Crazy week Part 2

We started school on Wednesday morning! We have a senior and a sophomore in our 'school' this year!

Life right now is a lot of running here and there all over town for appointments. In this month we've been to 2 different hospitals and 3 different cancer centers and several oncology appointments. Our phone always has messages from this office or that office and then there is all the calling I do, to get this doctor's office to send records to that doctor's office. There's tons of paperwork and payments to attend to. Not to mention all the cancer research you end up doing just to educate yourself... And all of your friends give you book suggestions and remedies they have heard about. (which is sweet)
But it's A LOT.
I feel like I have a new part time job, but instead of pay checks, I get bills! ; )
 ~And speaking of jobs, I applied for a part time one to help us through this time.

All that to say that it was a mad dash scramble to get things in order to start school and thankfully, it is all coming together. Last week, when I was working on everything for the new school year, I was happy to see that we didn't have any appointments for 4 whole days. Whoo-hoo!
And then, one of Zac's wisdom teeth became infected. And I had plenty more appointments...
Honestly, it was kind of nice to be in less dismal seeming waiting rooms than we are usually in and with younger people. We are usually in a waiting room with people who are 20 to 30 years older than my hubby. (and that in and of itself is sometimes kind of sad)
Anyway, the oral surgeon said all 4 wisdom teeth were impacted and had to come out ASAP. And it was THE.WORST.TIMING.EVER. Because we have plenty of medical bills as it is! When the surgeon said "You don't seem happy about this." I explained what we are going through and then he asked me a million questions about the cancer. (maybe to see if I was just making this up for a discount or something? I don't know) I think he did give us a bit of a discount. Thankfully.

So, Thursday was the big day for Z!
 He had already taken off work for four days to take his annual road trip to NC with his best friend. Surgery replaced camping. Poor guy! All went well, if you don't count him spitting out blood all over the dashboard of our car! He's been a champ. Bless him and his cute swollen cheeks.

That evening we had a (pricey) conference call with two doctors. This was for our second - second opinion. Or are there third opinions? I don't know. Anyway, both of these doctors have integrative cancer treatment centers on opposite ends of the country. One is a well known cancer research scientist and both use more natural means for treating cancer. To our surprise, he actually agreed with the other surgeons we've seen so far and believes that we need to treat this the traditional way with chemo/radiation and then surgery to remove all or part of the esophagus. He said if he was in Hubby's shoes, that is what he would do and that this is his best chance of survival. That was heavy. I had been praying for a way for him to keep his esophagus... But in the big scope of things, what does it matter?
After the call and dinner, Hubby took the kids to choir/ band because Zac didn't think Dad would be quite as good at nursing him as mom. ; )

I declared Friday to be a 'cancer-free day', meaning I wasn't going to do anything related to cancer. I wanted to just do normal things like school and grocery shopping. But it didn't turn out that way...
Which is fine, because we now know the path we have to take.
It is nice to be done wondering and done getting opinions, and tests and labs, for goodness sake.
We'll just go for it and believe God!
He's in control.

~Becky