Eric

My buddy Eric called last night. Sure made me feel a lot better to be able to talk about this cancer thing with someone besides my wife. It's funny, I try so hard to be supportive with Leslie and reassure her that everything will be fine and yet I feel incredible stress when we're not talking about it. Talking with Eric (Thanks Bubba!) let me escape that pressure for a while and laugh about it. He offered to drive up with a hundred friends and said that everyone would shave their heads as a show of support for Leslie. That was awesome! It's incredibly comforting to know that people care and can show support like that.

Leslie has spent much of the morning reading the stacks of literature we received at the Oncologists office yesterday. We're trying to wrap our collective brains around all of this and get a full grasp. We go back to visit the Doctor that did the surgery on Tuesday to set up another surgery, remove a lymph node under her left arm to check for cancer there and insert the tube for the chemotherapy. Joy, joy! The Oncologist told us yesterday that she has a T-2 cancer at this point. The second surgery and lymph node biopsy will determine if it is a T-3 cancer. We're still getting used to the terminology involved and trying to pay attention to the Doctors when they tell us things.

The fact that two people that went to college can become so incredibly dense when talking to a Doctor is staggering. I guess this shows how powerful this disease is. Once you hear the word cancer your brain just shuts down and your head bobs up and down in an affirmative motion. It makes people think you're listening when all you're really doing inside your head is..."CANCER?????????????.............CANCER??????????????....... What do you mean CANCER????????. I'm healthy, I'm not sick , I feel fine, I can't have Cancer!"

Here's what we know so far. We need to have the surgery to determine how advanced the cancer is. We (and by We, I mean...Leslie, with me standing in a corner somewhere..) need to have the chemo port inserted and get ready for the joys of chemotherapy. We have also found that when one Doctor says that "This type of cancer is exactly what people have when you talk about breast cancer. It's not aggressive and you're not going to die from this. You might die when you're 90 but you won't die from this" that what they can really mean is "This cancer is aggressive, you need surgery, chemo and some luck." No wonder it's so hard to listen to the Docs, even they don't know what they're saying.

We're keeping our heads up and searching for positives. More to come......