the wait

One thing about this benign tumor, things never seemed to be in a hurry. The surgeon said he would send the info to the cancer center, and that we should call on Friday, if we hadn't heard anything. And that began the weekly phone call routine. Week after week. Call after call. No news.

We really didn't know anything about MD Anderson. Looking it up on the internet, I found that it was in Houston, in what was described as a medical center. Oh great, a whole center full of medicals. That's all we needed. I believed we would get a call saying that, MD Anderson reviewed the case, and they feel we should stay in Omaha, and proceed with radiation. I didn't want Marie to go there. I wanted to believe that it was just a benign tumor. Nothing special. No need to go to a cancer center.

As time passed, we began to worry. Why no news? How bad is this? Then more time passed, and we worried even more. No News? Is there no cure? Were they wrong about the type of tumor this is? Finally we got a little angry. Why no news? Don't they care? Isn't this tumor good enough?

Of course all that was wrong. MD Anderson is an incredible place. In my opinion they have some of the best doctors in the world. Marie's tumor was presented to a tumor board. Where experts discuss. This takes time. And time was one thing Marie still had on her side. These two tumors were benign and slow growing. The important thing here was to do the right thing. She already had surgery and four radiation treatments. It was time to look at the cause, as well as the cure.