Recurrence

About three weeks ago Trent started having a little pain in his chest.  We thought it might be due to the wires that are holding his sternum together.  The surgeon told us that sometimes a patient's body rejects the wires and you have to have them removed.  So last week we called and told them what was going on, that Trent was having some pain and there seemed to be a crescent moon shaped area at the top of his chest that looked a little swollen.  The nurse asked me to take pictures and send them down which I did.  We decided to make an appointment just to ease Trent's mind.   He drove himself down to the dr and had an x-ray.  Upon finding a spot on the xray they sent him for a CT which revealed a mass about 2 cm x 4 cm on his lung, right on top of his heart.  They suggested we visit our oncologist right away because the spot was "suspicious".  I immediately made an appointment for the following Wednesday (yesterday).  I asked Katie, the nurse at Huntsman, "If the radiologist says a spot is "suspicious" they pretty much know it is cancer, right?" I knew the answer but was holding out a little hope for the spot to be just fluid, like they told us before.

We decided not to tell anyone yet because we had our son's baptism last weekend and we wanted it to be about him, not cancer.  We cried a few tears that night, mostly out of frustration that we had to start over, just when Trent was feeling so well.  Although I had been feeling very calm about the whole thing, my mind still began wandering to places it shouldn't.  As I watched Trent interact with our children I would wonder, "Is he stamping this moment on his brain forever-should I be?", "Is this the last child Trent will baptize and confirm?", and so on.  That is not very smart, and I know that.  So, I changed gears.  We are fighters...and it doesn't matter how many times we get knocked around, we get back up.

So Tuesday night we fasted and it helped me so much.  Before we left for the hospital my dad gave Trent another blessing and again, confirmed the previous blessings that have promised that Trent will live to raise his children to maturity.  He blessed the doctors and the nurses through Trent, that their abilities would be heightened to find the right medication to save Trent's life.  He also said the things we would learn would be encouraging.  It was another amazing blessing that had me in tears but my heart was calm.  I never did get the butterflies that I usually get when we meet with Dr. Gouw.  In my heart of hearts, I knew it was cancer-not fluid, and I am fine with that.  Don't get me wrong, I still hate that cancer is in his body, but I know we can fight it.  We did it once before and we will do it as many times as we need to.

We both received the news with calmness and asked what was the next step.  He started chemo-gemcytobine and taxotere, immediately following our visit.  He is going to do two rounds and then have another scan on July 13.  In the meantime, Dr. Gouw is going to see if he can send the slides from the tumors that were resected from his lungs to an experimental lab in Arizona.  They will study the slides and look for any molecular weaknesses that can be targeted with chemotherapy agents that we have not tried yet.  Trent is on the last two agents that are known to work for sarcoma but if they can target a specific molecular breakdown they can hopefully kill the tumor.  Many times in tumors the cells tell each other to reproduce, if they can use an agent that interrupts that communication the tumor dies.  The experimental study is the next step if the current chemo does not work. 

In the infusion room Trent had about a 30 second breakdown and then he was back to his usual jovial self, joking with all the nurses and telling them about the T-shirt he wants to make.  I stepped out to get him something to eat and when I stepped off the elevator I immediately recognized two people I have never before met.  I walked right up and gave them hugs.  Mark and LaDena are in a similar battle and we find ourselves in very similar situations.  It was so great to finally meet them!  They came with me down to Infusion to meet Trent and it was like we were all old friends.  Josh and Keisa also came to see how Trent was doing and it was really nice to have some family support there.  It was wonderful to have them around and help take our minds away from the ugly reality we now face, yet again.

After Trent's infusion was finished we ended up going with Mark and LaDena to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" and had a blast!  It was exactly what we needed and they helped our day end well.  I don't for one minute believe that was a coincidence.  I am finding that not many things are.