So today is the day of Judy's testing in Omaha. It's an early day so we are planning on spending the entire day in Omaha. We even trying to decide where we might want to eat for dinner. There are a lot of restaurants in Omaha we don't have at home so on occasion we will find a restaurant we don't have back at home to have a nice dinner as a treat.
We arrive at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to the location of Judy's first appointment. The appointment is where she needs to get her blood work done. As we are waiting for the appointment we start discussing what we think the neurologist might be looking for.
Judy finished her blood work and we started on our way to her next appoint and we continued our discussion about what we thought the testing was for. Judy is the first to speculate as to what she thought he was looking for. The way he was talking, and the tests he is having me do, I think he is checking for Graves disease she said. I never really have given it much thought, I just thought he was being thorough.
For those of you that don't know Judy, she works in the medical field as a medical secretary. Probably exposed to just enough information and to the right people that can very helpful and sometimes not. (That is a joke)
Just a BIG SIDE NOTE. It was those medical FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS, who Judy works with, who insisted she keep pushing the doctors about her double vision, and NOT except the first,***and second ***lame answers she received.
Who knows what would have happened or how long things may have gone. … My Judy is very good at masking when she is in pain.. or frustrated, and she will work through things she shouldn't. (Such as pain)
But her co-workers have started to figure her out. Your BUSTED JUDY! (haha) It was because of their persistence, and helping Judy with medical questions and answers. They helped her to see what was right and wrong medically and because of that were able to catch this. I believe it give us a much better chance at beating this monster that has taken over our lives. Her co-workers also have been super supportive during her time of learning about this tumor.
So one more thing before I get off my soap box. THANK YOU TO HER CO-WORKERS, for your persistent, understanding, love, and patience. You are appreciated more then you will ever know.
Back to my story.
Okay so Judy and I were walking between appointments at the Nebraska Medical Center and discussing at that moment what we I thought the doctor was testing for. I of course did not really have any clue as to what he was checking for but Judy had her suspicions. She figured it had something to do with her thyroid or graves disease.
As we arrived at the Imaging Center we checked in and started waited for Judy to be called back. I knew the testing was going to take a while so I settled in with my phone, getting ready to find something to watch on Netflix. Then they called her back.
The mri seemed to take a long time. I knew it was going to take a while, but this was a long time! I went up to the desk to make sure that everything was okay. At one point, I thought I had heard an aid come out and mention something about having some technical difficulties with one of the mri’s and one of the appointments would have be delayed. So being a concerned husband I started to wonder if there was a problem. Did Judy became sick while in the machine? Was she ok? You hear a lot of bad stories of what can happen inside an mri. So I decided to ask at the front deck to see if everything was okay.
The lady at the front desk told me after she looked it up on her computer, your wife is in for a double MRI she should be done shortly. We didn't know anything about double MRI but ok just another test. Just a little longer.
When she got done with her MRI we both commented on how long it was but figured as long as we still have time to make it to our next appointment that was all that mattered right now. So we made our way to the doctor's office so we knew we could find the right place. We found a quiet place to wait in between appointments and waited for the appointment to arrive.
We went to the office in time for the appointment thinking everything was normal. I guess looking back at it now things did run a little differently than the first time. Our wait in the waiting room was longer than normal. We even had to wait in the exam room for a little while for the doctor to get there. Now we know it was because he was waiting for the test results. He was finding out that something was not right with the MRI reading.
So here we are sitting in the doctor's office oblivious to what is going on, talking back and forth, actually making plans on how we were going to be persistent about getting some sort of help for Judy and not being BLOWN OFF AGAIN. Judy was thinking he was checking for graves disease or even for her past thyroid problem. I on the other hand knew exactly what it was, ok I had no clue. When the doctor came into the room the first thing he said was well the good news is you don't have any tumors on your nerves going to your eye. We looked at each other and said That is good news. But i guess we did know if he was joking, to break tge tention or something. The he said,but you have a tumor on your clivus!
Judy and I both looked at each other once again. I think the doctor could see we both had a puzzled look by now. We went from a sort of weird joke to BAM WHAT?!??!
He started to explain what he was talking about by saying the results of Judy's MRI showed there is a tumor at the base of her skull in an area called the clivus. He said he was making an appointment with a neurologist and they would tell us more about what was available for treatment options.
At that point of course Judy and I were both a little shaken up and didn't know what to say or what to even think. Judy started to break down a little. The doctor handed judy some tissues and asked if we needed a minute to gather our thoughts , we agreed.
He came back into the room and wanted to make sure that we knew exactly what he was referring too. We asked if we could see the images of MRI so we knew what we were looking at. He said he didn't have the images yet and he was just told by the doctor who read the images to him. At this point he knows there's a tumor and it is on her clivus and they're going to have to give you more information from a neurosurgeon.
SO HERE IS WHAT WE KNOW:
The doctor was only able to tell us basic information that day. He told us where the tumor is located. They generally can't take them all out. It'll probably have to be treated with radiation. It will involve a surgery from a neurologist. The final decision will be up to the surgeon to decide as to the Best way for surgery to be done and what would be the safest for judy.
The doctor then said I have to be honest with you I didn't even see this coming. I wasn't even trying to test this. I will have my assistant make an appointment with a neurologist as soon as we can.
Judy still had to know was this the cause of My Double Vision all along and will fixing this tumor help with my double vision. The doctor said he did not know. Maybe after you have this tumor under control you can have a corrective surgery on your right eye if fixing the tumor doesn't help your double vision.
The doctor left the room which gave Judy and I about 5-10 minutes to talk together and gather our thoughts. Our world had just been turned upside down and we didn't know what to think. A tumor!
The nurse returned with a piece of paper with an appointment time and the name of the neurosurgeon on it. Here's the appointment for a neurosurgeon and the information you need. She said.
We asked to see the doctor one more time before we left because we had one more question for him. He came back into the room and asked to see the name of the neurosurgeon before answered our question. This part was a little ALARMING to us, we did not know what to think...still don't.. he kinda looks like the name on that paper and made it obvious the person we had an appointment with was not his first choice.
WHAT???
Okay so you're giving us an appointment to a neurosurgeon that is not your first choice for a neurosurgeon. … This person is... the person working on my wife's brain. That doesn't sound very good. But we WERE NOT IN ANY CONDITION FOR QUESTIONS we we're still in a State of Shock we didn't know what to do.
After that I really don't remember much else of the day I don't remember much of the ride home. The one thing I do remember is sitting in the car after that appointment just before we went home. Judy and I decided that we did not want to stay in Omaha for dinner. We just wanted to go home and that was pretty much all I can really remember about that day. I know we probably talked about it. I know we discussed what it meant and I'm sure that we went online with our phones looked up CLIVUS. Well, Judy did, I was driving. I am sure she looked up to see what a clivus was and where it's located and why there would be a tumor there.
So that's how we found out about the tumor. But there's still more to the story believe it or not. At this point we don't really know what kind of tumor it is. I know this post is a little bit longer than the rest of them but there will be many more to come. Thank you for reading and following along. Follow our story follow our journey #uronenamillion
