Shock wave #2

At OU Medical for the surgery, sitting there in the dark watching him rest. Outside the window was the beautiful view of our capital building, looking serene, and all I was feeling was the opposite. The next morning we would be doing so many tests to look into why he had started feeling so bad all over like he had never felt before this time. More CT scans, biopsy to the lymph nodes in his pelvis they had seen on the scans. Waiting with the kids in his room for word on how it was going, visiting with friends, amazing work family and his family. His sister and niece are a huge part of the process. They are very close to us. For privacy purposes, his sister is T and his niece is J.

Lloyd handled the surgery well, Dr Cookson came in and told us that yes he had tumors from his clavicle all the way through his pelvis! The cancer that was contained and not muscle invasive had SPREAD!!

The results came back as Stage 4 Aggressive High Risk. Next wave of many appointments, port surgery, oncologist visit, more scans. The date forever engraved in my mind-8/8/16. The talks about when and how to tell the kids that everything had changed.

Here we were in a new town, new school, no family or friends. School was starting in a few days and I was feeling the pressure of when and how to tell them. So the day before school started we sat them down for the HARDEST talk we had ever had to have. How do you start?? Lloyd kept looking to me to say something….So I did, I told them I would make a promise right then and there that I would Always tell them the truth. Truth was his cancer had spread, was stage 4 and could be Terminal. Kenna was 15, Trevor was 13.

Until Next Time,

Val