In one of my previous posts, I wrote about my son’s recent diagnosis of a bone tumor.  Our local doctor diagnosed it as a benign type called osteochondroma, but referred him to a bone surgeon for surgery.  We made the four hundred mile drive earlier this week.  After some ups and downs in the office as the doctor viewed the reports, we were ultimately told again that the bone tumor is not the malignant type……Praise God!  The surgery will be scheduled after my son’s college basketball season.  Even though it is benign,  the specialist says that it will continue to grow with time and can cause problems as he gets older, so it needs to come out.

I have a tremendous respect for doctors…but oh my.   Our local doctor sent the x-rays, bone scan, MRI, and CT scan on a compact disc in advance.  When we got in the specialist’s examining room, the physician’s assistant started loading them on their computer for the doctor to view.  He couldn’t get the disc containing the CT scan (most important of all the tests) to load.   Based on the x-rays, the specialist told us that it was benign and nothing to worry about….then he looked at the CT written report and nonchalantly says, “well, if the radiologist measured this correctly, then it is a malignant sarcoma tumor, but I won’t know until I can view the CT scan myself”.  Then he just says, “have them send another CD and schedule a follow up in a few weeks.”  Oh my gosh!  We went from benign to possibly malignant in less than five minutes.  I felt the blood drain from my head and I thought I was going to be sick.  I was shocked with the news, but sickened by the thought that we would have to get back in the car and drive back home with our son’s future hanging in the balance while waiting for this shiny round disc to be re-sent and analyzed on this busy doctor’s time frame.

I’m kind of a computer nerd and I had a hard time believing that the hospital would send out a blank or faulty disk.  I’m sure it happens, but I just had a feeling that the films were there.  So, we left the office and walked to our car like three zombies.  My son had his laptop in the car, so we decided to load the CD on the laptop and were able to pull up the CT scan on the screen!  So, we carried the cheap and scuffed HP laptop back up to this world renowned bone specialist’s office and told the physician’s assistant that we had it pulled up on our personal laptop.  He said, “Oh!… come back in and let the doctor take a look”.  So, the doctor comes back in and in about thirty seconds can tell that it is the totally benign tumor that was originally diagnosed.  He tells us not to worry & to schedule an appointment for a surgery consult in late February.

Seriously….if I hadn’t been so relieved and thankful, I might have decided to say something like this:  “Have you ever considered trying to open these CD’s more than ONE time or possibly on one of the OTHER fifty high tech computers you have before you send a family back home 400 miles away after announcing that their 20 year old son might have cancer!!!!” Or, I could have let my hormonal and maternal instincts kick in and simply wrapped the stethoscope around his neck and strangled him.

But, I didn’t…. I just thanked him, thanked my Lord, and left the office with my husband and son feeling very blessed.