Three Blind People and An Elephant

Do you know the story of the three blind people and the elephant? One is touching the elephant's legs and thinks the elephant must look like a tree with a strong trunk. Another is touching the elephant's trunk and thinks the elephant must be long and slender like a snake. The third is touching the elephant's tail and thinks the elephant must be thin and hairy. Such radical differences, and all the same animal.

Well, little elephant Aspen had an endoscopic ultrasound by the doctor who believes there is nothing there today, and sure enough, she found nothing there...no tumor at all! Her pancreas is enlarged and lumpy she says, she thinks it's a form of Cystic Fibrosis or an autoimmune disease and drew blood to test for those.

Doctor number two says cancer. And the doctor who is the surgeon of course wants to remove what he thinks is a benign tumor. And I am beginning to think Aspen doesn't have a pancreas at all, there is a crystal ball in there and people look in and see what they want to see!! It will be two months of guessing as of May 5th!

So, the blood work won't be back for two weeks on this one, we don't know if we will go ahead with surgery or not at this point...but how do you explain the tumor marker on her last blood work if there is nothing there?!! I'm good with nothing, really good with nothing...but we need to redo some blood work to be sure at least. It would be better to think it's something and operate and have it be nothing, than to think it's nothing and have it grow into something horrible because we thought it was nothing. Are you as confused as I am yet?

We need to go ahead and give blood this week just in case we go ahead with surgery. If she doesn't have the surgery we might need it anyway (I had to sign a release for her to get blood today in case they ruptured her stomach or intestines), or we just bless some other folks with blood, which is good too.

The female doctor who did her test today didn't do a biopsy because you can only needle biopsy a tumor, not the actual pancreas itself. So if we want a biopsy of the pancreas it has to be a surgical procedure where they take a slice of cells...unless there really is a tumor and we need a needle biopsy.

So now you know I am freaking out...Aunt Hillary says this is more my trial than Aspen's, she could be right, Aspen is a trooper. She did great getting her IV and blood draws today, maybe it was because the Disney Channel was playing in her room and she was in the Kim Possible zone. Either way, it was good. She chatted with the anesthesiologists and nurses and did really well with the whole thing. Afterward, she woke up, drank a bunch of apple juice, got dressed and walked right out...they wanted to wheel her to the door in a wheel chair, but she was already walking around. So the nurse walked us to the door and we went to Starbucks with a playground (better invention than sliced bread for sure) and rode the tram down the hill with the cousins, Rebecca & Elizabeth!!