Marley -n- Me

May 9, 2017, and we were finally bringing our girl home after her surgery and recovery from Pancreatitis and Pneumonia 8 days post FHO op.  Boy was everyone relieved to have her home!  She was too!  It was a joyous 24 hours.

Home from MSU

It had been a stressful week to say the least but the stress was continuing to build as I was waiting for her biopsy results to come back.  Originally it was supposed to take only a week.  But here she was coming home 8 days later and we still didn’t have the results.  I know Dr. W’s office was tired of me calling morning and night like clockwork for those results.  I was sure that it was osteosarcoma.  After spending days and nights reading about the presentation, medical studies, treatment options, I knew it had to be what she had.  It was the only logical thing to make my stoic gal be in the amount of pain she was in.

It was Saturday, May 13th, when Russ and I were sitting on our back deck playing outside with the two- and four-legged kiddos, drinking coffee and enjoying an otherwise relaxing Saturday morning before Mother’s Day.   I made my morning phone call to Dr. W’s office asking if they had biopsy results.  The receptionist responded, “Oh, yes, we have them right here.  Dr. W will call you on Monday with the results when he is back in the office.”  Nuh-uh…that’s not how this is going to go at the moment, my dear. I calmly said, “Ok, that’s great, please have Dr. W call me when he has a moment.  Can you please fax them over to Marley’s doctor at Michigan State?  Here is the fax number.” (Which of course is my fax into my email because I was not waiting two more days for Dr. W to call me.  I can read a pathology report just fine thank you.)  I hung up the phone and sat on pins and needles…bouncing around like a little girl until I had to stand up and start pacing.  Russ kept eyeing me as he was watching the girls and her boy play.  He whispered to me “Relax.  You can’t change the results.  Just breathe.”

My email dinged that I had a new message.  I took a deep breath before I opened it.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

That’s not what I wanted to read.  I had known all along but I still had hoped that somehow I was wrong.

Osteosarcoma and cancerous cells were present at the margins.  Happy Mother’s Day to me.

Damn skippy, Marley’s Boy…damn skippy.