January 2013 - The Diagnosis

On January 18, 2013, Jimmy went to an orthopaedic doctor.  He gave the same diagnosis...hematoma due to a hamstring tear.  He wanted Jimmy to get an MRI and start physical therapy.

Scheduling the physical therapy was easy...one phone call for an appointment on January 21.

The MRI was a different story.  I called the place the doctor recommended and they wanted $800 at the time of the MRI since our insurance (which had just gone into effect) deductible had not yet been met. I called the hospital, since I knew they would bill us for the service, and got an MRI appointment on January 22.  Jimmy showed up 10 minutes late for his 8 am appointment and they wouldn't see him even though they didn't have another appointment following him...central scheduling at the hospital confirmed this.  So, they told him to come back that afternoon at 2:45 p.m..  He did.  However, when he got there and started to fill out the paperwork, there was a problem.  Since he had had a piece of metal lodged in his eye many years ago, they wouldn't do the MRI until he got an x-ray of his skull, specifically, his eye socket.  Just something else to have to worry about now.  The x-ray was clear and showed no sign of residual metal shards.  The MRI was then rescheduled for January 29.

Frustrated.

The diagnosis with never wanted to hear...

In the early morning of January 25, Jimmy developed a fever that went to 101 and 102 all the while dealing with severe pain in his leg.  He would take Advil for the fever...it would work and the fever would break but when the Advil wore off, the fever would come right back.  This went on for two full days and nights.  On the third day, January 27, our son, Logan, had a karate tournament and a swim meet, so we were in for a busy day.  However, that morning Jimmy and I both realized that something more seemed to be wrong than just a hamstring tear.  We feared that something had gotten infected, hence the fever.  We decided to go to the karate tournament in the morning and then head over to the hospital.  Jimmy didn't want to disappoint Logan by not going so he endured the pain and the fever that morning.  Logan did great by the way...one gold medal and one silver medal.  He did, however, miss his swim meet.

We went to the hospital after the tournament with Jimmy barely being able to walk...even sitting hurt at this point.  The doctor came in and we explained what had been going on.  He didn't seem too concerned that it was anything other than a hamstring issue but he ordered a CT scan anyway.  I took about an hour for the doctor to get the results of the CT scan.  When he came in, we were very anxious to see how Jimmy's hamstring was doing.  Little did we know that he was about to change our lives forever.

He said..."I think you have a MALIGNANT SARCOMA".  I swear I looked at him like he had 3 heads and asked "you mean like cancer?"  I could not even process what he was saying.  I was as if he was speaking a foreign language that I could not understand.  I looked at Jimmy and he looked at me...we were in shock.

The doctor started talking about a lot of things and I really don't remember a lot of it except that he said he would put us in touch with a local oncologist the next day and they would help us expedite the next step.

We came home in disbelief.  Jimmy is 46 years old.  How could this be happening?  He is healthy.  He works out.  He eats well.  Jimmy immediately got on the internet looking up information on sarcomas.  He found anything and everything he could so try to inform himself on what he was in store for should he actually have cancer.  He was a man obsessed...driven by fear and the need to know.

The next day, January 28, I called the oncologist's office.  They were expecting our call and, instead of coming into their office, they got an appointment in Dr. Hartner's office in Philadelphia for the next day, January 29.  He is affiliated with Pennsylvania Hospital which we were very happy about.

We went to see Dr. Hartner on January 29.  Jimmy was in extreme pain in the office and the nurse gave him a Percocet to help.  She assured him that pain was their specialty and it was something they could help him manage.  The doctor and his nurse, Laetitia, were so informative and calming at the same time.  They scheduled a biopsy for that Friday, February 1 that would tell us for sure if Jimmy did have cancer. They spent a significant amount of time with us going over what we would need to do and what would happen if cancer was indeed the diagnosis.  The doctor seemed 98% sure that it was just by reading the results of the CT scan.  The tumor was about the size of a tennis ball and intertwined in the muscle.  They sent us home with prescriptions for pain medicine....this is serious.

And so it began...