brunobaby

For the past three years, I feel like I've spent half my life waiting for the phone to ring with the results of a medical test--Jim's, mine, the cats.

When Jim went up to Calvary, which is "not a hospice, per se," there was sadness and disappointment, but also "freedom from Afraid of My Phone Days," At least as far as Jim was concerned. The results were in.

But now there's a little ray of hope. We met on Tuesday morning at the rehab with the attending physician, the social worker, the nurse practitioner, and an assortment of other professionals on Jim's team. They told us that their aim was to get Jim in good enough shape to go home.

"But if you don't treat the underlying cause, which is the brain tumors," I replied, "then nothing you do here for him is going to last very long and he'll be back in the hospital."

I explained how the doctor at Sloan-Kettering had said that long-story-short, Jim was too sick to be poisoned, so they couldn't give him chemo for the brain tumors anymore, which is why they'd sent him to Calvary. But then Calvary had sent him down to rehab, because he was doing too well. And after a week at the rehab, he was making some progress with walking and with weight gain.

So the attending physician at the rehab is going to contact the doctor at Sloan-Kettering and find out if this changes Jim's status as far as being able to be treated. I called the attending physician this afternoon to find out if he had made any progress yet, because a bevy of relatives had begun to call me with the same question about five minutes after I'd told them that there was a chance Jim could begin treatment again.

His office took a message and said he would call me back. So now, there's a little ray of hope. And now, I'm afraid that my phone is going to ring with news that will snatch that hope away.