When you must you can....

You know it's bad when you walk into DSS registration at Lutheran Hospital for the second time this week and they remember you.  Filling out the paperwork took about 3 minutes - they were kind enough to pull the stuff from 3 days ago.  They did a second Spinal Tap today.  He managed pretty well.  It's the 3 hour laying flat at the end that is the  hardest part.  And now at home- he rests on his back so he doesn't have a chance to get that dreaded jackhammer headache that can come with it.  He hasn't had the pain from the tap so far like he did on Tuesday.  I guess he's learned from his mistakes. 

His pain management is getting more under control now that he knows he needs "his drugs" every 6 hours. The prayer for today was that this tap would help us get a diagnosis and learn how we can treat the beast.

I made a phone call to FW Oncology this afternoon to Dr. Nattam's nurse and ask about the game plan for Monday.  Neither of us wanted to go through the entire weekend wondering what the next step was going to be.  She told me Dr. Nattam has already spoken to Dr. Young (the neurosurgeon) and they were getting set up for next week.  She had me call Dr. Young's office and talk to them.  They had already put a message on the home phone with our appointment set up for Tuesday.  However - his wonderful nurse is going to more than likely move it up to Monday.  We were impressed that all of this had taken place already.

Tonight Dr. Nattam personally call's Randy to check on him and see how today went and tells him that he is pretty confident that this tap will come back negative once again - we still have a little hope with the test results - but Randy has the same opinion that the dr. does.  Dr. Nattam is ready to move forward with going after the large mass and get some fluid out of it and go from there.  This is a very dangerous test as I've said yesterday.  We both know it needs to happen.  Without a diagnosis - we can do nothing.  There is no treatment - no other options.