- Name: Ryan
- Location: Athens, Ga, United States
Our son Ryan was diagnosed with stage 4 Neuroblastoma in 2004. In 2007, my wife Missy was diagnosed with stage 2 triple negative breast cancer. On July 8th, 2009, Missy lost her battle to this horrible disease. 2 days later, on July 10th, Ryan also lost his. Together forever, they both watch over our family now from the heavens above.
Below is our families journey through Ryan's treatments, along with the joy and laughter we tried to instill into our daily lives. Those days helped us all cope with the pain and suffering that comes with cancer and it's deadly treatments. Both Missy and Ryan endured high doses of chemo, radiation and surgeries. Over 150 nights spent in the hospital and many, many more days. More transfusions than I could count. Yet both Missy and Ryan took on each day with a positive attitude and warm smile for all their friends. We miss them terribly. They will always be a shining light in our lives.
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
DMV?????
It looked like it was going to be a great morning. Up at 3:30 and out the door by 4:40am. Missy's friend Karen came down with us to Emory for a 6am pre-op, surgery at 7:30, 12:30 post-op and hit the room at 2:30.....HaHaHaHa... oh, the drive down to Emory was great, but the rest of the plan quickly fell apart. Missy had been moved from 1st round at 6, to 2nd round at 9:30. It gave her a little more time to ponder what was going to happen to her while under the knife. Emory has a cool electronic board in the waiting room that allows you to track a patients progress while you sit and wait. Yellow for pre-op, green for the in-op and purple for post-op recovery. Missy's changed from yellow to green at 10:40. She had said the Dr's would take an hour to an hour and a half each. So quick calculations tells us 2:40 on the outside. Dr. Wood came out to the waiting room at 12:30 and said removal went very well and he also removed several enlarged lymph nodes for pathology, (we will get those results in a week). We watch the hours tick away and at 4pm her number went purple, getting close! The plastic surgeon called an hour later and said his portion of the surgery went very well also and she should be out of post-op around 5:30 and transfer her to the 8th floor. At 6:30, we asked if we could slip into post-op and check on her as we felt they had held her long enough. None of the nurses in post-op were too happy to have the 2 of us there and made that pretty clear. They assured us they were processing her and to head back out to the waiting room. When 7:15 rolled around I asked the clerk in the waiting room to find out what the hold up was, she said they were waiting on a room and that we could move all our stuff up to the 8th floor waiting room to wait there, (nice change of scenery. I directly checked in with the nurses station and they said that 822 would be ready shortly. We moved Missy's stuff into the room at 8 and turned on Idol. We called to post-op 2 more times and again, they were processing her. By 8:45, we went back down to post-op and this time they did not want to let us in and we could see Missy waving at us. I cruised on in anyway. The nurse said she was still working on the paper work and she would be up in 20 minutes. Finally by 9:45, almost 6 hours later, she made it through post-op and into her room. We have been completely spoiled by Ryan's nurses and the administration at Egleston and Scottish Rite but I feel all patients and families deserve the same treatment no matter what hospital you are at. I certainly expected more from Emory. So it is the morning now. Karen made it home safely through the snow at midnight and I was back in the room by 1am. Missy rests comfortably while the morphine and Percocet are working and she's sleeping. She is supposed to get up shortly to walk a little and have something small to eat. I can't believe it but they say she might go home tonight, possibly in the morning. Thanks for all your calls and emails. I have shared your sentiments with her although she was still pretty fuzzy!. She should be able to talk on Friday. Many thanks again, Love Les, Missy, Heidi, Will and SuperRyan
# posted by Ryan @ 1/17/2008 10:23:00 AM
