A Rock Star is born within 48 hours!
This is a story about our world wind experience between 5pm Wednesday April 13th and 5 pm Friday April 15th…………… I get off the plane in Las Vegas, so relieved to see Mike. It was the first time we saw each other since we got the news that yes indeed, Mike does have cancer. We felt slammed at every turn…..his first PSA test is high, his second PSA level doubles, his third PSA level is even higher and now the biopsy indicates large volume and highly aggressive cancer. Mike and I were both scared and unsure of what lay ahead.
Ever since the biopsy report came back positive, Mike’s climbing buddy Chris (MD/PhD cancer researcher at OHSU) insisted that Mike leave Red Rocks and get his butt up to OHSU to see Dr. Tomasz Beer and the Multidisciplinary Clinic that specializes in prostate cancer. Chris put Mike in touch with the clinic coordinator. As of Wednesday night Mike was still playing phone tag with the coordinator and nothing was arranged. Much later on Wednesday night, while Mike couldn’t sleep, he emailed our friends from Portland, Susan and Manfred. They are both scientist in the medical field and Manfred had prostate cancer 6 years earlier while working at Harvard. When Manfred moved back to Portland, his doctor told him if he ever had a recurrence see Dr. Tomasz Beer at OHSU. Two recommendations for the same doctor, things were beginning to align.
Early Thursday morning Mike and I drove to Henderson, Nevada for the CT and bone scans. Since the two procedures take all day, the front desk folks and the technicians got to know us and thoroughly enjoyed Mike’s corny jokes (especially when he asked if we could leave a tip, since we are in Vegas).
While Mike is getting the imaging, before we really knew the extent of the cancer, Dr. Beer starts getting bombarded with emails….first from Susan’s good friend Dennis who is head of Neurology at OHSU, then from Manfred, then from Susan. At the same time Chris is emailing the clinic coordinator.
After the imaging was complete Mike’s schmoozing and my role of the concerned wife paid off. Normally the radiologist reads the imaging and sends the reports to your doctor for them to explain the results. However, the bone scan technician saw the urgency and made sure we got copies of the reports before we left. With reports in hand we quickly saw more bad news….the cancer had left the prostate and was now in the liver, some lymph nodes and his pubic bone. We immediately took photos of the reports and email them to Chris and the OHSU clinic coordinator.
That night we were miserable, frazzled and exhausted. Trying to make a plan, we realized leaving Las Vegas right away will get us home Saturday. No sense in doing that, we might as well get home on Sunday and hope to get an appointment at OHSU on Monday or Tuesday. So Mike and Bob decide to climb the next day (Friday). Why not, it is a climbing trip after all and the thought of climbing has Mike, for the moment, feeling a little less miserable. We go to bed early only to wake up to an email the OHSU clinic coordinator had sent out at 10:30pm on Thursday. After reading the radiologist report she saw the urgency and changed our plans! Her email said something like this:
Sorry to disturb you while on vacation, but the doctors will all be out of town next week for a conference. Is there any way you can be here Friday at 3pm to meet with Dr. Beer?
We couldn’t believe it! By 8:30 am Bob was driving us to the Las Vegas airport; we had tickets for a direct flight to Portland. We arrived PDX and got a ride from Susan’s brother Chris (Mike’s good friend from the Seattle area, who just happened to be in Portland that day visiting his Mom!) and he takes us directly to OHSU. Something is going right, our friends are even available to shuttle us to and from airports! After big hugs with the clinic coordinator, some blood tests and an educational video, we are ushered into a room to meet with Dr. Beer. He walks in, shakes our hands and immediately says to Mike: “Who are you? Are you some kind of rock star or something?” He was quite impressed by the effort of so many people in high places trying to get Mike an appointment.
On Wednesday April 13th we were uncertain and directionless, just 48 hours later on Friday April 15th we had an incredible medical team, Mike received his first treatment, we had a solid plan and my climbing guy became a rock star! I love that guy!
-Laurie 