The Whole Kit and Kaboodle!

Well ladies and gents I figured this would be the best way to communicate to the masses....Ray aka Skinny Rigger and I feel so honored that we have so many caring family and friends!! So this is where you will check up for the latest as it happens.....I am going to take you back to the very beginning and bring to current as of right now.

A normal Saturday (7-10-10) day....the girls and I had enjoyed the Farmington parade...had a fun day of play with the cousins then off to pick up the shopping list and Ray's diabetes supplies at Wal-mart. We had just left the pharmacy and had 5 or so items in our cart when my phone rang. It was Ray....

Me: "Hello"

Ray: "Where are you?"

Me: "Wal-mart"

Ray: "How long you gonna be?"

......by now I can hear an underlying panic in his voice.....

Me: "I don't know....WHY???"

......I think I kinda went to only half listening now because what I THOUGHT I heard was slightly different from what he really said....so I will just put in the correct info.....

Ray: "I was at work washing the windshield and I felt my leg pop!"

.......immediately my mind thought with all the swelling the skin had ruptured with no more room to go anywhere.....

Me: "Is it bleeding????"

Ray: "I don't know for sure I still have on the pressure stocking...."

Me: ::interrupting:: "Don't take it off till I get home...."

..........I was hoping it had enough pressure to hold things together until I got home....

Me: "Sit down DON'T move....I will be there in minutes!"

Ray: "Ok"

So I was at the store......with the girls and my Dad...I quickly recounted the phone call told the girls to come on grabbed the Rx's (I had already paid for them) and went walking fast toward the door....the girls were a little startled and I looked back and saw Courtney had grabbed the banana out and was running with them....(I did look back hours later and laugh at this...she was just helping and didn't understand that we had no time to pay for them) after that I just told my Dad to take the girls and I would call him (we had drove separately) I rushed to the car...dialed Brek (I was so nervous it took me 3 times to get the right number dialed!!) had her and Mike go over to be with Ray until I got there....I got behind every slow person in the State! I finally made it to the garage...with Ray joking that I was driving like a "speed demon person" and just casually sitting there....boy did I feel a little relief....he had a card of a place he was supposed to go to for work related injuries....so we loaded up with him hobbling but appearing ok and off we went.....At the urgent care facility we were checked in, he did his drug screen test, and then we were put in a room. It was really a small world that night....the doctor on that night is a lady I worked with before when I worked at InstaCare...and the nurse's hubby worked for Flying J too! So they were taking us very personal and the care was to notch! The doctor finally removed the pressure stocking....Ray said that gave him immediate relief...it was still sore but not too bad....so off to the xray room (he walked!) when he got back he was talking about how he would be at work tomorrow yada yada yada....The doctor came back in and said. You fractured your tibia. Ray was astounded! She took us to look at the xray. The break itself wasn't too bad...it was still lined up (we think a minor miracle because he was wearing the compression stockings)...and stacked perfectly on top ...but one look by me on the xray I got a sick feeling and before she even said anything...I knew we were headed down a bumpy path! The extra as she put it has an abnormal finding. Then came the tears...I think the Lord had been preparing me for weeks to handle this...and now here it was! We discussed things and told her we had an appointment with the doctor on Tuesday. So she wanted to half cast it and then follow up with them on Tuesday....Ray wanted to clean up his leg before he had something put on it....so they allowed us to go home and get him showered...when we got back the doctor said that she had just left us a message...She thought that it might be wise for us to go to the ER for an MRI that way it would be done for them on Tuesday with results...so they set it in the half cast and sent us on our way....the girls came and saw us before we headed off then went to Papa's for a sleep over.
We checked in to the ER...it looked pretty busy but despite that...it was the FASTEST visit to date! We were only in the room maybe 10 minutes when the doctor came in took the history and then we showed them the xrays from the urgent care....he said this "Oh...ok" "Well I will be back in a bit" well about 6 minutes later he came back and said he went over the xrays with the radiologist and they were direct admitting him upstairs.....Up we go with the impression that he was going to have surgery in the morning to have a rod put in his leg. The ortho doctor that was going to admit us would meet us that morning prior to surgery. Well it was a long night.....nerves...and when the morning came an no doctor yet and no word on surgery...we finally were notified that our ortho had been in surgery with another patient until 2:30a that morning and we would see him late morning early afternoon. When we finally met him....he looked at the xrays and was kinda floored of the "fluffy bone" that was displayed. So he said we would have the surgery in the am and explained the procedure...also that he was gonna contact Dr. Ott and go over this with him....so set for surgery Monday morning.....well later that day the ortho came back and said that he wanted to research it first better so lets some tests and hold off surgery until Tuesday....Monday late morning Dr. Ott stopped by ( I had run home so I missed it...I was so upset!) but he said that he wanted us to meet with a radiation oncologist, and a hematologist. They were either suspecting true bone cancer like leukemia or that his pancreatic cancer had metastasized to the bone. They scheduled a bone scan and then we were waiting again. Then later it changed to no rod surgery if it was indeed cancer because they would resect it and put in a donor bone. so more wait....well they finally got the stuff for the bone scan injected and then took him about 4 hours later....by the time Dr. Ott came for rounds that evening he said preliminary it looked like the tumor is isolated to the leg but he had to wait for it to be read by the radiologist and also wanted a chest and leg CT done. Chest for checking the lungs for metastasise and leg for a better picture....also he said no surgery Tuesday morning....which brings us to today.....We got GOOD news today....it was verified that the tumor/cancer is isolated to the leg! The chest CT was negative!!! So Ray was really lucky...Dr. Ott said he has never seen an isolated case before of it...he would have thought it was all over his body and terminal. He was really encouraged...he also sent in an oncology ortho....Dr. Scott (I love that Ott/Scott thingy!) ;o) we loved him.....so it turns out that we will be waiting....the biopsy was done today.....Ray had conscious sedation but it hurt like no other! Dr. Scott wants to wait for the full report to come back not just the Polaroid version (his analogy!) and with the donor bone they have to "order" it and that takes a day or two.....so we are on hold.....We are scheduled for one more MRI today on the leg to see how much soft tissue is involved in the tumor...and then waiting again....Monday we are scheduled for surgery! Ok...so you are current!

We want to thank ALL of you who have prayed, helped, offered helped, and did whatever else to help us. The Lord is mindful of us and through our and your faith we are experiencing another of life's miracles!

until the next update.....Much love!

Sheri