Do You Want the Bad News or the Worse News?

I had a million and one things I needed to catch up on today so when Trent announced he was having chest pain I knew we were in trouble. I have been especially aware of any new symptom he has been having lately. He kind of has a cough and he always feels like he has something in his throat or chest that he can't cough up. It has been scaring me to death that the cancer in his lungs is actually big enough to feel.

When he told me he was hurting I did twenty questions with him trying to figure out if it was cardiac or pulmonary. I was worried about a clot in his lung. I told him I thought he needed to see a doctor and he was adamant he did not. Well, I won. I called Katie at the Huntsman and she got us an appointment for a scan a hour and a half later. President Baird and my dad gave Trent a blessing before we left. That made me feel a lot better. We zoomed down to SLC and saw Dr. Voorhies. He told us he thought Trent may be having a pulmonary embolism. Great. One more thing. We couldn't decide which was worse to have-a pulmonary embolism or cancer so big that it causes pain. I think they are pretty much a toss up. Both are pretty dang scary.

We got Trent in for the scan and just as they were pushing him into the machine he started having massive chest pains. Scared me to death. But I calmly told him to take deep breaths and relax. The scan was over quick and we went back to see Dr. Voorhies. We were worried he would be admitted for anticoagulant therapy. The nurse said we would probably just have to do some shots at home because judging by the way Trent looked it probably wasn't a very big clot.
Then Dr. Voorhies came in and told us the good news. It was not a pulmonary embolism. Then he told us the bad news. The cancer had grown so big it was putting pressure on the pulmonary wall and causing the pain. Not fabulous. He will talk with Dr. Gouw and we should be getting a call tomorrow afternoon to give more details about the treatment plan now.

I can't say we were shocked at the news. Trent hasn't had chemo for five weeks now. We had to know the cancer would continue to grow without treatment but there was a little part of me that was really hoping things would be better than this. I didn't expect everything to be smooth sailing after removing the giant tumor on his hip, but I was still hoping it would be.

We are still very hopeful about the next round of chemo. We have been praying for Dr. Gouw constantly and will continue to do so. This is just a little bump on the big bump on our road.