A Little Wow for the Day

So in my last post, I was pretty confident my choices were narrowed down to Emory or John Hopkins. I had cancelled the one with an Atlanta doctor, as my research had led me to wanting a surgical oncologist. That same evening, about 4 hours after my post, I get a phone call from the very doctor I cancelled with. And let me remind you, I've never spoken to or met this doctor in my life. I just simply cancelled my appointment. Not only did he take the next 15 minutes to talk to me, but then proceeded to give me his cell number so I could text him in case I needed anything. Really? I got off the phone and told Skip. I was floored. Why did it matter to him? Why did he feel the need to call me? I called my dad, spoke to a friend and decided to text him. "Thank you so much for talking to me tonight. I have been praying hard about this decision. I'd love to make an appointment to talk more." The following morning a nurse from his office calls and said he had told her that he wanted to see me and that the only time he had was 6:30AM Thursday. Wow. The only good thing about that is no traffic! Sure! Why not?

Now it's Wednesday. I went to meet with Dr. Carlson at Emory. He was very thorough. I love Emory and I think extremely high of the hospital and what they do. I thought Dr. C was professional and gave me great insight as to how the surgery would work. Oh, and he does both. One of the very few doctors that can. He was a little "in my space" as I would call it, as at one point I think he was about 6 inches from my nose and said, "you're tall." In my head, all I could think is 'you have very blue eyes and you're too close' but I just said "well, you're tall too." He was an older white-haired man and just had a sweet look about him. I told Skip while we waited for him to come back that I didn't think we'd need to go to John Hopkins unless tomorrow was a total fail. So I left there and thought, wow, that went really well! I feel good.

After a few nightmares about me and Alana in Ellijay, I woke up at the fabulous time of 4:30AM! See if you read farther back, God had been preparing me all along for this early wake-up. We drove separately and we arrived right on time. The door was locked, so as I would any doctor of mine, I texted the doctor to let him know I was there. Yes, that was funny-sarcasm... it's very bizarre. He greeted us with a great big smile and walked us back. No check-in, no nurses. The building was quiet and we were the only ones there.

He started through his checklist to make sure he covered everything, and wow, did he cover everything. There was so much information that I think my mouth may have just hung open a while - but it was so good. I love good info, especially medical info. He proceeded to explain about the sentinal node biopsy they would perform during surgery and why he felt it was super important for us to do it bilaterally. That was the second WOW for me as two doctors had said they would do right side only. (The first was one number playing into how aggressive the tumor was and he was the first to not blow it off) The biggest reason I wowed was that the night before I laid in bed and for a second I thought, "but why wouldn't you do both sides if you weren't sure there was cancer in the left breast too?"

He had a more thorough exam than the other two doctors combined. He taught us all about what we saw on the ultrasound machine and where it lie exactly under the skin. He first put it up and all I could think about was my girls and the first time we saw them on the screen, so me being me I go, "awwwww, look honey, it's our baby...." I'm not sure if Skip was amused but it sure made me laugh. He explained how very important it would be for WHOever did the surgery that they take everything around it because of it's close proximity to the skin.

At one point I looked up at the wall and there was a poster his children had made that had a scripture at the top and a picture they had taken down a dirt road with a telephone pole at the end. It was so pretty. I knew God had led me down this road... I was in the right place. Before we left he texted the plastic surgeon all my information (who was in surgery mind you) and I had an appointment scheduled FOR TODAY within 2 hours. I left there processing a whole morning of wows.

In the end, what I thought I knew two days ago God completely disagreed with a turned around in a matter of 48 hours. To the point that John Hopkins is 99% out of the picture and a doctor I didn't even have an appointment with may very well be it. I won't say definitely until I meet with the plastic surgeon, but I'm not sure how that could go badly at this point...

I have to say thank you to everyone who has called, stopped me in the hall, texted, emailed, facebook, smiley-waved, visited and overall just been there. It already is, and is going to be an amazing journey because of you <3