Tuesday, February 24th

I took Tori to school since the appointment was at 9:30, picked her up after 1st hour and made it to Dr. Aaron's office on time.  The nurse weighed her in pounds this time, and Victoria realized she had gained at least 20 pounds in just a few weeks.  Dr. Aaron asked her a bunch of questions, of course, and I still thought it was probably her gall bladder.  Hers would be the third in the family to be removed.  He said he wanted a CT scan to be done immediately.  The nurse made an appointment for 11am.  He wanted the results the same day.  Rushed over to the Imaging place at Greenfield and the 60 and we were done by noon.  I asked the tech when we would get results and she said in about four or five hours.  I thought, o.k., we'll know something tomorrow.  I took Tori back to school so she could go to her afternoon classes.

At 1:15, Dr. Aaron called.  "Where are you?" he asked.  Strange, he's never asked me that before when he's called.  "I'm home"  "Where's Victoria?"  "She's at school."  "Good, he said, she can't hear us."   Crap, I thought, this isn't good.  He told me they found a mass against her uterus.  Shit.  A cyst?  A tumor?  "O.K." was all I managed to say.  He also told me the swelling was very high, and there was fluid around her heart.  He was sending her to an Oncologist at Banner Desert, and we had to be there by 3:30.  He told me other doctors thought it was an ectopic pregnancy.  He told them no, he knew this patient and she was NOT pregnant!   So I called Randy to get Chloe from school, texted Tori that I was picking her up, and there was a knock on the door.  I had scheduled all the carpets to be cleaned and the tile in the guest house to be steam cleaned.  Great.  I showed them in, told them I had to leave, took a shower, packed an overnight bag (as per Dr. Aaron's instructions), picked up Victoria and brought her home to pack a bag, handed my cc to the carpet cleaners and got to the Oncologist by 3:15.  Wow.

Walking into the Oncologist's office I remembered "oh, yeah.  Pediatrics."  the office was decorated like a snack bar on a beach.  No kidding.  There was even a large boat built into the wall for the kids to play in.  I got a kick out of the fact that my child, who, the week before, had been reminding me she's almost an adult, was now sitting in a waiting room designed for six year olds.

Dr. Smith was very nice, and quite calm.  She asked Victoria a ton of questions and said she would have an ultrasound done.  I really started to relax, and thought, it's probably just a cyst, we'll go home, and have an ultrasound at the imaging place tomorrow.  Nope.  She said she had already started to admit Victoria, and she just needed to check to see if the room was ready.  OK.  She told us her associate, Dr. Li would be following Victoria since he was at the hospital already.   O.K.  I mean, really, what do you say?  By 4:30 we were in a room on the top floor of the Cardon Children's  Medical Center at Banner Desert.  Glad I packed a bag.  Randy came to the hospital but had to leave at 7:30 to pick up Chloe and Jaytlin at practice.  Dr. Aaron called me on my cell phone.  He asked how she was doing and told me this was his private cell number.  He said If I had any questions later that night, to call him.  He said he would leave his cell phone on all night and have it with him.  I should call him no matter what time.  That's nice.  Meanwhile, both Oncologists had mentioned that they had not seen the CT scan, but had only been able to read the report.  I offered to go pick up a disk from the Imaging place, thank goodness they were open till 9pm.  When I picked up the disk, I also asked for a copy of the report.  Back in the room, waiting for the US, Victoria, my soon to be an adult child, chose to watch Aladdin and I popped the disk into my laptop and read the report.  It was somewhat surreal reading a report with the words "must be considered for metastatic disease" while Robin Williams was singing "Friend like me"  I knew what my first wish would be.

She had the US done at 10pm.  FINALLY, she could eat!  The cafeteria was open till 2am YAY!  I went in search of food for her.  She wanted something warm, like a plain chicken breast with cheese.  Easy, I thought.  Nope.  Again, for the fourth time that day I was wrong.  They had nothing.  NOTHING.  Nada.  Although the grill that was stll open had GF choices, they were only for people who want to avoid gluten.  Everything had been cross contaminated.  I looked in the refrigerated section.  Even the salads already had croutons in them.  I brought her a banana and a yogurt.

I spent the rest of the night until about 3am google-ing "Ovarian Cyst" and "Ovarian tumor".  All her symptoms said cancer, and the reports said fluid filled sack. I realized why Dr. Aaron gave me his personal number.  I kept thinking, if it's fluid filled, and not solid it has to be a cyst.  Right?