Mayo: Day 2

Yesterday was a long, tiring but very fruitful day.  We are getting closer to finding out what this is...(deep breath........) it doesn't look very pretty, but we will find out for sure on Tuesday after the Bone Marrow biopsy on Monday.

We started out at 7:45 to have a quick breakfast at the Mayo Cafeteria before we met with Dr. Morie A. Gertz (Chair, Internal Medicine Mayo Clinic; Hematology & Oncology Specialist).  The meeting with Dr. Gertz went very well and he said the Bone Marrow biopsy will positively identify what it is that we're dealing with and then we can look forward to treatment very soon. He asked us to stay on in Rochester until Friday next week, to be sure and included more blood tests (so Bud wasn't allowed to eat until those were done)  and an Infusion to help ease Bud's joint pains.

After meeting with Dr. Gertz, we went to St. Mary's as our Cardio MRI was moved up.  We finished there around 2pm and went back to Mayo for the blood tests.  We then crossed the street (but used the underground walkways which was 5x longer because it started to snow) to Jimmy John's for a late lunch.  By then it was 3:30pm and the Infusion wasn't until 5:30 so we decided to head back to the hotel for a quick nap before that.

We showed up at Desk 8G of the Eisenberg Bldg a little past 5:30 and learned that the infusion would take about 2+ hours. Good thing we were allowed to accompany Bud in the room as it was done -- Mom and Dad went back to Jimmy John's for a quick dinner during that time. We got back to the hotel around 9pm, all of us exhausted from the long day.

As I write this, Bud is feeling the after-effects of the infusion and has had a restless night, feeling very nauseated. But he says that his hips and joints don't seem to hurt as much...

Mom and Dad are checking out today and heading home to Plymouth for the weekend while Bud and I transfer to Residence Inn by Marriott until Friday next week.  Mom and Dad will return on Monday morning to accompany us for the next round of tests.

Bud's best friend from grade school, John, is driving down from Minneapolis to have breakfast with him this morning. Then Mike is flying in from Chicago by noon to spend the rest of the day with us before he leaves again tomorrow.

Next week, on Monday morning we are scheduled to meet with Dr. Witt for the cardio results and then do the Bone Marrow biopsy in the afternoon. Tuesday morning we will meet with Dr. Gertz hopefully with the results of the biopsy.

Bud is getting weaker every day and tries very hard not to show it when his parents are around.  Add to that the fact that we still haven't gotten over our jetlag -- we're both still waking up at 1am, so really by 3pm he just wants to crawl into bed already.  He eats dinner just to humor us, but he barely tastes the food as whatever he has has affected his taste buds and everything tastes like cardboard.  I'm so glad we left while he could still make the long trip.

That's it for now, we will try to get as much rest as we can this week-end as we prepare for another grueling week of tests and hopefully get some treatment started. 

Ria