Jerad Bitner

Saturday morning the Dr came to see us with a message of hope. The CT scan showed that Jenney’s chest, abdomen, liver, bones, and lungs look good. They did find some subcutaneous nodules on her left shoulder and flank under the skin, above the muscle, which would be easy to biopsy with some local anesthesia to check and be sure. If these were benign, they saw no reason why we would need to do any chemical treatment, which also means she should be able to carry the baby to full term.

Friday morning I awoke to the oncologist coming into the room, turning on the lights. I scrambled for my phone to take notes as he started talking.

This was a hard, terrible day.

They woke us at 5am to start prepping for the post-op MRI. There was some confusion as to where to go as there are two different MRI’s in this hospital and they had to find someone who knew how to get to the outpatient MRI station, which does a lower resolution (non-contrast) MRI, deemed slightly safer for a baby. The OB has since explained there is a lot that is very safe for a baby, we just try not to do them needlessly, and everyone at the hospital gets on-edge when there’s a pregnancy involved.

After a quick cup of coffee and a hug from Jim, I drove to the hospital to be with Jenney before the surgery. When I got to the room, curled up in the hospital bed with her and we held each other and cried. At 6am they came in to prep for surgery, then wheeled her down to the pre-surgery area. I remember an area where there were lots of lights and alcoves. In one of the alcoves they placed us and put a monitor on the baby to get a read on his heartbeat. The quick pulse was comforting to our ears. Jenney mentioned double vision, and they noted it during another eval.