How Did You Know????

Many have been asking what made us go to the doctor.

There are lots of signs looking back, but what put us over the edge was discovering a lump in Bryan's belly. We had a case of food poisoning or stomach flu and Bryan felt something. At first, we thought it was cramping, poop, or something normal. After he was feeling better, the lump remained and was big, from his left side ribs down to his belly button. Then, we tried to decide where to go to get him evaluated...ER, urgent care or trying to set up a regular check up. Bryan was busy at work for a week, so we put it off. Then on Monday, October 26th, our plans were cancelled (Thanks for not opening your house for Bryan to work that day Brooks) and we decided to go on to an urgent care.

Once at Urgent Care, the Nurses took blood. After the first samples were taken, a nurse came back and said that the machine had put up this strange flag she had never seen and said it couldn't read the sample so she needed to re-draw the blood. She did and the same flag came up, so they said they needed to send off the blood to Orlando or Tampa, but it should be back in 30 to 45 minutes. The doctor felt the lump and said she believed it was a severely enlarged spleen, so lets wait on the blood. It could be any number of things, infections, etc. Well, after an hour or so of waiting for the blood, the doctor said why don't you go get some lunch and check back, which we did and it was still not back. We were about to head on home and check back later, when Bryan ran back in one last time to make sure and they had just gotten the results. We went back in the room to wait for the doctor. She came back and said that he had leukemia. She told us that his WBC (white blood cells) were 241,000 and that normal was 5-10,000. She said nothing else causes numbers like this and it's not easy to hear, but we needed to get him in the hospital right now and get chemo started today. So basically the doctor told us the good news was that the lump was not cancer, it was an enlarged spleen but the bad news was that the spleen was enlarged because of cancer!

Looking back, Bryan had lost 30 lbs, since June. We thought it was from a summer of door-to-door selling and drinking fruit smoothies in the morning. In fact, a few weeks before figuring out what was really going on, Bryan was amazed that he could see his abs when he flexed in his bathroom mirror. He would brag to me about how with just some walking and a fruit smoothie he was looking better than ever. He later admitted, "I thought I was blessed with sweet genetics, but no, it was just cancer!" Bryan was so tired he was falling asleep at work, he almost fell off the bucket he was sitting on while tiling a shower because he started knodding off. So he decided to lay down on the concrete floor for a "power nap" and woke up three hours later. He was always tired, but we have four kids. Bryan had been getting a lot of little sores on his forearms and lower legs that wouldn't heal, but maybe it was early symptoms of diabetes. Then just recently he discovered a few massive bruises and had no idea where they came from. Classic signs of cancer are unexplained weight loss, sores that don't heal, unusual bruising, fatigue, etc. at the time we didn't know the classic signs of cancer. Besides, cancer only happens to other people right?

Whatever questions you may have can be left in the comments. That way we'll know what ya'll want to know in future posts. Your prayers and encouragement are no small blessing and we thank you all deeply.