The Ante is Raised

The MRI scheduled for Friday was a full spinal scan, both normal and high-contrast scans, and takes about three hours. Since it requires an anesthesiologist, scheduling is complicated. They finally settled on early morning, requiring check in at 6AM. After check-in, Henry was sedated; the initial sedation to relax him did the job in spades. He got very drowsy, but still talkative and thoughtful. He suddenly noticed the lump on his throat and asked what it was.

"That's your Adam's Apple," he was told.

"Why Adam?" he wanted to know. Was it just some guy named Adam who happened to have an apple? We asked him back, do you remember Adam from the Bible? He looked at us with dreamy eyes.

"I remember Jesus."

As he entered the scanner, Henry was definitely feeling no pain.

"I want a prescription for this sedation," he declared.

"Yeah, we all do," Dad said dryly.

During what was among the longest three hours we ever spent, Mama & Dad tried to confirm if we were to see Dr. T that afternoon. He had called Mama the day before to say he had spoken to Dr. S in Memphis about Henry's case and was sending him the MRI. Dr. T was becoming more convinced that another surgery was really the best option, and expanding the surgical team an appropriate move at this point. But due to some emergency surgeries, Dr. T's schedule had gotten all fouled up, and it looked like we wouldn't talk to him again until Monday.

We stopped for lunch on the way home. When Dad saw the "restricted" ID on an incoming call, he rushed out of the noisy restaurant to take the call, only to have a Mack truck pull up next to him making it challenging to hear Dr. T on the phone say that the spinal MRI looked clean (subject, of course, to the radiologist's opinion), and that Dr. S had seen the cranial MRIs. Planned radiology treatments have been postponed. We set an appointment for 3:30 PM Monday, Jan 8 to discuss the recommendations, risks, and possible scheduling of a trip to Memphis.