First off I am very sorry for the families of the two truck drivers that were unfortunately killed this morning. It has made for a really crazy, crazy day for a lot of people. And reinforces that one action no matter how big or small sets off tons of chain reactions.
We hauled out of here at 7:07am to head down to CHKD. I had to drop Chris off at her great aunt’s before hitting I-64.
Before the Camp Peary exit there were signs flashing big trouble ahead. I decided to get off at Camp Peary, but then at Ft Eustis I thought getting back on I-64 would be a good idea. Wrong. It took us about 45 minutes to travel what would normally take 5 minutes. To top things off as we were sitting in traffic, Jesse and I suddenly felt ourselves jolt forward. The car behind me luckily only hit my hitch (yeah for the hitch). No damage for me, but he had a square in his license tag. And luckily we weren’t hurt because Jesse yelped when we were hit. And fortunately, I had left space between me and the car in front.
At 8:30am, I called Day Surgery to see what we needed to do because it was obvious we weren’t going to make it by 9:00am for check-in. By 9:15, I was still 1 mile from the Jefferson exit, with 4 lanes of traffic merging down to 1 to get off the interstate. I opted to head west on 143, and cut down through Kiln Creek, out to 17, and then back onto I-64.
I feel really bad now that I know what happened that I was so flustered this morning. I have severe time issues. I can’t handle being late…
We arrived at CHKD by 10:51am, and of course there was a line longer than my house to get cleared with security. Thankfully, one of the security officers realized who I was, and let me zip on through.
The anesthesiologists were very accommodating, and rearranged their schedules so that Jesse could get her radiation. We went over to Norfolk General at about 11:30am.
When we arrived, the technician asked us to go into the CT Scan room. Our radiation oncologist ordered the CT Scan so he could see if her tumor shrunk any. If it has, they will reduce the numbers of treatments to keep from frying her kidneys. (That is exactly how it was put to me)
The doctor sedated Jesse, and I was allowed to stay in the room to watch the CT Scan process her pictures. I really wish I knew what I was looking at…. to me there are parts that looked like this enormous grey blob as we were shown when she was first diagnosed. But it looked like after the initial scanning, the computer seemed to go back and clean up the appearance, but I could be totally wrong since I don’t have any radiology knowledge.
Afterwards we transferred her to the stretcher and into the radiation room. She did wiggle a little, and the doctor gave her some more sedation drugs. This didn’t hold her too long, because she was stirring as we left the radiation room.
While we were waiting, I lost it a little. Today has been overwhelming in a way… traffic, time issues, getting hit, and then seeing the CT Scan and her little insides. I really wanted to see the scan. It’s hard to think that thing is in there and can’t really come out. The technician complemented me on how good she was, and all I could think was I hope God lets me keep her.
Jesse woke up from sedation pretty quickly, and by 1:00pm we were in the truck and on the road.
We stopped for some lunch and gas, which Jesse proceeded to throw up lunch causing an emergency stop on an exit ramp to clean her up. Then we were on our way, and safely home by 3pm.