neck open and get it out and sew you back up and send you merrily on your way! But, that was not the news today. A mass can be a tumor, but it is not necessarily. As with most people who hear this news personally, I was trying to be strong…I’m sure he wasn’t fooled…but on the inside I was shrinking up thinking…”I’m going to have to call my parent’s and tell them this”..”I’m going to have to call my friends and tell them this”..I just was giving campus tours, prancing around in high heels, eating cheese cake, making jokes, I have just been with my family and spent Spring Break with my best friend..and now, I might have cancer and who knows what. Yeah, that’s fun. But, Dr. Kluck just kept talking and letting me know that we don’t know what it is. He told me that he had been on the phone with the radiologist and that he wanted to get an additional CT scan run. If this is what it could be, then we wanted to see if there were more and what they could be. I agreed, let’s just figure it all out and then know what to do. You know me. I like making plans. But, this was not on the agenda.
He took me back up to the hospital and got me checked in and started on the process. I met X-ray Dave and got started on my “Dye juice”. This time, they were doing a chest, abdomen, pelvis scan, so they wanted to be able to not only have my blood stuff contrasted, but my digestive organs as well. I got super lucky that the flavor was fruit punch. I had three of my 6 cups of it. We decided not to rush things and to just let it flow through. I had to drink so many cups so all my digestive organs would be full. (the fun part of this medicine is that it has laxative effects…so you know there were lots of fun jokes involved!). When I came out Randy was already there waiting and I knew Travis and Lisa were on their way. Travis arrived shortly and Lisa zoomed in from Little Rock. While we waited, I called my mom. She was in the nursery at church and dad was teaching his Wednesday night class. I tried to be collected, but this was the first time I told her about the mass in my neck and that I was back up at the hospital getting dyed up on the inside like an Easter Egg..good thing it wasn’t that crazy crackle or hologram kind! Mom was cool and collected like she always is at these times. And, she was going to wait until dad got out of his class to tell him. In the mean time Lisa walks up. And I have to go potty. We wait until Dave shows back up for two more cups. Then we come out and laugh some more. I was waiting for them to come out and make us be quiet, but they never did. Then, Lisa went back with me to drink some more. Between each of these, we are waiting like 40 minutes to let it do its thing. The last time, he told me we were going to wait 40 minutes, I suggested that I thought it had all worked its way through and that I might be ready. So, he just ran a simple x-ray of those areas and showed it to me. It was kinda cool, but I was ready for sure. So, we decided to get ready for the scan. This time, I laid, with my feet first and he got me all set up. Chris, the stick me guy, had come down from upstairs with his bathroom caddy full of little viles and got me ready with a port thingy for the dye. So, Dave, got me all lined up and sent some more dye in and we did the scan. Then, I was finished. My favorite line of the night was when he came over and helped me sit up after the scan. “You have to pee”..I responded with “Yeah I know and all that warm stuff you just put in me didn’t help”. He told me there are no secrets with him. My bladder was huge on the scan. You think, after 6 cups of medical kool-aid in an hour and a half.
While I was in the scan Dr. Kluck talked with the Horne’s, our president and his wife, and Becky was so great to offer to get involved and help with getting us in with Dr. Mendelsohn in Little Rock as my oncologist. She used to work for him and is still very close to his staff. Again, another answer to prayer. A personal connection and another offer to walk with me through this process. God is so good and the people around me here are so great.
The Sharps showed up while I was in there and Debbie brought Dr. Kluck some food while we waited. The radiologist in LR was filled up with scans to look at and called to say he wanted to take his time looking at mine, so it may not be until in the morning when we know something. We waited for a while and then decided that was silly. So, we decided to go on and they could call Dr. Kluck and he could call me once we knew something.
Lisa had already told me we were going to have a slumber party so we called Kirt and Justin to come over with Ashton and Whitley and we had a Tiger Tunes Party. Travis went to Wal-mart to get snacks and we went to get my stuff. When we got to the Berry’s Cody and Jessica were there. It was such a fun night. We laughed and told stories and had a great time.
I know it was a hard night for everyone around me, but it was so great for them to be strong for me and for us to have fun. I loved it and we knew that we were just going to be strong. Have a great attitude and until we knew something else, we were just going to take each day at a time. Tomorrow will bring some more answers (or, questions).
