Thursday, November 1st

It felt good to sleep in my own bed again after having spent the week in barely adequate accommodations next to Eli’s hospital bed. We were home, but didn’t know for how long, since treatment would begin after the diagnosis of the specific type of cancer was made.

The schedule for the day was busy. I had previously set up appointments for all the kids the following week for their semiannual dental checkups. After consulting with the doctors and dentist, I took Eli in for a checkup on this day instead.

Following the dentist, Eli had an MRI for further diagnostic purposes (he didn’t have to fast, yay!). Early evening, someone from home health came to set up services. While meeting with the home health person, I got a phone call from the doctor. He had received final results from the lab and the radiology report from the afternoon MRI.

The official diagnosis was alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma. We would later be told it was stage 3 / intermediate risk, although further imaging and discussion would change that designation. For the time being, though, I was relieved to finally know what we were facing.

Thursday evening, Adam previously had been scheduled to meet with the ward’s elders quorum president (one of the religious leaders in our local congregation), but that routine interview was canceled and replaced by a meeting with the elders quorum president and the stake president (a religious leader of a group of local congregations), who was wanting to meet families within the stake. It was a pleasant visit and part of what began ongoing support from our ward and stake as we travel this journey of dealing with cancer, and all that that entails.

Treatment and training began the next day.