I wanted to start this blog as a journal for me and also to keep family and friends up to date on what is  going on in our world.  As most of you know Dustin started having back pain about 6-9 months ago.  It started before we moved to Oklahoma.  He went to his PCP in KC, had an X-ray which was "normal", then a few months later had an MRI which showed a bulging disc.  He went to a Pain Management Dr. in KC for a Steroid Injection to see if that would help with the pain.  He described the procedure like someone was "jamming a McDonald's straw in his back."  Needless to say it did not help.  We moved to Oklahoma and he started Physical Therapy and even agreed to give the Steroid injection one more try.  After his first day of Physical Therapy he felt pretty good.  He said they did some sort of message therapy with heat, then put him in some sort of contraption and gave him an "emergency panic button."  He said they stretched him a good 2-3 inches taller (they put him in traction).  After the second day of PT, we were not so lucky.  He was in a lot of pain and in bed the rest of the day, in fact this was a Wednesday and he did not get out of bed until Saturday morning when I took him to Urgent Care.  At Urgent Care we saw Dr. S who was great, he thought Dustin might have ruptured his disc and wanted to do another MRI.  He started him on steroids for any inflammation and sent us on our way.  Dustin felt a lot better on prednisone and the MRI was scheduled for the following Friday.  For the next 6 days he tolerated the pain as long as he took his pain medicine.  Friday morning we were at the clinic at 7am for the MRI.  That evening Dustin received a phone call from the Dr.'s office that they wanted him to come in to review his results with the Dr., they said he could come in now or in the morning.  I was 2 hours away with our youngest at a football game so we would have to go in in the morning.  We got up Saturday morning and was at the Dr.'s office at 9am.  They had his chart at the front desk waiting for us.  When Dr. R. came in he told us there had been significant changes on his MRI and it looked like Dustin had Lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system).  This was not was either of us expected.  I honestly thought they were going to say he had 2 or 3 ruptured discs, not cancer.  Dr. R gave us information on Lymphoma and information on Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  They had already made us an appt with an oncologist for the following Friday.  Dr. R said expect lots of blood work and a bone marrow biopsy.
We left the in a daze and both in tears.  That was 3 days ago.  The tears have dried but we are still in a daze.  We have 4 days until we see the oncologist, and it seems like 4 weeks or months.  I know we are in for a lesson on patience, but right now it really hard when all you want is answers.