We decided we would walk to the hospital this morning. It was a short, brisk walk from our house to the clinic. It’s kind of nice living so close to the hospital in light of our situation. We arrived on the second floor of the cancer wing and proceeded to the front desk. I checked in wand was given a bunch of paperwork to fill out. Jamie and I took our seat in the waiting room and filled out the all the necessary forms. It didn’t take too long to fill everything out, so I returned the forms to the nurse at the desk and took my seat. I was nervous at all. I actually was quite excited to finally get the ball rolling. We waited about 20 minutes and then it was time to meet with the doctor. We were ushered into a small, sterile room. We waited a few more minutes before the door opened and a young lady walked through the door. She introduced herself as Denise and that she would be collecting a little more background information on me before i was to meet with Dr. Ahmed. After about 15 minutes of answering her questions and taking some time to ask her some questions, it was finally time to meet with the doctor. Dr. Ahmed introduced himself and sat down next to me and spent a few seconds looking over my file. He asked me a bunch of questions and then it was time for him to do a physical. I was too excited about this, but hey, whatever. I got up on the table and followed the doctors instructions. Let’s just say he was thorough. After the physical examination I got dressed again and took my seat. He told me everything looked and sounded good. That was positive! As we sat in there in the examining room, Dr. Ahmed began to inform us about what our next steps would be. The tumor in my colon will be left alone right now because they are concerned about the spots on my liver. We knew that there were spots on my liver and on my lungs but what he told us next was a punch right in the face. He informed us that the spots on my liver are cancer. It is stage 4 liver cancer. Are you kidding me? I just sat there stunned. Jamie too. Dr. Ahmed informed us that the best course of action will be chemotherapy. We listened to what he had to say and left the room speechless. Our heads were spinning. What were we going to do? Before we left the office we asked about the success rates of chemo and the mortality rates. He could give us a definitive answer as he is not a specialist in this area but he did say that the mortality rate in the past with this type of cancer is 5 years. Now we respect what the doctors have to say and we will do what they suggest to do, but we continue to hold onto our anchor.
